South Dakota Democratic Party chair Jennifer Slaight-Hansen says Democrats can’t meet to remove her from office unless she lets them:
Slaight-Hansen said she rejects the idea that a meeting can be called without her consent. She said the party constitution makes it clear only she can do that, and she does not intend to attend the Aug. 19 meeting nor recognize any action taken there.
“As I read it, and as I have been legally advised, the request comes to the chair and I will set the date for a special meeting,” Slaight-Hansen said.
She said she will schedule a meeting after consulting with the Executive Committee and asking for clarification. Her legal advisor has drawn a different conclusion on the process than Nesiba and other party leaders have reached, Slaight-Hansen said [Tom Lawrence, “Recall Election on SDDP Chair Set for Aug. 19—But Slaight-Hansen Says Meeting Is Invalid and Will Not Abide by Its Decision,” South Dakota Standard, 2023.08.10].
Slaight-Hansen’s legal advisor is not reading law—SDCL 12-5 sets no rules for how parties pick or axe their chairs. Any legal argument Slaight-Hansen makes to nullify any action party officials take at their August 19 meeting in Fort Pierre must rely solely on the SDDP constitution.
So let’s look at the relevant SDDP constitutional provisions concerning recall and meetings:
- Article 11 Section 1: Any elected officials of the party may be recalled by the following procedure: one-half of the members eligible to vote for the position must sign a recall petition and present it at an official meeting of the body of the elected party officer. A vote to recall the officer must be held within 30 days of the presentation of the petition and two-thirds vote of those eligible to vote and present are required for recall.
- Art. 6 Sec. 9: State central committee members representing at least eight counties may require the state chair to call a state central committee meeting within 30 days after the chair receives notice of such action. An advanced notice of 10 days shall be given to members of the State Central Committee.
- Art. 8 Sec. 7: The state executive board of the party shall have the power to call a meeting of the state central committee whenever, in their discretion, the interest of the party may demand.
- Art. 8 Sec. 5: Any meeting [of the state executive board] called by the state chair or three members of the state executive board shall be called by written or electronic notice to each member of the executive board at least five days in advance of the meeting, said notice shall clearly state and describe the principle matter of business to be considered at said meeting; provided, however, that the notice requirement shall not restrict action on other business matters.
- Art. 1 Sec. 3: The time and place for all public meetings of the party at all levels shall be publicized fully and in such a manner as to assure timely notice to all interested persons. Such meetings shall be held in places accessible to all party members and large enough to accommodate all interested persons.
- Art. 6 Sec. 10: A quorum of the state central committee meeting shall consist of not less than 14 counties. No business shall be conducted without the said quorum being present. For quorum purposes, every central committee member represents the county in which they are registered to vote.
In principle, a democratic constitution cannot allow an elected leader to single-handedly thwart any movement to remove her from office. But it doesn’t sound like Slaight-Hansen is claiming such autocratic power. She recognizes she cannot stop state central committee members from exercising their Article 11 Section 1 right to petition for her recall. But 11.1 requires those recallers to present their petition at a state central committee meeting. The recall petition itself does not call a meeting.
So who can call a meeting? Slaight-Hansen’s claim that only she can appears to rest on Article 6 Section 9, which says the chair must respond to a call from state central committee members from at least eight counties for a meeting. But 6.9 makes clear such a call from members is not a request but a demand with which she must comply. However, Slaight-Hansen appears to argue that the demand still had to come to her and that she gets to set the date for the meeting. 6.9 does say the meeting must take place within 30 days after the chair receives the demand. 6.9 does not clearly say that the chair gets to pick the date, nor does 6.9 clearly prohibit the members calling for a meeting from demanding a specific date convenient to the members.
Article 8 Section 7 provides an alternate route for calling a state central committee meeting that avoids the chair entirely. The state executive board, a smaller body of 22 party officials including the chair, may also call a meeting of the state central committee. The executive board may take action by simple majority, meaning they would not need the chair’s permission to call a central committee meeting to receive and vote on a recall petition.
But has the executive board met to formally take that action? Per Article 8 Section 5, three members of the executive board can call for a meeting, but they have to give the full board five days notice. 6.9 requires another ten days notice of a central committee meeting. Together, those provisions mean that for the August 19 recall meeting and vote to be valid, the executive board would have had to give notice of its intent to meet and call a central committee meeting no later than August 4.
Lawrence reports that the Executive Board chose not to accept the resignation of SDDP exec Dan Ahlers and sent Slaight-Hansen a letter on August 3 stating the reasons its supports recalling her. So if the executive formally met to authorize that letter, they could also have authorized the August 19 meeting.
Slaight-Hansen thus appears to have two technicalitous toeholds from which she may challenge the validity of the August 19 meeting and recall election. She may demonstrate first that she has not received any formal notice from central committee members from at least eight counties that they demand an August 19 meeting. Second, she may argue that the executive board did not provide proper notice of its meeting to discuss the exec’s resignation and the desire to meet to recall the chair.
