After stating his desire to rebuild the Star Academy to truck evil children away from their homes for something other than boot camp, Senator Al Novstrup told the first 2019 Aberdeen crackerbarrel audience (I was going to say crowd, but, sadly, that would overstate things) wants to extend the Thune rule to more offices.
Right now, only a candidate for President or Vice-President may also appear on a ballot as a candidate for another office at the same time. Senator Novstrup has proposed Senate Bill 77 to allow multiple simultaneous candidacies on the rather arbitrary condition that only of one the offices sought pays more than $5,000 (start at 3:25):
As usual, Novstrup legislates poorly:
- Novstrup writes his bill such that individuals would be allowed to run for incompatible offices, thus crowding out other candidates and creating situations where an individual may win two offices, have to pick one, and thus leave more vacancies to be appointed rather than directly and democratically elected. Boooo!
- In the case of offices that one may hold simultaneously, Novstrup misses the point (as he does on Governor Noem’s nepotism) that concentration of power is as corrupting as money. Why let anyone hold more than one public office, regardless of the paycheck involved? If, as Al alleges, not enough people are stepping up to fill township boards and water district seats, the solution is not to let one person take that burden but to make clear to the public that more people have to step up… or disband those boards in which there is insufficient interest to sustain normal operations.
- Even if the money does matter, why allow anyone to double-dip? Al already collects $17,338.80 for his ten-week gig in Pierre. Why let him cobble together two, three, or four more little government jobs (and SB 77 does not limit candidates to two)?
Instead of allowing more politicians to double-dip, let’s hoghouse Senate Bill 77 to go the other way: let’s make every public office incompatible with every other political office. No more serving as mayor and legislator, or city and county commissioner. No playing the field and running for multiple offices. You pick the one office in which you want to serve and you run for it, promising your constituents to give that one office your all once elected.
Besides, with all the civics education Novstrup, Governor Noem, and everyone else in Pierre say they’re going to pump into our kids, we’re going to have more candidates for office than ever, rendering Novstrup’s SB 77 unnecessary. Make room for more candidates!
Related Legislation: Vote carefully, legislators: Senator Jim Bolin’s Senate Bill 76 tinkers with the same statute Novstrup’s SB 77 does in an effort to clear the decks for another Lance Russell not to get in any trouble (I told you the judge was wrong!). But SB 76 rewrites prohibition on running for more than one office in the general election (Presidential John Thunes again excepted) into a whole new separate statute that SB 77 doesn’t touch.
Nostrap’s bill is a bad idea, not that anyone is surprised.