David Owen and the Chamber of Commerce are girding for battle against Amendment W, the Anti-Corruption and Voter Protection Act intended to re-instate Initiated Measure 26 as a constitutional amendment. After telling the Associated Press how much W stinks (“scope of power that’s kind of unbelievable… wandering into territory that’s completely unheard of“), Owen fired organizing papers (electrons, actually) off to the Secretary of State to create the “W Is Wrong” ballot question committee.
Owen says he and big-business lobby are the cash underdogs against the anti-corruption reformers pushing W:
But critics have labeled the measure an out-of-state proposal because it has been funded by Represent.Us, a Massachusetts-based organization working to reduce the influence of money in politics that also supported the 2016 South Dakota ballot measure campaign.
“I think we’re going to get outspent,” Owen said. “I think they’re going to whoop up a false impression that South Dakota is massively corrupt.”
Other groups opposing the amendment include the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, South Dakota Bankers Association, South Dakota Farm Bureau, South Dakota Municipal League, South Dakota Retailers Association and AGC of South Dakota Highway Heavy Utility Chapter [James Nord, “Critics Concerned About Power of Initiative’s Ethics Panel,” AP, 2018.07.03].
Owen has some basis for his claim. According to campaign finance reports, Represent South Dakota raised and spent about $396,000 through mid-May this year petitioning and promoting Amendment W. That’s up from the $248,000 that IM 22 supporters reported spending pre-primary in the 2016 election cycle. Over the entire 2016 campaign, IM 22 supporters reported spending $1,656,000 on their narrow 52% electoral victory, while the Koch Brothers spent $610,000 in their unsuccessful campaign to beat IM 22 at the ballot box.
By the way, I’ve reactivated the SD Voice ballot question committee. Originally opened as the technical “committee” to sponsor Referred Law 20, our successful repeal of David Novstrup’s youth minimum wage cut, SD Voice will now serve as a multi-issue, ongoing ballot question committee, as now allowed by this year’s Senate Bill 128. The purpose of the committee is to advocate ballot questions that strengthen democracy and oppose ballot questions that weaken democracy. One obvious measure for SD Voice to oppose is Amendment X, Senator Jim Bolin’s plan to raise the popular vote required to enact constitutional amendments from simple majority to 55%.
You couldn’t ask for a better reason to vote for Amendment W than having Owen heading up this effort with that list of corrupters in the Nord article. Most of that list have supported every bad out-of-state effort to dump the nation’s nuclear waste, hazardous waste and solid waste in South Dakota. They supported the sewage ash scam that made the state a laughing stock on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. They have supported support nearly every badly sited, taxpayer subsidized corporate CAFO. They lent their support to the perpetrators of the EB-5 scandal. They supported, and still support, poisoning of water through badly regulated uranium and gold mining by, not just out-of-state interests, but international criminal syndicates, who left the state Superfund Sites. And this group of slimy creeps have also been out front in the effort to restrict your rights to initiate and refer laws.
Just pin every one of their failures and scandals on them. The ad about writes itself. “Tired of being fleeced and the state made to look like a laughing stock in the Wall Street Journal. Tired of international corporate outlaws strip mining the state and leaving you with the cleanup bill. Tired of your house smelling like pig manure while the pig owners live in fancy houses on the coast. Tired of headlines of murder-suicides because corruption seems to be a way of life. Don’t be tired. Vote. Yes on Amendment W. Wrong for them, Right for You.
I can see why that bunch would hate Amendment W. It makes their corrupt crap much more difficult to pull off.
Being forced to follow the rule of law and play fair is the last thing they want.
David Owen’s logic doesn’t hold water!!! He is so off base on his fear elements and mistruths it is getting sickening. Looking forward to the public forums in regards to the opportunity to keep knocking down his half-truths and fear mongering. Oh yes, his gang of eight love it with no Government oversight, lack of government transparency, and lack of competency in State Government. Corruption isn’t a bad word in their dictionary!!
Yes, the logic is off-base, but few people vote on correcting someone’s logic. You have to paint a pretty graphic picture of what Amendment W will correct. The results of corruption and government by the elite are strewn all across the landscape of South Dakota, and in graveyards, unfortunately. Show that. Let Owen try to defend the vast carnage he and the power elite in South Dakota have wrought. And remind them of what the people defeated, no thanks to the power elite: nuclear waste dumps, large-scale dumps for out-of-state garbage. We called it “dirty pictures” back in my day, but what it was was the truth of their incompetence and corruption.
“Wrong for them, right for you”—nice turn of phrase, Donald!