When even the Democrat-on-Democrat violence of the Pourier/Foster residency fake-fracas inspires zero chortling from the SDGOP spin machine (which is too busy converting its pants into a creamatorium for the Noem theocratorate), you know this blatant attempt to steal Indian votes has no legs with the Republican majority.
But for the record, there’s a double dose of Dems attacking Dems. Former Democratic District 27 legislator Jim Bradford has joined the attack with an affidavit in which he claims that “on, or about” last June 18, he heard someone else say (does no one in the Mason/Olson cabal understand the meaning and legal uselessness of hearsay?!) that then-Democratic candidate, now Senator-Elect Red Dawn Foster of District 27 did not live in District 27.
This affidavit provides further evidence of what most political observers likely recognized years ago: Jim Bradford is a useless fossil.
- His statements about where Foster may have been living in June are hearsay and thus carry no legal weight.
- The person Bradford says he heard say this hearsay, “Paul Valongo,” does not exist. No person named “Paul Valongo” ever served in the Legislature.
- Maybe Bradford meant Paul Valandra, with whom Bradford served for six years in the Legislature, but it’s not my job to figure out what a person actually meant to say in a supposedly sworn written statement. That statement needs to stand on its own, and on its own, this statement rests on hearsay from a person who does not exist.
- If Bradford can’t remember the name of a legislator he served with for six years, can we rely on his memory of other facts as a basis for an action as drastic as rejecting the will of the voters and not seating a duly elected Senator?
- Bradford’s ramble about his visit with the Secretary of State’s office, if not to be dismissed as more useless hearsay, actually undermines the argument that the Mason/Olson vote stealers are trying to make. Bradford cites government authorities who say that the residency concerns his affidavit is meant to support actually have no basis in law.
- Bradford also forgot that it’s a new year: he dated his affidavit January 4, 2018.
Bradford lost to Foster in the District 27 primary on June 5 55% to 45%. The other Democrat publicly joining the residency fake-fracas, Margaret Ross, came in 192 votes behind top vote-getter and Democrat Peri Pourier and lost her bid for the second District 27 House seat to Republican Steve Livermont by (per recount) ten votes. It thus seems accurate to note that both of the Democrats questioning the qualifications of the two Lakota Democratic women taking seats in the Legislature this week are sore losers.
Bradford’s affidavit (I assume it’s an affidavit, because it says so, although the documents I received do not include a notary seal on Bradford’s signature) comes in a press release sent just after midnight this a.m. by Representative Julie Frye-Mueller (R-30/Rapid City), who mirrors Senator Phil Jensen (R-33/Rapid City) with a formal complaint over her incoming colleague Peri Pourier’s qualifications to represent District 27.
Rep. Frye-Mueller filed her complaint Friday with Chief Justice David Gilbertson and CC’ed the sitting and incoming Attorneys General and Secretaries of State as well as incoming Speaker of the House Steven Haugaard, incoming Speaker Pro Tempore Spencer Gosch, and Legislative Research Council director Jason Hancock. The only people on that list who have any authority to act on that complaint are the House leaders.
Rep. Frye-Mueller issued her press release jointly with Senator Jensen, Haakon County State’s Attorney Stephanie Trask, and Bennett County Commissioners Judd Schomp and Rod Kirk. Schomp and Kirk cry “election fraud” and say, “The residents of of District 27 feel completely cheated and deceived.” State’s Attorney Trask calls the GOP Legislative leadership wimps:
As an elected official within District 27, I am embarrassed at the lack of leadership within our Legislature. Our local voters turned to county level leaders when they got no solution or response from state Legislative leadership. The sad reality is the state legislature itself has the sole authority and responsibility to enforce South Dakota’s Constitutional requirements on its members elect. All but a few in our Legislature have chosen to ignore this reasonability [Stephanie Trask, Frye-Mueller et al. press release, 2019.01.06].
Senator Jensen then stumbles in with his amateur lawyering:
Senator Phil Jensen (R-Rapid City) pointed out that in the analogous cases of Dr. Annette Bosworth and Pennington County Commissioner George Ferebee, the state and counties aggressively pursued and prosecuted to the full extent of the law in both cases. “In this case, Legislators are worried about being accused of racism when in fact Margaret Ross and Nicole Little Whiteman (both Native American women) have been disenfranchised [Frye-Mueller et al. press release, 2019.01.06].
The Bosworth and Ferebee cases are hardly analogous. The Bosworth case was about felonious petitioning and oath swearing, not qualifications for office. The Ferebee case was about residency requirements for a county office, with a very specific statute cited to indicate that, yes, he really did disqualify himself from his office. In all their exaggerated rhetoric, not one of the election thieves, not Jensen, Frye-Mueller, Bradford, Ross, Olson, Mason, Schomp, Brehmer, or anyone else has been able to draw the exact legal lines from dot to dot to demonstrate that, no, Pourier and Foster were not legally registered to vote in South Dakota as of November 6, 2016, the only real constitutional standard they can use to say they are not qualified to serve in the Legislature.
But we know how these wingnuts get. They’ll keep trying, even when their best allies are sore-loser Democrats with nothing but hearsay and no real witnesses willing to attest to their alleged knowledge on the record.
