This afternoon, South Dakotans for Ethics Reform, led by Democrat Rick Weiland and Republican Don Frankenfeld, handed Shantel Krebs a petition with 25,216 signatures to place the Anti-Corruption Act on the 2016 ballot. (As an initiated law, it requires 13,871 valid signatures to make the ballot.)
Anti-Corruption? On the ballot following the Jason Gant debacle, the EB-5 re-eruption, and the GEAR UP uproar? Can you say, South Dakota Republicans’ worst nightmare?
The Anti-Corruption Act fights the corruption that has blossomed like algae under one-party rule in many ways (70 sections worth of ways! It’s big!), but the three big planks are the creation of a statewide ethics commission (something South Dakota had briefly but got rid of when Bill Janklow became governor in 1979), lobbying reform, and campaign finance reform. South Dakotans for Ethics Reform offers this summary:
The law would dramatically improve transparency and accountability rules for lobbyist and campaign donors. It would increase enforcement of the state’s ethics laws, impose heavier penalties on those who break them, and create an independent South Dakota Ethics Commission with the power to investigate government officials and lobbyists for ethics law violations. It would incentivize small dollar contributions and close loopholes that allow legislators to use campaign contributions they receive while running for public office to pay for personal expenses, or to coordinate secretly with PACs [South Dakotans for Ethics Reform, press release, 2015.11.06].
Anti-Corruption Act sponsor Rick Weiland says this initiative offers “a real opportunity to address some of the shortcomings” we see in South Dakota government in “ethics and transparency and campaign finance.” Weiland agrees that “people’s awareness has obviously been raised of late” with the stories about Gant, EB-5, and GEAR UP. But while those stories expose the corruption of our current Republican regime, Weiland emphasizes that the Anti-Corruption Act isn’t about political parties. Corruption under one-party rule is as inevitable as gravity; the Anti-Corruption Act offers “rules… to make sure bad things don’t happen” whenever one party dominates, no matter what party that may be.
If Secretary Krebs finds that 55% of the signatures on this petition are valid, South Dakotans will have the chance to vote on corruption itself and a big proposal that offers multiple ways to combat it. The Anti-Corruption Act could offer South Dakota voters one of the most informative and important policy conversations of the 2016 election.
I have a feeling there will be too many ballot initiatives to vote on in 2016 and it will show in the election results. Too bad they could not of spread them out to different election cycles.
I disagree, Lynn. See my March analysis showing no correlation between number of ballot measures and success rates.
Done right, with ballot question committees cooperating, with candidates helping educate, we can get synergy between the right ballot measures and the issues of the day and make a whole bunch of good change in one remarkable election cycle. We can put an exclamation point on the people’s will that says, “Legislators haven’t been doing their jobs, so we have to do it ourselves!”
“Legislators haven’t been doing their jobs, so we have to do it ourselves!” Yeah people complain about government all the time but isn’t there a decrease in those who show up to vote? Will they have the patience to read the lengthy initiative one after another? People seems to like it simple when they vote. Will they take the time to research before they vote so they just pop in and vote? Hard to say.
Maybe you should have them arrested and tossed into lockup,Lynn. Afterall,not voting is addictive behavior.
The problem is that according to the Democrat Party, the “people” are just not all that smart.
The People put the Democrat party out of power and basically rendered them meaningless in South Dakota. The future of your hopes probably lies with my friend Mr. kurtz and his Libertarian Party, but he’s not delivering a good enough sales pitch to those people whose hearts and minds are softer than his. And he probably won’t live long enough to see his scheme take root, but eventually it will.
Clearly the 18% cap limit on usury is the most popular of the bills that have been introduced to date. Everybody wants to hammer on the poor people except ol’ grudz who wants to let them have all the options. They are big people and should not have their lives dictated to them despite their income or intelligence.
I agree with Cory, I think the more the merrier when it comes to ballot initiatives and referendums.
This reality will bring more voters out to vote for specific ballot measures of great interest to them. The only question is, what will these fair weather voters do with the rest of the ballot and how could it effect those races?
Your “negativity bias” clouds your ability to predict accurately what the voters will think about their ballot. PS … With mail-in ballots, voters have unlimited time and a computer for reference to questions, while filling out their ballots.
