I failed twice to remove part-time Aberdeen resident and do-nothing Senator Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen) from the South Dakota Legislature. Now it appears that, if he wants to keep his Senate seat, he’ll have to contend with a Republican challenger, Rachel Dix of Aberdeen.
Novstrup was able to count on his state party to work hard for him to beat me, but if he faces Dix in a primary, he’ll have to do the hard work of campaigning himself. And he’ll have a harder time tearing down Dix, since she checks a number of good Aberdeen boxes. Not only does she get on well with the Presentation Sisters, but she also appears to believe in all that Jesus stuff. She likes putting on Carhartts and shooting animals. As executive officer of the Aberdeen Home Builders Association, she is part of the Aberdeen business-über-alles establishment. She spends her days carrying out the will of builders, bankers, and other practical bigwigs, liaising with the Chamber of Commerce, of which she is a happy member. Dix also works as a home ownership coordinator for Homes Are Possible, Inc., where she gets to interact with more builders and bankers and influential, community-minded Aberdonians while helping people get homes. Also building her business cred is her recent appointment to the board of directors of Dakotaland Federal Credit Union.
And for a little political intrigue, Dix lists as her campaign treasurer Jack Hieb, a pretty well-connected lawyer at the Richardson Law Firm in Aberdeen. Among his connections is the powerful and merciless Senate President Pro-Tempore Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska). Schoenbeck orchestrated the primary ouster of House Majority Leader Lee Qualm by the young professional Erin Tobin in 2020; is the Kampeska Crusher gearing up to turn his and Harvey Jewett’s money to further Schoenbeck’s “plot to reshape the state legislature” and consolidate his power?
Dix doesn’t necessarily need Schoenbeck’s money to make hay of the fact that, while Al runs bumper cars in Sioux Falls, Rachel is in Aberdeen dealing with the shortage of workforce housing, one of the primary economic development issues that Al and South Dakota’s Legislative and Executive branches have let fester for years. If I were Rachel, I’d run hard on that issue. And if I were me, I might rather run against Al Novstrup than against Rachel Dix.
The one party rule thing leads me to think that everyone in South Dakota should become Republican. That way your vote will mean something. What better way to vote, a Rino can smash through anything. You can still vote for the Democratic party in the general election and you still get to help pick the ahole running. Even Margorie Taylor Greene would have a hard time divorcing you. When you did divorce them you could have a ritual cleaning. We can think of something. I’ll ask Soros.
About time for Nosedrip to retire from pigging out at the public trough. Same for all other magats so South Dakota could elect people with vision and ideas.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Since the day he walked into the legislature, this pimple on the ass of the SDGOP keeps observers wondering how the heck he could win an election. A personality of sandpaper and a total incuriousness of the world outside his own wallet, Novstrup is a daily embarrassment as an elected figure. Governance means nothing. His only interest in Pierre is staying self-importance. Brown County has always struck me as having some sense of a robust economy and communityies Novstrup’s not at all the only neanderthal in the legislature, but that seat he keeps warm in the State Senate is being wasted. Thank goodness that Rachel Dix has loyalty to her community and to a growing economy in a region which has significant challenges.
She seems bright, cheerful, hard-working and ethical. A100 percent improvement!
Well…if anything in South Dakota needs to be reshaped its the legislature. If we’re going to have one party government, I’d rather have the Kampeska Krusher be successful with his plan to turn the legislature back to real legislative business, and I concede that his agenda will be more business oriented, if it lessens the destructiveness to democracy than the ignorant and anti-intellectual right wing currently brings to the chamber. You mention Harvey Jewett. I’ve known him since my teenage years and he is dedicated to moving South Dakota forward. There are a lot of problems in South Dakota. Harvey Jewett isn’t one of them.
If you’ve ever swilled that single malt scotch with Mr. Jewett, you’d know that “moving South Dakota forward” in his eyes means ways to make the fat cats fatter. And that’s OK.
Mr. H, is this blogging an announcement that you’re running again? That is very good news indeed.
96, she’s still a Republican, still complicit with the one-party regime, but we may draw some slight encouragement form the signal that at least some mainstream Republicans are ready to clear out the old guard and get some new talent (or, in this case, some talent) in Pierre.
The issue of affordable housing versus housing affordability needs to be raised here in South Dakota, before SoDak becomes another Portland or San Francisco.
Affordable housing is a myth, and chases the inflation gap like wages during the 70’s, it’s nothing more than an easy way for big government to rip off the most vulnerable, while taxing the middle class out of existence. In Oregon and California, people kept voting to “tax the rich,” little did they know the rich all got tax breaks via massive loopholes, exactly how SD is set up, and they were only voting to tax themselves. Taxes are a neccissary evil at times, but the issue of big taxes and big government is the big waste that comes with it. The last homelessness measure alone, voted through in Portland Metro, raised the average person’s tax rate by 7%, with 15% of all money going towards admin costs right off the top and literally came without a plan to help the homeless. Supposedly the homeless will begin to see relief in three years… Another measure was already proposed and voted in, because the first one, after raising millions, magically disappeared into the general fund.
In 2020, Oregon voters passed measure 110 to legalize all drugs, and fund rehab facilities with the money earmarked for education from marijuana growth and sales. Within days of the measure passing, Gov. Kate Brown announced she wouldn’t be funding rehab centers, and placed that money into discretionary funds instead. Now the education fund is lacking 175 million and drugs are legal without help for anyone needing it. Lines are longer for methadone and Suboxone facilities than ever before. Just a few recent examples….
Housing affordability on the other hand creates a stable market while keeping the boot of government off the neck of desperate humans, just trying to scrape by OR raise a family.
I really wish my former party would focus on good economic solutions again, rather than woke rhetoric that harms more people than it helps.