The problem is that these two competent women are honest. The cabal in Pierre has nothing for legislating other than hate. The state is broke with their handout to Washington for walking around money so they will have to come up with something as crooked as EB5 or Gear Up to generate the corruption money.
These two ladies would help put the damper on corruption so we cannot have that in our new motto for the state “The Outlaw State”. Indeed as “The Rushmore State” vanquished “The Sunshine State”, the new moniker “The Outlaw State” has taken that mantle. Want to keep the old motto? Shut up and set down and let these women do the work of the people as honest, elected officials.
Sad. Whoever prepared this “affidavit” that Jim Bradford signed had no idea who Paul Valandra is. That can only mean that whoever prepared the “affidavit” is not from District 27.
Doubly sad. Jim Bradford apparently signed the “affidavit” without reading it, because Bradford knows that his former colleague is Paul Valandra – not Paul Valongo. Jim Bradford is 85 years old, and you have to wonder if he is all there.
Mr. Bradford is as swell a fellow as there is, he was a fine school teacher and was non-partisan in the legislatures, having served on both sides of the hallway. As one of us older fellows he’s as spry afoot and nimble of mind as they come. We should not doubt him.
Maybe you’re right grudz. If Jim Bradford said he spoke to former state Sen. Paul Valongo, who are we to question that?
Cream. Pants. Cory I’m becoming worried about your thought process as trump lowest vocabulary is creeping into this crab bucket post. Grdz is the only ageist fossil here that is truly dead betwixt the ears…so far.
These sworn depositions trigger a matter of law that journalists treat with great care. Here are the pertinent citations of law:
22-29-1. Perjury–Violation. Any person who, having taken an oath to testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, before any competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any state or federal proceeding or action in which such an oath may by law be administered, states, intentionally and contrary to the oath, any material matter which the person knows to be false, is guilty of perjury.
Source: SDC 1939, § 13.1237; SL 1976, ch 158, § 29-1; SL 2002, ch 113, § 1; SL 2005, ch 120, § 30.
22-29-2. Statement not known to be true. Any unqualified statement of that which a person does not know or reasonably believe to be true is equivalent to a statement of that which a person knows to be false.
Source: SDC 1939, § 13.1240; SL 2005, ch 120, § 31.
22-29-4. Lack of knowledge of materiality of statement no defense. It is no defense to a prosecution for perjury that the accused did not know the materiality of the false statement, or that the false statement did not in fact affect the proceeding in or for which the false statement was made. It is sufficient that the false statement was material and might have been used to affect such proceeding.
Source: SDC 1939, § 13.1242; SL 2005, ch 120, § 33.
Interesting information Dr. Newquist. It would be very interesting if charges could be leveled at the perjurers and also if these could be heard in Federal Court as well as state court.
(Brace yourself, Leslie: I wholeheartedly support MF impeachment. If we’re going to talk about lack of qualifications for office, let’s focus on the White House.)
Falsehood and materiality: that could come back to bite these affidaviters.
But Dr. Newquist, would the materiality clause apply to materiality in a hearing held by the Legislature? Is that a prosecution in the eyes of that statute?
I doubt whether Bradford violated the statute since his statement was that someone told him something about Foster. He also said he reported what he had been told to the Secretary of State, but by sourcing the claim, Bradford seems to have avoided independently making the allegation himself. Thus, it appears he may have dodged this bullet.
I always wondered what Bradford stood for or did……… But. that is for another time…. What is even more egregious is the disconnected commentary of mind wondering simpletons that are less qualified to serve than those they vicariously complain about……. Frye Mueller and Jensen are in the same reduced mental capacity of Goodwin and Stacey Nelson. They can be ignored as harmless and inept.
When those dimwitted sorts are insaner than most and in positions of power where their ranks are growing, Mr. JW, they may not be so harmless after all.
Cory, I cite that law as one included in those that cover the circumstances of defamation about which journalists must be wary for legal and ethical reasons. Not being an attorney, I am not aware of any case law that has tested the limits of applicability. However, while the legislature is exempted from the the strictures of defamation and perjury in the course of business conducted under its rules of due process, these depositions were directed to people who seem to fall under the designation of a “competent tribunal, officer, or person” which can take action against false testimony. Rather than process the accusations about eligibility through legislative rules of order governing legislative operations, these depositions were broadsides directed to offices which can examine the integrity of the charges under oath. The subjects of the charges and the people cited as sources of information also have standing if the information about them is false, and the “depositions” which are offered as sworn statements can be challenged as fabricated falsehoods. The stunning incompetence of the perpetrators behind these statements would not exempt them from being held responsible for their truthfulness.
The Democratic Party, although not directly involved, also might want to protect its integrity by requiring an official examination involving all parties mentioned in the “depositions.”
I forgot to mention that the affidavits both state that they were made “under penalty of perjury,” so that the “affiants” have exempted themselves from any privilege that the ordinary conduct of legislative business might provide.
The racism stench is wafting all the way to Minnesota. Phewwwww!! 😫😝😖😷🤢🤮
I wonder where the South Dakota Democratic Party is on all of this, has anyone heard anything since Cory?
Jerry, I believe the party is maintaining a cautious silence, hoping it all just goes away.