It’s final push time for initiative petitions! The organizers behind the seven initiated laws and five constitutional amendments approved for circulation by the Secretary of State have 27 days to collect signatures and submit their finalized petitions to Pierre
Mark Remily, campaign coordinator for Farmers Union’s drive to place an independent redistricting commission on the 2016 ballot, offers this call directly to Dakota Free Press readers to help fight gerrymandering:
When I wake to each new day of circulating the petition for an independent redistricting commission, two names inspire me to get more signatures.
One is Doug Sombke, President of the South Dakota Farmers Union and my boss. Doug’s passion and drive for doing the right thing are amazing. I have learned much and gained enthusiasm from listening to Doug.
The other name that inspires me is David Novstrup, my state Senator. he is one of the beneficiaries of gerrymandering, the unfair practice we’re petitioning to do away with. Every signature I collect is another step closer to ending Senator Novstrup’s unfair election advantage and giving voters a better chance of replacing him with a better candidate. David Novstrup represents what the petition drive for independent redistricting is all about: giving every Democrat in every district a fighting chance at the polls in districts that Republicans can’t rig.
Putting independent redistricting on the ballot is not an easy task. We still have a ways to go to reach 27,741 valid signatures, but we still have time.
Collectively we can do this. I ask all of you to pass a petition and get just 10 signatures. (That’s you, your spouse, a couple more family members, a few neighbors on your block, and a couple folks from work… you can do that!) If you get 10 you may be inspired to get 20 or 30 or more. But start with 10. Don’t be afraid to ask any registered voter. Everyone of every political affiliation can see the basic unfairness of gerrymandering and the need to change redistricting.
If you have questions, if you want to sign, or if you want to circulate, e-mail remily@nvc.net, or call or text 605 228 1730
Thank you for your time
Mark Remily [e-mail, 2015.10.12]
Farmers Union is paying me to circulate their petition, but they aren’t paying me to publish Remily’s message. It’s like teaching: the fact that I get paid to do it doesn’t change my belief in the fundamental importance of the work.
Drawing an election map free of legislators’ bias and self-interest won’t oust every bad legislator. Democracy requires more work than that. But taking the power to rig the election map away from legislators will make our elections that much fairer. Grab a petition, get some signatures, and let’s put gerrymandering to a vote!
It is Remily’s position that the district lines defeated him in his 2014 run for the state legislature. What possible redrawing of the lines would turn Remily’s 2014 defeat into a victory?
If District 3 is a safe Republican districts, why did Dennert and Elliot move into District 3 to run?
This is an outstanding opportunity for South Dakotans to bring true representative democracy back to their state. While this change in redistricting won’t by itself bring an end to the ultra corrupt Kock/Republican government burdening our good citizens, it is an important step.
BTW, notice that Novstrup’s comment does not dispute gerrymandering. He’s trying to deflect the issue into a cheap personal shot against Mr. Remily.
Al Novstrup’s reasoning here is best explained in David Brooks’ column on the Republican Incompetence Caucus. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/opinion/the-republicans-incompetence-caucus.html? His son fears ordinary citizens participating in the democratic process.
Excellent read from NYT.
That is an outstanding article. Thank you Dr. Newquist for offering the link and thanks for recommending it Mike.
Anyone up for answering the question:
What possible redrawing of the lines would turn Remily’s 2014 defeat into a victory?
Deb, can you explain why the gerrymandering Republicans turned Republican District 3 into a toss up district by moving hundreds of Republicans out of District 3 and into District 23 that already was very solid Republican?
Deb, a cheap shot to challenge Remily’s concept that “Senator Novstrup’s unfair election advantage”? The fact is District 3 was a toss up district the day it was created but quickly swung Republican as the voters experienced the Democratic President Obama policies.
Remily did not lose because of the district lines but was a victim of the Obama effect. Not Mark’s fault (unless Mark caused President Obama to get elected).
Al, if you could forward me the precinct voter registration numbers that you and your colleagues got to look at when you drew the current lines in 2011, I might be able to offer a data-driven answer to your question.
So if Brown County’s GOP swing is purely Obama effect, should we expect voters to evict the Novstrups from Pierre in 2016, or will we have to wait until 2018?
