I did not get the cushion of signatures that I needed to get on the ballot…and many signatures I did get did not match up with the Voter 605 list. But if by some chance I get 3000 good signatures from any registered voter I can still run as a Republican under the independent ticket. That would be ideal since the Republican leadership (as well as Democrat Leadership) are quite corrupted. Yet the “regular” people of SD are good hard working individuals. My reason for running was to stop the corrupt selling off of our greatest commodity…our people…for political gain. I will explain in coming posts [Lora Hubbel, public Facebook post, 2018.03.27].
I don’t know—if the extremely conservative Hubbel can’t round up 1,955 signatures (plus 391 for 20% cushion) in twelve weeks from Republicans who are willing to give her their signature to run for Governor, she may have even less success getting 2,775 signatures (plus 555 cushion) in four weeks from Democrats and independents who think an arch-conservative Governor is a good idea. And given that the Libertarian and Constitution parties both have announced contenders for South Dakota’s chief exec, Hubbel’s only remaining option may be the Party of One that G. Mark Mickelson so dreads… but even under the new liberal House Bill 1286, which gives brand new parties another three months, until July 1, to organize, Hubbel would have to collect 2,775 signatures and then hold a convention to win nomination to the gubernatorial ballot.
And given that the Libertarian and Constitution parties both have announced contenders for South Dakota’s chief exec, Hubbel’s only remaining option may be the Party of One that G. Mark Mickelson so dreads…
My understanding is that sore-loser laws might have kept Lora off the general election ballot if she’d lost the Republican primary. Since the GOP establishment succeeded in sabotaging her petition drive, she and Bruce are still free to move over to the Constitution Party and seek our nominations for governor and lieutenant governor. I’d actually welcome the competition.
Refresh me on how one sabotages a candidate’s petition drive, Kurt.
Rorschach
2018-03-27 18:01
Ms. Hubbel is mostly just an attention seeker. It doesn’t really matter to her which race she loses, or which party she’s in, or whether she gets on the ballot – as long as people are talking about her. And it really doesn’t matter to her what people are saying either, as long as they are talking about her. Here we are stroking her ego talking about her.
Lori
2018-03-27 20:42
Both parties will likely have contested races for Governor for the first time in our state parties’ history regardless of what Lora Hubbel may do.
Not sure why you assumed we could only have one candidate. Those days thankfully are finally over.
Looking forward to very exciting and historic state conventions!
Debbo
2018-03-27 21:18
Jerry, Polo is a lovely little burg, so be kind. Is St. Liborious School still there? I grew up about 20 miles from beautiful downtown Polo.
jerry
2018-03-27 21:31
Ms. Debbo, I mean the good folks around Polo no ill will. I think that if you can win Polo, you can get the 3,000 votes needed to go further from around the state. Without Polo, then it makes no sense.
Is persuasion sabotage? If Annette Bosworth registered as a Democrat and started circulating a petition seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor, I would discourage every Democrat I could reach from signing or circulating that petition. That’s not sabotage; that’s protecting the party from nominating a bad candidate. Even if my persuasion was mostly successful, Bosworth would only need to persuade a tiny fraction of registered Democrats, less than 1%, to support her petition to make the ballot. Given the odds, it’s hard to blame failure to make the ballot on anyone but the petitioner herself and her inability to persuade party members that she can win and effectively represent the party’s platform.
If it tends to hamper a petition drive, then yes, I’d say it is, especially if otherwise-willing petition circulators fear retaliation. Whether such sabotage and retaliation are ever justified is a different question.
Lori Stacey
2018-03-28 13:20
Trust me, various forms of sabotage exist. Persuasion is a different animal altogether.
The Constitution Party in 2012 suffered greatly in ballot access for our Presidential candidate due to sabotage! A number of infiltrators became State Chairmen in several states. They directly communicated with National Chairman every step of the way regarding how many signatures they supposedly had on their party petitions. “We now have this many signatures, we now have this many signatures”. This was done all the way up to right before deadlines to turn them in. THEN, the State Chairmen DISAPPEARED!!!