“Legislators haven’t been doing their jobs, so we have to do it ourselves!” Yeah people complain about government all the time but isn’t there a decrease in those who show up to vote? Lynn,you finally managed to say something that is true and scientifically provable. Less voters are showing up because you right wing nut jobs have used every dirty trick in the book to keep minorities,students and elderly from having access to the polls. Every red state has had some form of voter I.D. measure installed to make it nearly impossible for likely democrat voters to qualify. You can deny all you want,but these issues have been in use for many years and are only designed to prevent legal voters from legally voting.
Mike Who Resides in Iowa,
I’m a right wing job now? Fascinating! lol
Winston,
Could it be that we are a minority among South Dakota voters that have an interest in politics in our state and will take the time to really check into these initiatives?
Last election my mother who has about 99% always voted Democrat and volunteered for George McGovern voted for a Republican candidate because she knew his grandmother and a few family members. She just went off that and didn’t look into his qualifications or the Democratic candidate challenger who was actually well qualified and respected. It really surprised me. She does a pretty good job checking out candidates but not to the degree that we might do.
People vote for different reasons. Sadly many don’t vote. We will see what will happen with all these initiatives? I’m just curious if this is a record number of initiatives here in our state?
Larry Who Resides in New Mexico,
Yes we know about your and others 24/7 obsession with pot and other Psychedelic drugs but what do they have to do with this Anti-Corruption thread?
Never said you were a right wing job. Said you are a right wing NUT job. Get it straight or go home.
South Dakota’s legislature is a Reichstag that’s why there could be sixteen initiatives and referenda on the 2016 ballot.
Read Todd Epp’s piece here.
Randy Rickman decimated the Helena Independent Record; now, parent Lee Newspapers of Montana has closed its capital bureau. Pierre had maybe two journalists covering the statehouse and Rickman forces Steve Baker from the Capital Journal.
Gifted journalist, Emily Saunders, who covered Idaho politics left Boise Public Radio to work for Montana’s Office of Public Instruction as communications liaison.
Tony Mangan left radio journalism in Pierre to work for South Dakota’s Department of ‘Public Safety’ as its public voice.
Ben Dunsmoor covered Pierre during the legislative session: he left KELO teevee for public relations.
That pretty much leaves Bob Mercer to write the gloomy news from South Dakota’s capital city.
If the legislature had the balls to divert its attention from ending women’s civil rights, building more prisons and trying to look at naked juveniles it would have more time to head off ballot clutter.
By throwing out video lootery and adopting my cannabis template the state could make at least two ballot measures meaningless.
To Mike’s point. I haven’t checked it out yet, but I had to get a new D/L a year ago. I moved this past Spring. I reregistered to vote this fall. Since then someone told me, that I have to get a new D/L with my new address on it or I cannot vote. Because of the way the last few elections have gone in SD, I doubt that I will spend 25 bucks to get a new D/L since I don’t even drive anymore.
The other part in this discussion that will be interesting, is if the AG and I won’t say Marty Jackley, because I am hoping that he will be in prison with the rest of the thugs from EB-5 and GearUp, how the AG will explain the 18% cap ballot initiative.
Does anyone know the answer to that question about the correct address on the D/L, as long as I am in the same county? All that I changed was my precinct and I would think they would have told me when I reregistered, that I needed to get a new ID.
Kurtz.it seems to me that a certain Lisa Furlong
Advertising Executive at Lee Enterprises-Sioux City Journal
Sioux City, Iowa Area
Marketing and Advertising
Current
Lee Enterprises-Sioux City Journal
Education
Morningside College
Good find, mfi! The CEO of Lee is an earth hater of gargantuan proportions.
Mike, also her address and phone number
189 Windflower Bnd
North Sioux City, SD 57049-5281
(605) 235-1260
At the risk of leading a dead horse to water and making it drink click on this op-ed from a Missoula-based gadfly. A snip from Dan Brooks’ piece should help you get the gist:
Democracy is under attack, fellow Democrats.
With fewer journalists covering legislatures no voting public can perform the duties of citizenship with any accuracy whatsoever.
It’s important to remember that SDGOP doesn’t want people to vote:
http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/voter-fatigue-/?id=187053
Lanny,I wouldn’t think you’d have to get a new drivers license to vote as that could be construed as a poll tax. Registration form says if you don’t have a drivers license number,the last 4 digits of your SS# suffices as proof.
