In a sign that Pat Powers is not completely beholden to the new leadership of the South Dakota Republican Party, the SDGOP spin blogger has sprinkled some useful original analysis and advocacy amidst his sponsors’ press releases to advocate for Senate Bill 40, the proposal to let voters decide each parties nominees for all statewide offices by primary rather than leaving the choice of candidates the six statewide offices below the Governor to party conventions.
New SDGOP Chairman and veteran Senator John Wiik (R-4/Big Stone City) this week reminded Senators that the SDGOP Central Committee voted in January to oppose SB 40. But rather than posting Wiik’s release verbatim, Powers Tuesday rebutted that party resolution by noting that the 2022 SDGOP convention “wasn’t exactly… representative of state voters as a whole” and arguing that “If the primary process is good enough for your County Auditor, why isn’t it good enough for the State Auditor?”
In another goose-gander post Tuesday (wow—two original posts in one day—Pat’s fingers and brain must hurt), Powers noted that opposition to SB 40 is coming largely from “precinct people… who themselves are chosen in a primary.”
Then Wednesday, as we waited for the Senate to take up this nice democratic reform, Powers posted an Aberdeen American News article from 1929 indicating that legislators a century ago were concerned that too-powerful party nominating committees were “railroading objectionable candidates onto the party” and wanted to democratize the selection of more candidates via primary. The article was a bit vague and failed to address what looked the most important claim relevant to SB 40, that back in 1928, candidates for state auditor, treasurer, and other statewide offices did appear on the primary ballot.
But that historical article, along with the previous two on SB 40, showed that Powers is apparently caught in a conflict between the titular party leaders and the apparent real driving forces of the party, the Schoenbeck caucus, which in this unique-for-Republicans instance is pushing for more democratic choice. Party creature Pat apparently feels his fortunes lie with the Schoenbeck caucus, and he’s blogging to support their position over that of the SDGOP that sponsors his blog. What fun!
That conflict continues to burn hot in Pierre, where SB 40 squeaked through the Senate Wednesday on an 18–16 vote. Bob Mercer reports that the House Republican leadership, which leans harder against democracy than the Senate Republicans, is delaying action on SB 40 to give SDGOP Chairman Wiik time to work out some less democratic, more rural-biased compromise.
Adding Mr. Powers to that circular firing squad in Pierre can’t happen soon enough.
It’s easy to set up an Electoral College. Say you teach the second grade and you have four rows of kids. When you vote on things in class you give the smallest row two votes. When the other rows complain It’s not fair then you’ve already explained the Electoral College.
Not quite accurate Mark. You just give the front row 4 votes, even though there is only 1 kid in it. It has nothing to do with the smarts of the kids or the number of kids in a row. It’s purely “geography”.
OOps sorry, my fuzzy eyes (post surgery) mistook smallest for smartest.
grudznick’s good friend Lar and I do both appreciate Mr. Powers’ stalwart efforts in this arena of the beasts.
Ahh Richard, since I moved from South Dakota I’ve lamented my vote is so diminished. Republicans should have won only once since Bill Clinton and since that vote was the second time for Bush, it probably wouldn’t have happened in the first place. The majority of the people in this country vote for a Democrat for president. That’s just a fact.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6QgNzTN-STA
Cory writes:
I’d written here at Dakota Free Press in November:
Yesterday Cory had written:
Senator Frye-Mueller apparently made the mistake of offering James Marsh’s 31-year-old daughter-in-law some sincere, friendly advice that unintentionally hurt her feelings, and Senator Schoenbeck had Senator Frye-Mueller suspended from the senate and formally censured for so-called “harassment.” Now Senator Schoenbeck smears Senator Frye-Mueller with his deliberate, premeditated insinuation that she’s a sex pervert, and there are no apparent consequences.
The senators who voted to make Lee Schoenbeck our speaker pro tem made a terrible decision.