I have not confirmed Lora’s specific situation but have heard there was tremendous intimidation used including suddenly replacing a County Chairman that had been supporting Lora and made her petition available. As I understand, supposedly many others abandoned her petition after that like roaches when the lights get turned on.
If all that is true, that is not a matter at all of not being able to “persuade” voters to sign.
Debbo
2018-03-28 13:51
Jerry, you’re obvious well acquainted with the old saying, “As Polo goes, so goes the nation.”
😁
On intimidation and party officer changes, I’ll again put things in terms of a Bosworth hypothetical: if I learned a Democratic party official was pushing a Bosworth petition, I would have strong words with that official. I would explain that, why party members should be free to circulate for whatever candidate they wish, circulating for that particular candidate opened the door for a bad candidate to damage the party. If that party official persisted in pushing that harmful candidate’s petition, I would consider speaking with other party members about that official’s fitness for party office.
Would I be overstepping proper bounds in those words and actions?
If that party official persisted in pushing that harmful candidate’s petition, I would consider speaking with other party members about that official’s fitness for party office.
Would I be overstepping proper bounds in those words and actions?
I’m not going to speak for Lori, but I wasn’t saying anyone overstepped any bounds. My main point was only that the Republican establishment might have caused fewer headaches for itself in the long run by just letting Lora Hubbel into their taxpayer-financed primary for governor.
This is purely hypothetical, but I’m wondering whether Terry LaFleur could legally qualify as a general-election candidate for governor by joining the Libertarian Party and winning its nomination at the convention.
Lori
2018-03-31 00:15
Kurt,
Secretary Krebs is interpreting sore-loser laws to start if someone turns-in their petitions. Matt Johnson’s were rejected because he mailed them by certified mail rather than registered mail on the day of deadline. I don’t know how she is going to decide whether his invokes sore-loser law or not because she actually rejected them instead of them failing to meet signature requirement.
If that is the only law you could find and it’s only applying to Independent runs, I will have to look at that because that was never my impression. Very interesting!!! I will take a look at it.
Lori, has Krebs publicly stated that interpretation? That’s nuts. One is not a candidate in the eyes of the law until one’s petition is certified. Neither Hubbel nor LaFleur are or have been primary candidates for Governor. Either could file as an independent. And as Kurt rightly notes, SDCL 12-7-5 applies strictly to independents. I see nothing stopping either of them from converting to an alternative party and seeking that party’s nomination at convention. For that matter, if Billie Sutton got cold feet after the primary and withdrew, LaFleur and Hubbel could join the dark side and seek our replacement nomination.
One is not a candidate in the eyes of the law until one’s petition is certified.
I’m generally not a fan of sore-loser laws in the first place, but I believe the nominating petition submitted by a candidate has a signed and notarized oath of candidacy at the top, and a South Dakota court apparently ruled in 1930 that the oath required an unsuccessful candidate to abide by the results of the primary.
In Putnam v. Pyle, the court found that a primary candidate for governor was ineligible to run as an independent despite the fact that he’d had no direct involvement in circulating the independent nominating petitions.
There is an article by Dana Ferguson quoting Krebs saying that Terry would still be able to submit signatures by April 24th to run as an Independent so apparently she has revised her interpretation of where the line is drawn.
Evenso, I am requesting any candidate that could have this type of legal problem getting onto the ballot to get a statement, in writing, from the SOS office. The last thing we need is a new problem keeping any of our potential nominees off the general election ballot.
We look forward to a historic state convention and could end-up with 3 or 4 Gubernatorial candidates!
Darn, Kurt, that link isn’t coming up for me this morning. Putnam v Pyle sounds like an interesting precedent, but it only sounds like it applies to someone who got on the ballot and failed to win the primary.
Lori, your caution is warranted, especially given the Krebs comment I see is only an indirect quote from Ferguson. But the law should be solidly on your side, especially given the precedent of past candidates, like the GOP’s Tom Dempster in 2008 and the Dems’ Clark Schmidtke in 2010, who ran independent without legal hassle after their partisan petitions flopped à la LaFleur.
