Last updated on 2018-07-25
“When you’re looking for a lawyer, you don’t check their political registration. You look for the best person to do the job.”
In those two sentences, Randy Seiler effectively summarizes why voters should pick him over Jason Ravnsborg for Attorney General this fall.
KSFY has posted interviews with both candidates. Brian Allen’s profile of Jason Ravnsborg completely glosses over his profound lack of relevant experience compared to Randy Seiler’s decades-spanning career as a prosecutor. But these two interviews side by side help show Seiler’s superiority for chief of South Dakota law enforcement.
Seiler and Ravnsborg both say drug abuse is the top problem facing law enforcement. Seiler says we cannot continue to treat addiction with incarceration. Seiler wants to bring in private-sector partners to provide more drug treatment and mental health services. Seiler is also ready to push Legislature to finally follow Chief Justice David Gilbertson’s call for state funding for a mental health court.
Ravnsborg, however, seems to think we can incarcerate our way out of drug addiction. Point 1 of his three-point plan is to remove presumptive probation, put deterrent back into the system, give meth users “incentive to work with law enforcement.” Ravnsborg seems to miss the point that probation still allows for the drug treatment that he and Seiler agree we need to provide.
Ravnsborg would throw these no longer presumptively probated meth users a new combo prison/mental illness facility somewhere in West River solely for people convicted of meth-related offenses. He says he models his plan after a Wyoming facility that he says they call a “meth prison.” I actually find no facility called a “meth prison” on the Wyoming Corrections website. Wyoming offers drug treatment at a variety of prison facilities, including the Casper Re-Entry Center, which seems to have a lot of inmates who run away.
Ravnsborg talks about establishing “trustee units,” which we already have in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and Ravnsborg’s current hometown of Yankton. He talks about teaching prisoners to work “with an industry,” which we already do with Pheasantland Industries. Ravnsborg also, amusingly, refers to the drug problem as some new phenomenon:
Jason Ravnsborg grew up in a small community in northwest Iowa and says when he was younger the drug problem was non-existent and that now obviously something has changed. “I in fact never had drugs around when I grew up. I didn’t—I wouldn’t know where to get ’em” [Brian Allen, “This Week in Politics: Ravnsborg’s Plan to Fight Meth,” KSFY, 2018.07.23].
Ravnsborg sounds more like the nostalgic old man in this race than Seiler, who served in Vietnam, who was probably dealing with drug offenders in court back when Jason was still toddling cluelessly about in Iowa, and who feels no need to appeal to false senses of past perfection.
Seiler reminds Republicans that they chose Marty Jackley to be Attorney General ten years ago because of his experience as U.S. Attorney. He wants voters to do the same this year. Seiler assures voters that he’s running to do this job, not to build a platform for running for some other office. Seiler doesn’t make the attack directly, but Brian Allen helpfully reminds us that Ravnsborg ran for U.S. Senate in 2014, which miserably failed candidacy in retrospect looks all the more like a mere publicity stunt launching Ravnsborg’s four-year campaign for Attorney General.
We know Jason Ravnsborg lacks the experience to do the job. The KSFY interviews show Ravnsborg has nothing but old ideas to offer, while the old hand Randy Seiler can step in, say, “Been there, done that,” especially about incarceration, and put his experience toward new solutions. That experience is why Seiler is the best man for the job.
South Dakota voters are complacent and complicit with the corruption in Pierre. Despite the best evidence that state government is just one big hog trough to feed millions to the SDGOP protected class, nobody has lifted a finger to put white collar criminals in prison and the voters continue to easily elect protectors of corruption. Jason Ravnsborg is just next step down into the pit. No credible experience to be Attorney General. Just let that sink in.
After EB-5, Gear Up, evidence that South Dakota is the playground of Russian disruption of American democracy (because somebody in the club is making a buck), no progress in Pierre on any issue of any meaning to the public at-large … it’s ridiculous to list the obvious. Pierre has earned its place as the most corrupt state capital in America. Apparently, it’s what the people want, and our motto is under God the people rule. Well, God likes corruption, too, I guess.
Under Governor Kristie Noem and Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, the trough will stay full of money and nobody will bother you as you gorge on millions as long as you’re a club member. The protected class. The voters will remain in a coma, distracted adoringly by their hero Trump. Legislatures will continue to meet and adjourn, and nothing meritorious will happen. Ever.
This guy can barely speak coherently, why is he perspiring so badly? Could it be the fact he’s never prosecuted a case as a prosecutor or ever tried a case as a prosecutor? Yes I’d say so.
Ravnsborg is the least qualified candidate for attorney general ever put forward by the Republican Party in SD. I don’t believe he has ever tried a case to a jury. If he has, let him say so – which he hasn’t. His legal experience is so negligible that I question whether he even practices law, or whether he just maintains an office to give the false impression that he practices law.
The Republican Party is now taking every race for granted at every level in SD. 96Tears may be right that any warm body with an R behind its name will win, but this race will truly be the test of that question. The difference between the quality of these two candidates could not be any more clear. Will Republican lawyers stand up and say, “enough is enough – vote Seiler,” or will they accept as the state’s top lawyer someone that nobody will even hire as an assistant state’s attorney?
Ravnsborg may be a Lt. Colonel in the Army Reserves, but in the ranks of South Dakota lawyers he’s a corporal or sergeant at most seeking to skip all of the ranks and go straight to general. Seiler is a general.
He’s a cadet. As in bone spurs.
Perhaps I’m a little rough on Ravnsborg. He is, perhaps, a little more qualified to serve as Attorney General than his pal Chad Haber.
Mr. Ravnsborg, as fun as his name is to say and as funny as his deer-in-the-headlights expressions are, is the least qualified candidate for Attorney General of South Dakota, ever.
Vote for Mr. Seiler. grudznick approved.
The Saner Republicans, the Conservatives with Common Sense, they will be showering Mr. Seiler with support and well wishes. Mr. Ravnsborg will be the Hindenberg of the Insaner Wing of the party.
Ravnsborg as the Hindenburg, isn’t that the truth. Well said.
“Seiler wants to bring in private-sector partners to provide more drug treatment and mental illness.”
I don’t think you quite meant that as you wrote it Cory. I get the gist. And a chuckle.
Thanks, Debbo, and sorry about that omission. I’ve fixed the text to remove my Freudian reference to what the Republicans offer. ;-)
Comparing Ravnsborg to Haber is perhaps unfair. Haber simply hijacked a third party and placed himself on the ballot as a publicity stunt. Ravnsborg was placed on the ballot by a major party, by the vote of hundreds of delegates who had two viable alternative choices. Haber was an isolated malicious actor; Ravnsborg is the product of an entire political party gone mad.
An entire political party gone mad? No. But many of the more rabid ones are insaner than most, that is a for sure thing, as the young people say.
As evidence, grudznick and most of my breastfasting fellows do not support Mr. Ravnsborg, and we are part of the entire party.