Among the details of Kristi Noem’s deliberately PDF’d, small-fonted, non-machine-searchable October 19 campaign finance report is this unusual line, offered in several places in lieu of donors’ addresses:
[Requested – will be supplemented with amendment]
South Dakota campaign finance law is pretty clear: if you’re going to take money from someone for a political campaign, you have to know their address:
No person, entity, candidate, or political committee may give or accept a contribution unless the name, mailing address, city and state of the contributor is made known to the person, entity, candidate, or political committee receiving the contribution. In addition to any other information to be made known under this section, the name of the custodial parent or parents of an unemancipated minor who makes a contribution shall be made known. Any contribution, money, or other thing of value received by a candidate or political committee from an unknown source shall be donated to a nonprofit charitable entity. A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor. A subsequent offense within a calendar year is a Class 1 misdemeanor [emphasis mine; SDCL 12-27-11, last amended 2019].
If you’re a candidate, and if you take money from someone, and if that money is not accompanied by an address, you’re breaking the law. One such slip-up can get you a $500 fine and 30 days in the county jail; additional illegal acceptance of addressless campaign cash can cost you $2,000 and a year in lockup.
I count sixteen contributions with no known address on Noem’s pre-general campaign finance report worth $12,404.80.
Noem promises to report addresses on an upcoming amendment. But you know, if the Highway Patrol stops one of us commoners for driving without license plates, and we promise to go buy license plates next week, the HP will still write us a ticket for breaking the law. If we commoners file our business sales tax report and tell the state we’ll remit the full balance due in a later filing, we’re still breaking the law and face some penalty.
But hey, laws are for us little people, not for Governor and your next next President Kristi Noem.
Yup, she needs to be fined for each missing address times each day those addresses are missing.
Who checks whether the addresses are correct? Noem is such a liar that she would put a fake address in.
This shows utter disregard for law. Laziness. Ineptness, stupidity. Horrifying…
She also tried to sell hoodies featuring the state seal without getting the required permission. Even the news people from Fargo are tracking her insouciant fling:
Noem has been to:
Pennsylvania
Iowa
Ohio
Michigan
Minnesota (twice)
Texas (twice)
Florida (twice)
New Hampshire
Wisconsin
This is just good business sense, I’m telling you. SD Republicans are okay with this.
Secretary of State Steve Barnett did drop the hammer on Noem’s illegal hoodies. Will he ask for any penalty for this breach of campaign finance law?
I’ve found the Secretary of State’s office is reasonably lenient on candidates and committee chairs who make errors on the reports, miss a step, or just have trouble understanding what the forms are asking for or how the online forms work. The staff there act as compliance coaches, which is good public service, given that a substantial number of campaign finance filers are first-time candidates and most filers are just regular folks doing politics on the side, with no budget for full-time legal help or campaign staff.
But Team Noem is a bunch of professional politicians with all the funding they need to ensure compliance. And its infraction here is no mere mixup in reporting. They accepted money from people from whom they didn’t have addresses. The infraction happened at the point of transaction, not the point of filing. The law is clear: if you don’t have the information necessary to properly report donations, you don’t get to bank that money (and sit on it to earn interest, Kristi’s trick with the coronavirus relief fund). You have to donate it to charity.
Kristi’s report basically says, “Yeah, we took money we’re not supposed. What’s it to you?”
Live Free or Die.
That is the headline from a Kristi Noem email that I just received. Well, we have always lived free in South Dakota. Always will. But masks don’t have any significant impact on that, and their use allows hundreds of our citizens to survive this pandemic. What about their rights and freedoms? Or is it just that “die” part that they are supposed to participate in?
14 deaths today.
Live Free or Die?
Let’s not even get into the hemp, medical marijuana and recreational issues with this governor. Give me a break.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ExXeESpjI
Axl Rose tells it the real way it is with the fake prolife Noem and her fake prolife SD Republicans in his comment here on Live and Let Die.
Can you imagine being a Pierre bureaucrat(s-h&w state-employed), bird-shooters, Viking nuts, weekend parties, educated, home-owners, kids in school, boat in the drive, no family farm to inherit, vacation in the deepest darkest winter (before or after the legislature), SCARED TO MAKE THE SLIGHTEST WAVE IN THAT LITTLE PEYTON PLACE? Stand up to Janklow, Rounds, Daugaard, or Noem?
I can’t resist! https://media1.giphy.com/media/xUNd9ROQpXgwlVzmwg/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952e2699d0da7a3c013cdefb6897692efa9fc9040fd&rid=giphy.gif
Anybody recall that her near silent Lt.Governor broke campaign finance laws and eventually paid a pittance non-criminal assessment for his political misbehavior? There was a formal complaint filed but the Hughes County States attorney and the SOS collaborated to force Rhoden to pay an administrative penalty rather than have a criminal record. It isn’t just the counterfeit crone that’s politically crooked. Her second in command likely taught her criminal negligence before Commander Chaos.
The Rhoden Rhangers dispute Mr. JW’s assertions, with a gleaming smile and an “aw shucks” tilt of their felt hats.
I got the inside track Grudz. Your coprophagus grin is a bit disengnuous! Next item on the docket is Ranger Rhoden’s false alarm button demonstration in the presence of plain clothes armed police officers. There was a formal complaint on that criminality too. Only to be swept under the rug by a cowering republican states attorney. They are seasoned veterans at sequestering discovery.
It will be a minute – Grudz is still trying to find ‘coprophagus’ in his pocket thesaurus.
958-973 new cases (unclear whether that means those counted today 10.22.20).
Remember before the Trump/Sturgis Rallys when daily counts were 50-60. Almost 1000 a day statewide. El Paso, for example had 1,100 today.
IOKIYAR, er, SDFP. (South Dakota Fascist Party.)
I am sure that Kristi believes that the statute only applies to those who “hit” a deer in the road?