A new mystery ballot question committee formed last week. Over lunch on Friday, one Brenden Boudreau of Windsor, Colorado, formed “South Dakota Taxpayer’s PAC.”
Strangeness abounds:
- Boudreau calls it a PAC, but it is organized as a ballot question committee (yes, he checked that box). This conflicting terminology won’t hurt donors: any committee of any type can give unlimited contributions to ballot question committees. However, if SDTPACBQC starts making contributions, Boudreau will need to remember that while PACs can contribute unlimited sums to other PACs, his misnamed ballot question committee may only give $10,000 to official PACs.
- Boudreau’s apostrophe placement in “Taxpayer’s” indicates that his committee serves the interests of one South Dakota taxpayer. To live up to his purpose statement, to “safeguard to the interests of South Dakota Taxpayers,” his apostrophe should follow the s: South Dakota Taxpayers’ PAC.
- Boudreau indicates no ballot measure toward which he will be directing his efforts, for or against. The “Not Yet Assigned” response to the “Ballot Measure Number” question raises the possibility that Boudreau is creating the committee that will carry one or both of the state-budget-destroying anarcho-libertarian amendments proposed by Levi Breyfogle under the banner of “Coming Freedom.” If that is the intent, then Boudreau could hold on for another six weeks to amend his filing to attach this one committee to both amendments, thanks to this year’s Senate Bill 128, which will allow upon its July 1 enactment the creation of multi-issue ongoing ballot question committees.
- Boudreau says his committee will get its mail at a Rapid City P.O. box. He lists his mailing address in Windsor, Colorado. He lists the committee’s street address as 2435 Dehaven Drive in Custer… which actually is 10 miles northwest of town in the high country west of the Crazy Horse monument. Aside from that remote map pin, that address produces zero Google search results. Zero.
Boudreau lobbies for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group even more extreme than the NRA. NAGR’s South Dakota affiliate is the gun-absolutist South Dakota Gun Owners. NAGR has sent Boudreau to lobby for gun-nut legislation in South Dakota, but other connections to the state don’t leap out of the Googles. Boudreau served for two years plus on the Windsor Town Board before resigning effective July 31, 2017, due to an anticipated move to family stomping grounds in Michigan… which his addresses on the above filing suggest didn’t stick.
I sent an e-mail to Boudreau Friday requesting more information about the committee. If Boudreau’s committee office really is out northwest of Custer, we may have to wait for him to come down to town—or maybe hike north to Bear Mountain—to get any Internet signal. And if G. Mark Mickelson’s unconstitutional Initiated Measure 24 passes in November, we’ll have to hike out to find Boudreau and make sure he’s really in South Dakota!
Boudreau seems to be your typical righty out-of-state agitator. He has a years long history of trotting from state to state to push righty causes for the righty billionaire class. It will be interesting to watch G. Marky fold up now that his out-of-state minders are putting the boot up his rectum.
My view is that G. Marky’s Initiative Measure 24 is exactly what is needed, though I would make it much tougher. People shouldn’t be scared of sending a message to the autocratic billionaires and their Supreme Court lackeys, just because G. Marky is an fool. Even fools sometimes do the right thing.
The preceding is one of my favorite comments on DFP. Thank you, Mr. Pay.