I’m generally not a fan of sore-loser laws in the first place, but I believe the nominating petition submitted by a candidate has a signed and notarized oath of candidacy at the top, and a South Dakota court apparently ruled in 1930 [Putnam v. Pyle] that the oath required an unsuccessful candidate to abide by the results of the primary…
Putnam v Pyle sounds like an interesting precedent, but it only sounds like it applies to someone who got on the ballot and failed to win the primary.
It did in that case, but the court’s finding was apparently based on the oath of candidacy rather than the certification of the candidate’s petition.
But the law should be solidly on [the Constitution Party’s] side, especially given the precedent of past candidates, like the GOP’s Tom Dempster in 2008 and the Dems’ Clark Schmidtke in 2010, who ran independent without legal hassle after their partisan petitions flopped à la LaFleur.
Maybe Putnam v. Pyle was a specious decision that was subsequently disregarded. It sounds like it may have been a bit of a stretch.
Oath of candidacy—indeed, that’s a solid peg on which a court could hang a decision. But the Dempster and Schmidtke examples point to our statute’s hinging on certification for the primary ballot, not declaration pre-petition.
When you have Polo as your convention headquarters site is when you would have a chance to get those 3,000 registered voters to commit.
Cory writes:
My understanding is that sore-loser laws might have kept Lora off the general election ballot if she’d lost the Republican primary. Since the GOP establishment succeeded in sabotaging her petition drive, she and Bruce are still free to move over to the Constitution Party and seek our nominations for governor and lieutenant governor. I’d actually welcome the competition.
Refresh me on how one sabotages a candidate’s petition drive, Kurt.
Ms. Hubbel is mostly just an attention seeker. It doesn’t really matter to her which race she loses, or which party she’s in, or whether she gets on the ballot – as long as people are talking about her. And it really doesn’t matter to her what people are saying either, as long as they are talking about her. Here we are stroking her ego talking about her.
Both parties will likely have contested races for Governor for the first time in our state parties’ history regardless of what Lora Hubbel may do.
Not sure why you assumed we could only have one candidate. Those days thankfully are finally over.
Looking forward to very exciting and historic state conventions!
Jerry, Polo is a lovely little burg, so be kind. Is St. Liborious School still there? I grew up about 20 miles from beautiful downtown Polo.
Ms. Debbo, I mean the good folks around Polo no ill will. I think that if you can win Polo, you can get the 3,000 votes needed to go further from around the state. Without Polo, then it makes no sense.
Cory writes:
There’s more than one way, but in this case I’m talking about aggressively discouraging party activists from circulating the petitions.
Is persuasion sabotage? If Annette Bosworth registered as a Democrat and started circulating a petition seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor, I would discourage every Democrat I could reach from signing or circulating that petition. That’s not sabotage; that’s protecting the party from nominating a bad candidate. Even if my persuasion was mostly successful, Bosworth would only need to persuade a tiny fraction of registered Democrats, less than 1%, to support her petition to make the ballot. Given the odds, it’s hard to blame failure to make the ballot on anyone but the petitioner herself and her inability to persuade party members that she can win and effectively represent the party’s platform.
Cory asks:
If it tends to hamper a petition drive, then yes, I’d say it is, especially if otherwise-willing petition circulators fear retaliation. Whether such sabotage and retaliation are ever justified is a different question.
Trust me, various forms of sabotage exist. Persuasion is a different animal altogether.
The Constitution Party in 2012 suffered greatly in ballot access for our Presidential candidate due to sabotage! A number of infiltrators became State Chairmen in several states. They directly communicated with National Chairman every step of the way regarding how many signatures they supposedly had on their party petitions. “We now have this many signatures, we now have this many signatures”. This was done all the way up to right before deadlines to turn them in. THEN, the State Chairmen DISAPPEARED!!!
I have not confirmed Lora’s specific situation but have heard there was tremendous intimidation used including suddenly replacing a County Chairman that had been supporting Lora and made her petition available. As I understand, supposedly many others abandoned her petition after that like roaches when the lights get turned on.
If all that is true, that is not a matter at all of not being able to “persuade” voters to sign.
Jerry, you’re obvious well acquainted with the old saying, “As Polo goes, so goes the nation.”