Trust me if I had drawn the lines I would not have moved hundreds of R voters out of District 3. In precinct 8, there are 576 R, 763 D and 291 I.
The Brown County swing is mostly due to the Obama effect. I am sure there are other influences on the election outcome such as the candidates and the campaigns.
I can’t predict 2016 or 2018 but I do know the Remily’s redistricting plan will turn redistricting over to the Republican party.
Living in District 3, I don’t think anyone is talking about turning a defeat into a victory. We are talking about the strenuous contortions the district has been put through in an obvious and strained effort to stack votes. For ten years the district looked like a bull snake trying to have intercourse with a slinky. Now it looks what remains after a footsore daddy make his way through a field of legos in the dark and sent them flying a after stepping on one. The GOP has held power over the state for so long that it assumes no one can see the evidence of cronies dividing up the voters of the state so that it can inflict the wonders of corruption without interruption or challenge. With each twist and wrench of this bedraggled district into the grotesque configuration it assumes now, it has embraced more Republican-leaning precincts, crowding the Democratic ones into District 1.
The results can be witnessed by what the County Commission has become. It rubs the peoples faces in the exercise of GOP power by appointing a misperforming IT director, by inflicting its lust for power on a once successful county fair, and by using tax money to investigate people who challenge its incompetence and corruption. It is not a friendly place for healthy and functioning brain cells That’s why it is experiencing a shortage of workers. It is the result of a party that serves only itself.
David Newquist, I think we have identified the problem.
On the day that District 3 was drawn the voter registration was 43% R. And you have tossed in the towel and declared that a D can’t win in District 3. I think you need to try optimism, good candidates, good campaigns, good ideas instead of victim hood.
I do not regard myself as a victim. I am a resident who finds himself in a neighborhood in which the powers that be have constructed a garbage dump. It stinks, although many residents are so conditioned that they think it smells like money. That is reflected in their votes.
Novstrup repeats his interesting mental judo assertion that the gerrymandering plan gives Republicans more power. I shouldn’t argue with him; if he wants to make that argument and thus encourage Republicans to sign our petition and vote for the independent redistricting commission, that’s great!
But the notion that a commission where Republicans cannot hold a majority will be more biased toward Republicans than a Legislature where Republicans hold a supermajority is illogical.
Novstrup’s confidence is already shaken. What was definitely the Obama effect in Brown County is now,one post later,mostly the Obama effect.
Mark, Democrats don’t have a fighting chance with 43% R in District 3? In the last two elections District 3 was seen as a battleground by the Ds and the Rs.
Mark, could the outcome of your last election be changed by having different district boundaries?
Mark, please explain how a 7 person board with 5 R members can’t be rigged by the R’s?
Mark, I would guess that the ballot issue was written by an R. Am I correct?
I live in District 19 and this district was created to get rid of Frank Kloucek and it worked.
I don’t know about District 3 but gerrymandering certainly effected who represents me in Pierre
I think Novstrup misses the bigger question. Should any single party be in control of drawing lines that control the election process? Is what Democrats in Maryland do a proper form of democracy? His focus on just who would win shows the problem of letting either party have the opportunity to “rig” the system.
Al, I need to check one detail. You say the Board of Elections has five Republican members. Yet I’m of the impression that three of the seven members—Cindy Brugman, Richard Casey, and Linda Lea Viken—are Democrats. Am I mistaken?
While Al and I hav fun with details, MJL is right about the bigger question.
The confusion is one of the D is appointed by an R. Is that a D or an R then?
Also, does it matter if it is 4-3 or 5-2?
MJL
My point is the new system is no less partisan than the current system.
Rigging elections to tilt Republican has been the cornerstone of GOP control of both chambers in Pierre, and to winning all statewide elections. It allows dim bulbs like the Novstrups and the Greenfields to dominate districts that belong to Brown County — not to the state GOP central committee. It allows Sioux Falls to be dominated by GOP districts when the voter registrations in the city reflect an even balance between the parties. It allowed the James River Valley seats to go from predominantly Democrat to predominantly Republican by gerrymandering more Republicans and isolating Democratic party strongholds. If it weren’t for federal laws prohibiting racial bias, the state GOP would have swallowed seats set aside for fair challenge by tribal members in West River. There are many examples in the last 30 years as Republicans won and held larger portions of the state by rigging redistricting and treating your legislative districts as their personal cheap spoils of victory.