OTOH,poor people and many elderly don’t have $25 bucks laying around to go get a drivers license and photo. Many don’t have easy access to places to get licenses. Good reasons not to force such restrictions on otherwise eligible voters.
How about a conspiracy theory? Maybe some one wants you to register twice so they can accuse of intending to vote in 2 different precincts.
Well, here’s a sobering piece from Rapid City-based Chiesman Center for Democracy:
I like Porter’s point about the options we have to voting in the booth on election day. Our 45-day early-voting period gives voters a chance to sit down with their ballot with their family and friends and study and talk through each issue. Every honest ballot committee should encourage people to order and absentee ballot and spend lots of time at home reading it and thinking about the issues before marking their votes. The 18-percenters will not encourage such thoughtful deliberation, since thoughtful deliberation would sink both their ballot measure and their business model.
Lanny, neither the address nor the phone number you provide match those provided on the payday lenders’ ballot question committee statement of organization. But the address you provide is less than a mile’s drive from fellow poverty-industry exploitationist Dan Lederman’s fancy cul-de-sac flood plain house.
I got the address and phone number from a whitepages search of SD
Call Pat and Vanna and see if Furlong can buy a vowel for Bnd in her address. I wonder if this is the same Lee that owns Idaho newspapers?
Can’t be voter fatigue. Must be all the shiftless potheads. Kentucky reported 31% of registered voters bothered on Tuesday and now the new guv is a tea bagger of historic proportions. Kiss Medicaid and health insurance expansion goodbye.
He will prolly appoint Kim Davis head of the kristian deformed church of Kaintuck and declare all infidels(read liberals) are to be shot on sight.
mfi: Twin Falls has a Lee paper.
http://lee.net/markets/
As is the Sioux City Journal and the Rapid City Journal and 47 other newspapers. Thanks for the link.
The plot thickens…….thanks,Larry.
mfi, I don’t think the tea bagger can remove Medicaid Expansion without a significant penalty both politically and economically against Kentucky. With the expansion, comes lots of infrastructure expenses as well. Kentucky cannot afford to get rid of this plan.
http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2015/05/lee-newspapers-of-montana-crush-capital.html
Which begs the question, jerry, how could SD turn it down?
http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/fair-and-balanced/Content?oid=2538407&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Some interesting stuff on Wikipedia about Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Enterprises
4th largest newspaper chain in the country with 54 dailies as well as others. Also owns an internet company TownNews.com and its CEO, Mary Junck has been the Chairman of Associated Press since 2012. Lee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011 and emerged 2 months later. Warren Buffet took an interest in Lee through Berkshire Hathaway by buying some outstanding debt from Goldman Sachs in 2012
South Dakota (1898) was “the first state to amend its constitution to give its citizens the option of the initiative — in which a given percentage of voters may propose a law, which then must be approved at the polls — and the referendum — in which a law proposed either by initiative or by the lawmaking body must then be approved by a given percentage of voters.”
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1673&context=greatplainsquarterly
Any bets as to how long it will take the Republican majority to remedy this state of affairs?
Jerry, we must fight any such “remedy” tooth and nail.
Lynn, the record number of statewide measures on the ballot was 14 in 1916. But nine of those were constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by the Legislature.
The record for citizen-initiated measures and referenda appears to be 9 in 2006 (property tax reform, JAIL amendment, tobacco tax, school start date, medical marijuana, state aircraft reform, abortion ban, video lottery repeal, telecom tax repeal). The tobacco tax and state plane initiatives passed; the voter rejected the abortion ban, so I count that as three voter victories out of nine measures.
As of this morning, we have two referenda certified and five initiatives submitted and waiting. Of the seven measures still listed as circulating, I believe three are on their way to Pierre Monday. If all survive SOS scrutiny and public challenge, that will be ten voter-initiated statewide measures.
And we still have the 2016 Session to produce bad bills requiring referral. Don’t think I won’t do it, Corey Brown….
If all pans out, we will see a ballot that looks like this:
Constitutional Amendments:
Referred and Initiated Measures (i.e., Laws):
Medical marijuana and Fair Share could trade numbers, depending on who shows up in Shantel’s office first on Monday.