😁
On intimidation and party officer changes, I’ll again put things in terms of a Bosworth hypothetical: if I learned a Democratic party official was pushing a Bosworth petition, I would have strong words with that official. I would explain that, why party members should be free to circulate for whatever candidate they wish, circulating for that particular candidate opened the door for a bad candidate to damage the party. If that party official persisted in pushing that harmful candidate’s petition, I would consider speaking with other party members about that official’s fitness for party office.
Would I be overstepping proper bounds in those words and actions?
Cory writes:
I’m not going to speak for Lori, but I wasn’t saying anyone overstepped any bounds. My main point was only that the Republican establishment might have caused fewer headaches for itself in the long run by just letting Lora Hubbel into their taxpayer-financed primary for governor.
I’d written:
The only sore-loser law I’ve found for South Dakota is SDCL 12-7-5, which only appears to prohibit a primary candidate from filing as an independent:
http://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/Codified_Laws/DisplayStatute.aspx?Statute=12-7-5
This is purely hypothetical, but I’m wondering whether Terry LaFleur could legally qualify as a general-election candidate for governor by joining the Libertarian Party and winning its nomination at the convention.
Kurt,
Secretary Krebs is interpreting sore-loser laws to start if someone turns-in their petitions. Matt Johnson’s were rejected because he mailed them by certified mail rather than registered mail on the day of deadline. I don’t know how she is going to decide whether his invokes sore-loser law or not because she actually rejected them instead of them failing to meet signature requirement.
If that is the only law you could find and it’s only applying to Independent runs, I will have to look at that because that was never my impression. Very interesting!!! I will take a look at it.
Lori
Lori, has Krebs publicly stated that interpretation? That’s nuts. One is not a candidate in the eyes of the law until one’s petition is certified. Neither Hubbel nor LaFleur are or have been primary candidates for Governor. Either could file as an independent. And as Kurt rightly notes, SDCL 12-7-5 applies strictly to independents. I see nothing stopping either of them from converting to an alternative party and seeking that party’s nomination at convention. For that matter, if Billie Sutton got cold feet after the primary and withdrew, LaFleur and Hubbel could join the dark side and seek our replacement nomination.
Cory writes:
I’m generally not a fan of sore-loser laws in the first place, but I believe the nominating petition submitted by a candidate has a signed and notarized oath of candidacy at the top, and a South Dakota court apparently ruled in 1930 that the oath required an unsuccessful candidate to abide by the results of the primary.
In Putnam v. Pyle, the court found that a primary candidate for governor was ineligible to run as an independent despite the fact that he’d had no direct involvement in circulating the independent nominating petitions.
Just some food for thought.
http://www.electionlawissues.org/Resources/~/media/Microsites/Files/election/ChapterTwo%20-%20Proofed2.pdf
Cory,
There is an article by Dana Ferguson quoting Krebs saying that Terry would still be able to submit signatures by April 24th to run as an Independent so apparently she has revised her interpretation of where the line is drawn.
Evenso, I am requesting any candidate that could have this type of legal problem getting onto the ballot to get a statement, in writing, from the SOS office. The last thing we need is a new problem keeping any of our potential nominees off the general election ballot.
We look forward to a historic state convention and could end-up with 3 or 4 Gubernatorial candidates!
Darn, Kurt, that link isn’t coming up for me this morning. Putnam v Pyle sounds like an interesting precedent, but it only sounds like it applies to someone who got on the ballot and failed to win the primary.
Lori, your caution is warranted, especially given the Krebs comment I see is only an indirect quote from Ferguson. But the law should be solidly on your side, especially given the precedent of past candidates, like the GOP’s Tom Dempster in 2008 and the Dems’ Clark Schmidtke in 2010, who ran independent without legal hassle after their partisan petitions flopped à la LaFleur.
I’d written:
Cory writes:
Hmm. It seems to be working for me.
It did in that case, but the court’s finding was apparently based on the oath of candidacy rather than the certification of the candidate’s petition.
Maybe Putnam v. Pyle was a specious decision that was subsequently disregarded. It sounds like it may have been a bit of a stretch.
Oath of candidacy—indeed, that’s a solid peg on which a court could hang a decision. But the Dempster and Schmidtke examples point to our statute’s hinging on certification for the primary ballot, not declaration pre-petition.