Rigging elections is a Republican value in South Dakota and has given the Republicans the edge and Democrats the boot election after election.
Nuvstrop might argue that Democrats do the same thing in other states, but I don’t live in other states and neither do the voters/taxpayers who are South Dakota residents (not Al’s trailer pals who use South Dakota as a tax haven). My legislative district is not on the auction block to reward political pals. Neither is yours. These are YOUR districts where YOU elect legislators to represent YOU — not the greedy sociopaths on the SDGOP State Central Committee.
Rigging elections is not a South Dakota value to Democrats and independents — and I would assume to most registered Republicans. Mark Remily is heroic in standing up to the blathering tyrants and character assassins in the GOP caucus and in the Pierre power clique. No matter how much Nuvstrop blathers here to discourage integrity in legislative elections, the public will prevail and take back their state government from these self-serving phonies.
96Tears, you are entitled to your own opinions but not own facts.
On the day that District 3 was created it was 43% R. How is that rigged?
How would you draw District 3 more fairly?
Al – You’re making this about just one district. That’s a stupid question. You also fail to report the percentage of independents (the fastest growing segment) and Democrats in District 3. Voter history is also a big part of it because that dictates who wins by showing up at the polls. District 3 was rigged. So was 2. If you observe the shifts in the state’s districts each decade since 1981, you’ll see the systemic rigging of districts to put Democrats into district ghettos (Districts 1 and 15 come to mind) while county lines are over run and counties cut into pieces to remove incumbent Democrats (Senators Dorothy Kellogg, Carol Maicki, Judy Olson and Doris Miner come to mind) by giving their districts the special gerrymandering treatment and targeting them with several hundred more Republicans than before gerrymandering.
District 3 was 43.0 R, 42.2 D and 14.8 I
96Tears, if you re-read the origianl article, it is Remily that makes it all about District 3. I am just pointing out the facts.
I am close to surrendering to your point that D’s should not even try in District 3 as the odds are stacked against them.
Hey pal, that was not my point. But I will concede your point about registrations in District 3. They are fairly even, assuming your percentages are accurate. As to surrendering, Ds should not surrender a single seat in the legislature and allow the far better funded Rs to run over districts that Ds should be winning and holding.
My point is about who owns and should control districts. The districts belong to the public in this representative government. Adjusting districts to accommodate changes in population measured in the U.S. Census should be turned over to a board that respects balance and fairness in redistricting, and ignores the greedy politicians who waste no time rigging the next 10 years of legislative elections. As it has been for the last 30 years, the redistricting process has all the dignity of watching a pack of wild dogs rip up a large steak.
Again, Mark Remily and Doug Sombke are the real heroes to stand up to the political hacks in Pierre and the SDGOP Central Committee and stop the rigging of our legislative districts.
96Tears
Your quote” Rigging elections to tilt Republican has been the cornerstone of GOP control of both chambers in Pierre, and to winning all statewide elections. It allows dim bulbs like the Novstrups and the Greenfields to dominate districts that belong to Brown County”
So you must have some proof of “Rigging elections in District 3”? or was that just loose and unfounded ranting?
Kinda like Remily’s quote ” The other name that inspires me is David Novstrup, my state Senator. he is one of the beneficiaries of gerrymandering,”
Proof or just wild unfounded ranting?
No one has proof around here. Just speculation until the findings are in….if you don’t agree with the findings, speculate some more until the republicans are completely to blame…That’s the name of the game around here. It’s not even worth trying to ask them for proof without them going on a conspiracy tangent.
David Novstrup represents what the petition drive for independent redistricting is all about: giving every Democrat in every district a fighting chance at the polls in districts that Republicans can’t rig.
I see nothing about District 3.
Proof is not what you will get from the corporate media DB, that train has left the station. All you need to do to find what is amiss is look at what reporting we do get. You know, a fatal shooting here and there that always always has a link to political corruption. Guess who is in charge here Daniel? If there were two parties, that would really help to eliminate the guess work on who is responsible. I agree with you though, it is the republicans fault without a shadow of a doubt.
