The No Labels Party can now put its label on South Dakota’s ballots and voter registration. South Dakota Searchlight reports that Secretary of State Monae Johnson has validated a petition signed by nearly 8,000 South Dakota voters asking for the formation of this fourth party. Any group wishing to form a new party needs to collect 3,502 voter signatures, 1% of the votes cast for Governor in 2022.
South Dakota appears to be the seventh state in which No Labels has officially created its party label. No Labels has qualified for party status in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and, as of Friday, Nevada.
Secretary Johnson has not yet added No Labelistas to her Recognized Political Parties webpage, which currently only recognizes Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. She may be waiting for No Labels to submit its party constitution and/or by-laws. SDCL 12-5-1.1 requires the No Labels state central committee (whose members we are all surely interested to know!) must certify and file its governing rules with the Secretary of State. That statute do not set a deadline for No Labels to convene and create its constitution or bylaws; that statute does require No labels to file its governing rules with the Secretary of State no later than 30 days after the party approves those rules. But No Labels will want to get those rules in to the Secretary of State well before their planned national convention in Dallas on April 14, 2024.
Nor has Secretary Johnson posted any No Labels statement of organization to the state campaign finance page… though I notice that the statute on statements of organization (SDCL 12-27-3) appears to apply only to PACs, candidates, and ballot question committees, not statewide political parties. It is thus not clear whose money or how much money No Labels may have spent to circulate its party-forming petition.
No Labels claims to be associated with the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House. South Dakota’s lone Congressman, Dusty Johnson, participates in that caucus, but don’t expect him to endorse No Labels on any ballot in South Dakota. While Democrats are freaking out over the prospect of Senator Joe Manchin or some other rogue No Labels candidate spoiling President Joe Biden’s reëlection bid, No Labels co-chair Joe Lieberman, who served with Biden in the Senate, says No Labels members tend to feel even more strongly about keeping Donald Trump from getting back to the White House. Biden is as unlikely to win South Dakota in 2024 as he was in 2020, when Trump drew 62% of the vote, so a strong No Labels moderate has more of a chance of denying the GOP nominee South Dakota’s three Electoral College votes than of fouling a Biden upset. That means our man Dusty won’t be talking up the merits of anything No Labels tries to do in South Dakota.
Never heard of ’em.
Lieberman belongs in the same trash bin as Mansion and Cinema as anti-Denocratric magat tools.
I didn’t know Lieberman was still alive. A member of the venerable Smirking Chimp website called him “a doughy pants lump” in 2000 (I think) which was aptly descriptive.
Liberman has always looked like he’s dead. Cold as fish, eyes and a voice that is….well….dead. No labels is still a trumper outfit.
What is it about these folks in the center with off-putting voices and speaking styles? Lieberman, Manchin, and Perot stick out as people who should work on their delivery. Perot is dead, but, as was stated above, Lieberman’s delivery is deadly. And Manchin talks a mile a minute. I’ve never heard someone talk so fast and say nothing as in a high school debate I once judged . It’s he fat-cat lobbyists he pals around with have a meter to pay him by the amount of gobbledygook he spits. Sinema is another one. Talks and says nothing.
Donald–as a former Debate Judge, I fully concur.
Mr. Pay, there sometimes is a reason someone talks so fast while saying nothing, it’s called Meth. West Virginia is a proving ground for that stuff.
Who is “No Labels?” In a post-Citizens United world–with government of, by, and for the moneyed–follow the money.
With no apparent South Dakota citizen groundswell, why does No Labels pursue political party status here?
Unwilling to disclose its donors, No Labels likely finds South Dakota an easy target.
Gov. Noem championed and signed ALEC model legislation PPPA Personal Privacy Protection Act bills
to protect donor privacy in 2021–HB1079, SB103.
(https://sdlegislature.gov/Session/Bill/22099, https://sdlegislature.gov/Session/Bill/22086/218060)
6/23/2023 Politico
No Labels declines to reveal just who is funding its third party bid.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/23/no-labels-third-party-bid-election-00103331
7/14/2023 Common Dreams
ALEC Leads Charge to Keep Dark Money Donors Secret Nationwide
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/alec-leads-charge-to-keep-dark-money-donors-secret-nationwide
5/23/2023 Common Dreams
Who’s Funding ‘No Labels’?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/no-labels-funded-by-billionaires
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/06/no-labels-exposed-heres-a-list-of-donors-funding-its-effort-to-disrupt-the-2024-race/#:~:text=Among%20the%20No%20Labels%20backers,Barack%20Obama%2C%20Hillary%20Clinton%2C%20and
Both sides got money, but mostly magats.