But at best, such arguments will only delay a recall meeting, requiring the recall callers to go back and provide the necessary notices with sufficient time before the central committee convenes. Then, Slaight-Hansen’s only hope will be that an emergency central committee meeting fails to draw members from at least 14 counties to constitute the quorum required by Article 6 Section 10.
And if those technicalities are all Slaight-Hansen has to protect her position, why protect it?
A very complete analysis of the situation, Cory. You do make one common error at the end though. (Tom Lawrence, in his article, makes the same error.) You conflate the SDDP’s Executive Committee (4 members, the Chair, V-chair, Secretary, and Treasurer) and its Executive Board (approximately 23 members). The Executive Committee met on August 3rd, not the Executive Board. The Executive Board has not meet since July 28th and no notice of a meeting has been sent since that date as of this writing. As I read Article VIII, section 5, of the SDDP constitution if 3 members of the Executive Board or the Chair send out a notice today (Friday, August 11th) the earliest the Executive Board could meet to call a SDDP Central Committee meeting would be August 16th, or maybe 18th. (I am not sure if weekends count). And, given the 10 day notice requirement for a SDDP Central Committee meeting the earliest it could meet to receive the recall petitions would be August 26th or 28th.
This issue may seem trivial but the conflation between the Executive Committee and the Executive Board is at the core of much of the innuendo that Jennifer Slaight-Hansen’s (JSH’s) suffers and her opponents point to in their complaints about her failure to strictly follow the SDDP constitution. If you remove this conflation, most of their complaints melt away and you are left wondering about their true motives.
Mr. Osborn, I’ve always thought your were a dish!t but you’re on the nose here. Dan Ahlers is a Democrat in name only at best and a mansplainer at worst. If he doesn’t know how to negotiate with a progressive sitting as Chair he was ill-suited for the position anyway and should have butt out before now.
Sheldon is right. Chase away the smoke and it reveals a naked power grab by Ahlers to become a paid chair. The fools who are helping him shove Jennifer out of her elected position also appear to have their own myopic agenda. None of this is pointed to a stronger, more prepared state Democrat Party.
Whether Jennifer remains as chair or Ahler’s little helpers and their hidden hands succeed, the dung pile that is now the state Democrat Party will become a much smaller and less significant dung pile.
Congratulations.
Let’s see now, Ahlers is a man, so there’s that. I think that if a woman, say Slaight-Hansen, remains in the chair, there may be a very good opportunity for Democrats to actually start a comeback. What the hell are you smoking jerry?. Yep, I think what has been missing here, in the conversations, is the word Abortion. That seems to be the equalizer of and the defeater of the republican grasp.
So Democrats, get some juevos (balls) and start the campaign on what you will do for women and their rights. Just remember how it was a few years ago when women decided that they were not gonna be shoved around. They protested big time, I saw it in Rapid City. Put old Dirty Johnson on notice. Put all these smug arse’s on notice that they cannot hide behind their support for abolishing abortion by not making a choice, are they for it or against it. If they’re against women’s rights and their important healthcare, they should just come out and say they hate women.
None of this will ever happen with a dude in charge. If you wanna win, support and get a woman to lead the charge. We’ve all seen what happens with the other way around with a weak woman. At least this lady seems to have some fire in the belly. Ahlers is not the fit for the job.
Every law or procedural require can be definition be view merely as a technicality if one wants to. Want is the purpose of a required procedure if it is to be dismissed and not followed simply by claiming it is a technicality? That is when the rule of law starts to break down.
Sheldon, where did I conflate the four-person executive committee with the 22-person executive board? The only mention of the executive committee, the four top elected state party officials, comes in the quote from Lawrence’s report, in which he says JSH says she will consult with the executive committee for clarification and then schedule a meeting.
Scott, I don’t seek to dismiss the rules by calling them technicalities. If the rules spell out technical steps and those steps aren’t followed to call a meeting, the meeting is invalid. I am saying that the question of the legality of the August 19 meeting is technical and does not address the core issue of whether JSH deserves to remain as party chair.
I question whether a power grab is taking place because the power being grabbed—leader of the South Dakota Democratic Party—is ridiculously minuscule. Consider that the complaint against JSH is mostly that she exercised more power than the party rules allow.
I also question (at my own peril, because 96 is highly knowledgeable about party affairs) 96’s claim that Ahlers is seeking to become a paid chair. Why would he do that? He’s already drawing a check as executive director; JSH is not drawing a check as chair. Would the state central committee authorize paying more for Ahlers to do both jobs? And if Dan just wants more money, wouldn’t it be easier for him just to open a new business?
