Some Democrats seem most exercised over the anti-placeholder provision of Senate Bill 69. Our Republican friends seem to think that an integral part of “petition reform” is making sure that candidates (i.e., Democrats) don’t get out of the ballots slots for which they petition without a really good excuse. Democrats rightly complain that this provision further restricts the opportunity to recruit candidates and offer voters a full slate of choices on their November ballots.
The placeholder provision strikes me as the least of our reasons to refer Senate Bill 69 to a public vote. If Section 21 of Senate Bill 69 were standalone legislation, I would have opposed it but would not have considered referring it to a public vote. Had our Republican signed only that provision into law (South Dakota does have the line-item veto), I’d have sighed, turned to my Democratic brothers and sisters, and said, “All right, let’s get our recruitment poop in a group!”
But I will offer this brief response to the placeholder provision:
A candidate’s reasons for running for office are the public’s business. A candidate’s reasons for choosing not to run for office are nobody else’s business.
Now, back to the bigger issues….
manipulation of every potential threat to gop power is the premise of its 2015 strategy.
take anti-unionism as a corollary. right to work is b.s., a confusing name for republicans real mission which is right to fire w/o cause, like right to rock bottom wages, like right to restrict the vote of minorities, middle class, ect., like right to restrict candidates.
unionism is by all study, beneficial for workers. nationlmemo.com, 3.19.15, r. bruno, “union haters”
just to emphasize the tact the sdgop is taking here, as nationally, sen. bernie sanders, maine, said “if we don’t overturn citizen’s united, congress will become paid employees of the billionaire class.”
comments, les, thune, noem, rounds?
initiate this bad bill!!
Any one remember a time when the disloyal opposition party openly defied the Potus as much as wingnuts have done Obama? Any one remember where large segments of the population defied the Potus like wingnuts do Obama?
Mike, I can’t remember a time, but it has gotten progressively worse. As for the wingnuts, there is a class of angry white men out there like Fat Pat and his idiot crew over at the fake political blog who stir up the people who are too lazy to formulate a reasonable thought. Then there is the right wing fake media who do the same on a larger scale, all supported by people with very narrow interests.
Add to that, the apathy displayed by the huge majority of Americans and we have a problem. A long-term problem, at that.
There is less and less a sense of American community today than I have ever seen. And we’ve known the neocon strategy for a long time has been to divide and conquer.
With Republicans running Congress now and so many red states sucking on the government teat, but thumping their chests as being “independent states,” our political system has never been weaker. People better wake up and do something – and soon – or we will all have a huge hole to dig ourselves out of.
This is horrible policy. Frankly, I couldn’t care less the Democrats use placeholders as routinely as they lose elections. Name a single example where a placeholder was replaced by someone who eventually served. Just one. I doubt one exists.
Yet PP pumps every cycle: go figure.
Indeed, Troy—I think I heard a historical musing along those lines at the Capitol. When has a placeholder yielded to a party appointee who went on to win? (I’ve got another research project bubbling; I’ll turn to that matter later and invite others to dig through their memories and history books for examples!)
Weight shaming… Nothing says open, intelligent, progressive dialogue like ‘fat pat’
Thought this new blog wasn’t going to be like this.
Planning, I’m happy (afraid?) to say that the new blog is just like the old blog. It just loads faster. :-)
I do agree that referring to Pat Powers’s physical stature has as little to do with the merits of policy issues as the cheap insults we see in the DWC comment section.
PS: LMAO. PP = hate.
Fight fire with fire. It isn’t the blog it is the blogger. One encourages goofy stuff and the other takes the high road and doesn’t engage in such shenanigans. I hope I don’t have to tell you which blogger is which.