Sleepy Dayle Hammock can go back to napping in the trees… or working on his sinkhole defense. District 31 voters chose two Republican primary challengers, Scott Odenbach and Mary Fitzgerald, over Rep. Hammock to advance to the November ballot. Hammock, who was Governor Kristi Noem’s first appointee to the Legislature, came in fourth in a five-person field:
The victims of Hammock’s lack of attention twenty years ago on the Meade County Planning Commission, which let developers build their Black Hawk homes on top of a cave-in-prone gypsum mine, can take a little comfort in knowing Hammock won’t continue exerting a similar lack of oversight over state law in Pierre.
Alas, those sinkhole dwellers go no such justice from District 29, where voters sent two of Hammock’s co-defendants, Rep. Kirk Chaffee and former legislator Dean Wink, on to the November ballot.
Chaffee and Wink served with Hammock in public positions in Meade County and helped approve the ill-fated Black Hawk Hideaway Holes development. Now at least one of them and probably both will get to lollygang [to accept lollypops—here, perks of membership in The Club—for going along with the gang—here, the GOP caucus] again in Pierre, since they face only one challenger, independent Jade Addison, for the two seats available in the general election.