I’d written here at Dakota Free Press in October:
The real reason the Jackley-Schoenbeck-Powers wing of the state GOP is pushing so hard for more statewide primaries in 2026 is probably Marty Jackley’s razor-thin victory over David Natvig and Laura Kaiser at last year’s convention. It probably has nothing to do with democratic principles.
Kurt, your probabilities are endless.
Mr. Evans pounds out on his keyboard, whilst frothing at the mouth as he sits on a wobbler of a kitchen stool in his underwear eating stale Eggo Blueberry Waffle Cereal:
Pat Powers is a journalist like a corndog is a sandwich.
I’d written:
“Grudznick” asks:
No. His blog is just one branch of Senator Schoenbeck’s operation.
Does Chairman Wiik support moving the attorney general nomination to a primary? My understanding is that he doesn’t.
Mr. Evans typed:
And then he put out a blue link:
Yet Mr. Evans has not breakfasted with Mr. Schoenbeck nor grudznick for some time. Tomorrow, the breakfasting will be deep and long, and many decisions will be made that drive the world around Mr. Evans, in which he does not grasp his own lack of control over the outcomes that will drive his world.
As was explained in the senate, it is not true that the SDGOP central committee voted unanimously to oppose SB 40, there are many who don’t oppose it. We voted unanimously to let the SDGOP executive board take it under consideration so that we would not have to and could go home. We didn’t want to spend four more hours arguing about it. Most of us understand that party resolutions are not binding on anybody. Our senators and representatives are going to do whatever they want to about it, as they should.
There is widespread misunderstanding about what political parties do. Their function is to raise money, recruit candidates, and get them elected.
Too many people believe that the parties supervise these candidates after they have taken office, and can punish them for going off the reservation..Over the years I have had people ask us to issue resolutions opposing votes our congressional delegation has cast, and had to explain that is not what we do, they can write their own letters to the editor if they want, but the group isn’t going to do that. Political parties aren’t supposed to pick and choose between candidates in a primary, either; individuals associated with the party may do that but it is often frowned upon. The party’s job is to support the people who win those primaries. But there are many who are angry about what the elected officials are doing and are frustrated by their own failure to nominate different candidates. One precinct committeewoman even said “I tried voting in the primary and it didn’t work.” So having failed to get her chosen candidate nominated, she had decided the thing to do was to weaponize the party platform, she wants to use it to beat the candidates who won into submission. That is not what the platform is for; it’s a beacon, not a weapon.
It’s putting it kindly to refer to these supporters-of-unelectable-candidates as dissenters, but whatever you want to call them, they are over-represented at state party conventions and don’t represent the majority of voters in their party. If the process is not corrected, the nominees will be a slate of undesirable candidates.
Primaries are expensive so let Mrs. Beal’s Earth haters run all they want and since turnout is so pathetic especially during midterms the South Dakota Democratic Party should end them and choose candidates at the state conventions.
If the Democrats let their fringe members choose candidates for them they will face the same problem the Republicans see looming on the horizon: Extremist views over-represented.
This was seen at the 2022 SDGOP convention when in the primary, 76% of the voters made it clear they did not want Steve Haugaard for Governor, but his supporters, being over-represented at the convention, almost railroaded him on to the LG spot. The voters as whole are much more moderate than the convention delegates.
In my home state of South Dakota, Democrats total 151,029, unaffiliated voters tally 144,106 but the Earth haters have registered nearly 300,000. So, not running someone, anyone, against Republican At-large US Representative Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson in 2020 and again in 2022 are more embarrassments for the South Dakota Democratic Party who hasn’t won a statewide race since 2008.
Johnson has never stopped raising money so the SDDP needs to hound the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for cash and start running opposition ads on every commercial radio station in South Dakota. My party can recruit some respected Democrats to record radio spots then bombard the airwaves paving the way to 2024.
Johnson needs to be held accountable for coddling a would be dictator and building a war chest on the Big Lie, for his failures to support Medicaid, for voting against marriage, for not moving on immigration reform and for his culpability in driving talent from South Dakota. But he certainly knows which side of his bread gets buttered so the extreme white wing of the Republican Party owns him lock, stock and schlock. Johnson went from being a likable moderate to becoming just another tool of the oligarchs who hoard trillions in South Dakota’s banks and trusts because, hey, that’s where the money is.