96 Tears: London Calling
Cory, none of this bruhaha makes much sense when you consider JSH was legally and overwhelmingly elected two months ago. Are we now to believe that those same Central Committee Members had no idea of who Jennifer Slaight-Hansen is when they nominated and elected her?
Was she supposed to turn around decades of neglect by county and state party officials in just two months? The accusations from the young Dems and the legislators appear to me as exaggerated and contrived. What were they expecting in two months from a volunteer?
This Dan Ahlers I’ve seen lately in the press doesn’t jibe with the Dan Ahlers I’ve watched over the years, and neither does the depiction of JSH as some kind of shrill, brutish dilettante. That depiction is completely unimaginable.
Dan’s current narrative sounds like a guy who wants total control and doesn’t want to be hampered by anyone, especially his boss. Who put a gun to Ahlers’ head to take the job as Executive Director? Taking a personal difference with your boss and going nuclear with it, which appears to be what has happened, looks like a very juvenile and amateurish thing to do. The publicly stated judgment of the 11 legislators who’ve announced their support of removal looks priggish and premature. When did they run out of Republicans to fight or big issues to champion?
If JSH’s done anything wrong it may be that her interpretation of the state party rules and bylaws may differ with the understanding of others. How does that stack up as grounds for removal in two months as a first move by her opponents? Geez, folks, it’s summer in the non-election year. This is the ever-shrinking minority party whose county parties go to sleep each summer until school starts. Legislators go on vacations. Yes, things need to turn around and fast, but holding the chair’s election in spring instead of the previous December puts the starting point in the slowest months of a two-year election cycle. What were people expecting?
Cory, I appreciate your question. It’s logical and reasonable. Considering the events as I’ve seen reported here and through other state news outlets, I don’t know what else to conclude. Somebody wants to topple JSH, but I don’t see what the rabble wants instead of JSH. If they’re going to go to this extreme so very publicly, they had better put up what they want or shut up. So much smoke. So much skullduggery and self-inflicted damage to the SDDP brand. So many hidden hands. For what reason? What’s the agenda, or is there no agenda? Nobody’s explaining that with only a week before August 19.
To think that only two months before, they cheerfully elected JHS legally, transparently and in a landslide …
The way things are going for the Party, the Chair should be a paid position. You’d have to work a 24/7 schedule to shoulder that boulder up the mountain….regardless of the effectiveness of the Party Executive.
Cory, in the fourth paragraph at the end of your original post you quote Tom Lawrence as writing that the Executive Board met on August 3rd, refused to accept Dan Ahler’s resignation letter and wrote Jennifer stating the reasons it supports recalling her. Herein lies the conflation, the Executive Board did not meet on August 3rd and it has not met since then. It was the Executive Committee that met on August 3rd and, it almost goes without saying but I will say it anyway in this case, any letter produced from that meeting could not have come from the Executive Board. No Central Committee meeting could have properly (legally?) been called for August 19th at the August 3rd Executive Committee meeting since such a meeting, under the Executive Board option for calling special Central Committee meetings, can only be called by a majority vote of the Executive Board.
As I said before, your reference to Tom Lawrence’s error, thus failing to correct his conflation, is common and understandable. I have made the error myself. But, it is also one that those who push their case against Jennifer conveniently overlook. They repeat again and again she did not consult with the Executive Board on a number of occasions when she was only required to speak with the Executive Committee which she did in every case that matters. The hysteria and vehemence of some of those pushing to recall Jennifer is difficult to understand unless money is involved in some way.
Can either the board or commission change the constitution to make the chair and executive director do both jobs and be paid?
Why are there two positions and how long has it been that way?
Mr. 96tears. grudznick is among they who think Mr. Ahlers is generally a pretty swell fellow, for being a libbie and all.
But this Ms. Slaight-Hansen, she is a piece of work from all accounts. I have heard she is a shrill, brutish dilettante, with dilutions of grandeur.
I’ve heard John Wiik and Dan Lederman are sisters.
Jennifer is neither shrill or brutish nor does she harbor illusions of grandeur. One of the more humorous attacks the 6′ 4″ Ahlers made against her was that the 5′ 4″ Slaight-Hansen created a hostile work environment for him from 180 miles away in Aberdeen. I chuckle every time this complaints comes to mind. Poor Danny boy should have stayed in his small pond in Dell Rapids.
Truth be told, I don’t think it is important to her detractors what she did or didn’t do. She could have jaywalked for all they care.
Here is my video summary of the action in the South Dakota Democratic Party these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr8DIg3oHFI
Mr. Osborn, your video explains it all. This is almost a RICO case of conspiracy and for what you ask? Money, hell ya, always always money. Look to the reasons and you will always find benjamins.
All political parties are corrupt to their core because the goal of private corporation political parties is power, not public service.
Ahlers was in the wrong business.
Define corrupt please. It seems to me, as a dear reader, that Ms. Slaight-Hansen was an upaid chair. Is this correct?