People who get caught in crimes tend to do weird things. If you think that is part of an extensive network of people who knowingly commit crimes and help each other cover them up, I have some tinfoil for you. You guys can keep up with that charade, but it is only going to destroy the democrat party and their future relevance.
Al, I’ll assume you’re not a dope. First, my point is about Republicans rigging all 35 districts to guarantee a grossly disproportionate GOP representation in the Legislature. District 3 is one district in a much larger puzzle where the entire state is cut up in 35 pieces based on recommended equal population representation. The total effect allows easy wins west of U.S. Highway 281 and targeting money and resources to hone in on marginal districts like yours.
After all this time you’ve wasted on behalf of Brown County in the S.D. Legislature, I should not have school you on how redistricting is done when placed in the hands of a majority party. By the way, what the hell do you get done in all these years that actually benefits Aberdeen and your schools other than removing a minimum wage increase for teens that was approved by our state’s voters?
People don’t always get caught up in crimes and do weird things Daniel, they do calculating things. They tend to think about what it is they have done and how they can get away with it, that is why they do it in the first place. I am wondering if you have the market corralled on the tin foil as I have not even heard of that product in decades. Take a look around South Dakota politics Daniel, it is clear that Democrats really do not have any power in the state as your party controls all. I blame you and your party for all of the misdeeds and crooked politics that have happened in the last 30 years or more. You and your party have corrupted this state into the third world status we now find ourselves in, that my good man, is not a charade.
Here is Novstrup’s first post for this article.
It is Remily’s position that the district lines defeated him in his 2014 run for the state legislature. What possible redrawing of the lines would turn Remily’s 2014 defeat into a victory?
If District 3 is a safe Republican districts, why did Dennert and Elliot move into District 3 to run?
Who brought District 3 into this discussion? I don’t see Mark Remily’s name anywhere.
Mike, David Novstrup is from District 3. District 3 is battle ground district. And it would have been easy to Gerrymander thousands of R into District 3. That wasn’t done.
Thus 96Tears quote that “Rigging elections to tilt Republican has been the cornerstone of GOP control of both chambers in Pierre, and to winning all statewide elections. It allows dim bulbs like the Novstrups and the Greenfields to dominate districts” is not fact based.
And Remilies assertion “The other name that inspires me is David Novstrup, my state Senator. he is one of the beneficiaries of gerrymandering, the unfair practice we’re petitioning to do away with” also lacks truth.
Neither Remily or Teats 96 will admit it when they are wrong. Don’t facts and truth matter?
Anybody going to answer the question,who introduced District 3 into this discussion? I gather you had dancing lessons as a child. You danced all around the subject and then try to distract.
I will go really slow this time, Mike. Remily in his e-mail talks about the Novstrups. The Novstrup’s run for office in District 3.
Mike, try real hard to make the connection of Novstrups to District 3.
If this still confuses you, please reread slowly.
Al,
I wouldn’t waste too much of your time on here. Some of these fellas are probably pretty stoned by now and well that’s like trying to reason with a wall.
The point is that any one versed in political strategies looks at the last two redistricting of District 3, they will find geograhical evidence that the people who did it were either former patients at the Redfield mental health center or people with an agenda. Put this together with the fact that those who represent District 3 give tacit approval to the corrupt incidents regarding NBP and EB-5, and one of whom is on the public record as being made nervous about ordinary citizens having a voice in the redistricting process, and you have irrefutable evidence that the district is contorted in grotesque ways to serve purposes which are neither democratic or logical. The petty verbal obfuscations do not answer any
questions that competent political scientists cite time and again as the primary symptoms of gerrymandering for political advantage–which is how a district can end up with such outlandish configurations. District 3 is the creation of the same mentality that can dismiss the fraud that obtained the 100+plus millions from foreign investors and the lesser millions lost by state taxpayers. District 3 in South Dakota makes the political practices in the Third World dynasties of corruption look amateurish. Instead of making specious arguments about the make up of District 3, somebody needs to answer for the things have happened there under their auspices.