Anne, thank you for that perspective from within the party and for noting that the vote that got the resolution against SB 40 rolling was not a unanimous rejection of SB 40 but merely permission for the executive board to consider the matter.
Anne’s story about the disgruntled precinct committeewoman is important: that story shows the anti-democratic, anti-election, and, frankly, anti-American selfishness of that faction of the Republican Party. That faction doesn’t think they have to play by the same rules as all the rest of us. That faction thinks if they can’t win an election, they can simply undo the election and seize power by other means.
Dems control nada in South Duhkota. How can they not be considered anything but fringe?
I’d written:
Bob Mercer writes:
Anne Beal writes:
Anne Beal and the rest of the Jackley-Schoenbeck-Powers wing of the state Republican Party have double standards galore.
I’d written:
Cory writes:
Marty Jackley and Lee Schoenbeck don’t think they have to play by the same rules as all the rest of us. They think if they can’t win the attorney general nomination at the 2026 convention, they can simply cancel that vote and seize power by other means.
Mr. Evans wrote:
grudznick replied:
That Kurt Evans has the courage to sign his name to his work trumps cowards who don’t.
Insaner than most is the culture of corruption the Governor’s Club obscures.
Lar, all your goats are belong to grudznick. Indeed.
I’d written:
“Grudznick” writes:
Marty Jackley got 53 percent. That’s hardly a butt-whuppin’, and I’ve never been angry about it.
Larry Kurtz writes:
Thanks, Larry. “Grudznick” is worse than you too (ha ha).
Perhaps the most ewww-inducing fact of living in SoDak is that the supermajoritarian “Republican” party can’t find a closer-to-eloquent-and-creative human being to paste its current issue onto a blog that no one takes seriously than Phat Phouck, aka Pat Powers, aka PuPu the Blogger.
But it is ironic that the Schoenbeck/Jackley wing can exercise more power over a statewide primary electorate than they can over one small clutch of convention delegates.
Yes Cory, in a statewide primary Jackley would have trounced the Ravnsborg-tainted Natvig. The Kaiser thing was a blip in Jackley’s career, which most people are willing to forgive, as Laura Kaiser is still alive. The Ravnsborg thing was too fresh in the public’s mind. Most of the convention delegates who supported Natvig were just against anybody endorsed by Noem.
But the Ravnsborg nomination came out of a convention nearly dominated by Lance Russell supporters. A blizzard of really nasty anti-Ravnsborg campaigning conducted by the Citizens for Liberty backfired and wiped out the momentum for John Fitzgerald as well. You had to be there to see it.
Had the AG nomination been decided by primary voters, instead of angry convention delegates, Fitz would have likely won it, but that is just my opinion.
We can go back further in time and wonder who would have won the Secretary of State nomination in 2010 if it had been decided by primary voters. I personally don’t believe it would have been Jason Gant.
Catholicism is a powerful drug, indeed.
I’d written:
The supposedly “young” daughter-in-law of former Department of Labor administrative law judge James Marsh that Lee Schoenbeck is shielding from public scrutiny is apparently 34 years old rather than 31. My apologies for the error.
Anne Beal writes:
Many of those delegates know Jason Ravnsborg personally and believe the articles of impeachment Noem supported were false.
Cory writes:
Most primary voters only know what journalists report, and literally zero prominent South Dakota journalists have publicly challenged the Jackley-Schoenbeck-Powers wing’s narrative about the Ravnsborg crash.
Larry Kurtz writes:
There are self-described Roman Catholics in both major wings of the state Republican Party. True believers like Scott Odenbach and Aaron Aylward take the historical evidence for Christ’s divinity and resurrection seriously, and they shouldn’t be confused with nominal Roman Catholics who merely view Roman Catholicism in much the same way the Masonic “brotherhood” is viewed by many Freemasons.
I’d written:
*senate president pro tem
Mea maxima culpa.