Whether the Fair Share measure gets submitted is anyone’s guess. I’ve heard firmer statements that the other measures—pot decrim, init/ref strengthening, and Bob Newland’s two fun statement-makers on alcohol and tobacco—will not make Monday’s deadline.
If it is the same one as Marcy’s law, I hope the Glodt one does not pass. I regret having signed the petition. All that glitters is not golden.
Why would South Dakota take the Medicaid Expansion when those at the top are stealing at such a rate that the governed influx of Federal money would not be their piggy bank. By keeping the Feds as far away from here as possible, the corruption can continue unabated. The Feds bring accounting, that is the farthest idea any of these outlaws would ever consider. Take a look around Lanny, you can see that the only money they take from the Fed goes into highways and other contracts that they can divvy up to their Future Funders. You can point out again and again about how that money would benefit the economy here, but you are mistaken if you think they want the economy to flourish. They do not. If everyone just makes it on what is available, pretty damn quick they think that this is all there is, so they do everything in their power to protect it. The status quo must be maintained to allow the corruption to continue. Not only politically but economically as well.
Yes, Lanny, that’s Jason Glodt’s amendment. You have a Pennington County prosecutor and defender agreeing with you that it’s not a great idea:
SDPB Radio interviewed someone from the Pennington County public defenders’ office this week expressing concerns about the bureaucracy and cost of Glodt’s amendment and saying current law already has good protections for victims… but dang it! SDPB website always defies my efforts to search for articles.
Was that editorial from Missoula written for the Onion? What am I missing? Fake NOize and the WSJ are Liberal?
http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/videos/fox-host-fails-math-only-271000-new-jobs-but-we-were-expecting-more-than-180000-video/
Here is fair and balanced with a twist. Fake Noize parses BLS job statistics for Oct. Lynn,I think there could be a place for you right next to floozy Elizabeth Hasselback.
Mike, ease up. I don’t see anything on this thread that warrants comparing Lynn to any “floozy.”
Sorry Cory. I didn’t compare her to a floozy. With her propensity for denying reality,it seems to me she would fit in with a network that defies and denies reality.
Thoughtful deliberation in SD?
That’s funny Cory.
But a person can always hope.
Mike, even on that count, Lynn is offering reasonable questions about how the profusion of ballot measures will affect turnout and voters’ decisions. Let’s leave our disagreements about other issues (really, about just one issue) on the relevant threads and focus on the issues raised here.
MikeyC, hope springs eternal. I shall advocate the ideal, try to exemplify it, and see how close we can get.
Mr. weiland, please send me information on the Anti Corruption Act. Please send it to my home address at 718 west box elder rd., #2. Box elder s.d. 57719. I want to know more about this act. If it is passed will it affect corrupt state procicutors and judges and DEA agents?my son was wrongfully convicted of a crime and we want to know if the Act will help him make these corrupt court officiers( the procicutors and judges), to be held responsable for their illigal acts?
Linda, you can contact Mr. Weiland and South Dakotans for Ethics Reform online here:
https://sdethics.wordpress.com/contact/
The full text of the Anti-Corruption Act is available online here:
https://sdethics.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/south-dakota-government-accountability-and-anti-corruption-act1.pdf
The starting point for understanding whether the Anti-Corruption Act can help you may be in Section 32, which establishes the main mission of the Ethics Commission: “There is hereby established the South Dakota Ethics Commission, an independent commission to prevent corruption and its appearance, to protect the integrity of the democratic process, to ensure that state ethics laws are not violated, and to administer the democracy credit fund and Program.
Section 41 includes a provision for a corruption tip line: “The commission shall maintain a telephone hotline as well as a website through which persons may anonymously report instances of corruption in state government. The commission shall maintain a website to educate the public about its role and the Program, publish its reports and findings, and promote public trust in government.”
I don’t think the Anti-Corruption Act will allow investigations of federal officials. It focuses on state-level corruption.
There weren’t enough signatures, so will it even be on the ballot?
Um, there were enough signatures. They needed 13,871; they submitted 25,216; Secertary Krebs certified the petition last week with 18,122 valid signatures. The Anti-Corruption Act will appear on the 2016 ballot as Initiated Measure 22. So, can we get you to vote for IM 22 now?