Lynn, foul—you know full well the author of this blog smokes no dope.
Cory,
Foul? “Some of these fellas” Did I mention your name or the author of this blog? Come on! :)
Are you running or not? If so what seat? John Thune or David Novstrup’s?
Why couldn’t you run for both seats, Cory?
When Al argues that the Farmers Union proposal creates an even more partisan redistricting process, he appears to implicitly agree with our thesis that partisan control of redistricting is bad. That’s important, because if we can prove that our plan actually reduces that partisan control, he’ll be compelled to vote for the plan.
There is no confusion about how many R’s and D’s are on the panel. There are three Dems and four Republicans. SDCL 12-1-5 tells us who picks those members:
Thus, SDGOP leaders control four picks, but only three of those picks can be Republicans. Thus, if everyone picks purely by party interest (and that’s all Al believes anyone will do), the law still guarantees each party three members, with the tiebreaker up to the voters. (Dang, Dems: we’d better find someone really good to run for SOS in 2018!)
Now suppose the current 4–3 majority-GOP board picks the special independent redistricting commission in 2017. Suppose they try to rig it just the way Al suggested at the Blanchard speech on October 1, picking three Republicans, six Indy/Libertarians, and no Democrats. As I pointed out in my October 1 analysis, that Dem-free IRC would still be bound be the criteria of the IRC amendment to draw boundaries based on population and geography and forbidden from considering voter registration, voting history, or the addresses of specific legislators or potential candidates. Even if the Board of Elections could find nine people willing to play their dastardly game, the IRC could not legally gerrymander for partisan purposes. If gamers do manage to muster a five-person majority willing to play political games, we will see it in their open meetings, can call it out in the thirty-day public-comment period, and challenge partisanly drawn lines in court.
The IRC is also insulated by potential partisan gaming by deeming many hardcore partisan players ineligible. No sitting public or party officer can be on the IRC. Serving on the IRC prevents one from running for or gaining appointment to any public or party office for another three years. To rig the map for your party pals, you have to sit out of office for six years. If as Al says there is really nothing at stake in key districts like his and his son’s bailiwick, then what real partisan would pay the price of six years on the bench just to play with these lines?
The IRC is an improvement over the current system in reducing the partisanship of the redistricting process to what may be the practical minimum… unless we want to consider a completely mathematically generated map, which the IRC could adopt. Al offers us a really interesting discussion of how Legislative election outcomes in Aberdeen in particular may or may not be affected by redistricting (and Al, if you can hook me up with those precinct-by-precinct maps of voter registration you and your colleagues used in the 2011 redistricting process and current such maps, I’d love to do some long-term research!), but he does not offer an argument that shows the current system is preferable to the proposed plan.
Al,I’m gonna go through this one more time. Read and comprehend carefully. Pronounce big words phonetically if it will help you,okay? Remily did not mention Novstruos. Novstrups with an S is plural. He mentioned your brother. No where did the words District 3 appear until your first post. You,yourself brought up District 3. Remily talked of all Districts,but did not sort out District 3 for special mention. Are you with me so far?
I fully understand when wingnuts can’t dazzle the populace with brilliance,you baffle them with bullshit. That is what you politicians do and that is the one thing you pols are good at. Just admit you were wrong. You’ll feel better after you kick some puppies or whatever it is pols do to vent some anger.
Mike who resides in Iowa,
Lets start with the correction that Al Novstrup is David’s father not his brother. You may wish to lay off the Ganja and just forget this thread and focus on others. Good grief!
The Novstrups are earth haters of biblical proportions.
Hey, “Lynn:” curious that you show up moments after PP plops another turd into the water closet. Go over there and commiserate with your other personalities.
Bill Flaming hit out of the park with “Larry’s wearing out his Bic trying to set his hair on fire.”
Funny! :)
Fleming*
Bill ‘Flaming’ is one to talk.
Back to phone calls :)
Auf Wiedersehan
Back to finishing la choza.
hasta la ganja.
Lynn,ain’t it time to head back to Silicone Valley for a brain implant?
As for whether District 3 was gerrymandered,I could give a rat’s ass. I just reminded Novstrup that he is not entitled to his own facts. He won’t even own them.