Top Ten Stories of 2024: The Dakota Free Press Wish List!

What would I like to write about in this shiny new year? Here is the Dakota Free Press Wish List, the top ten stories I really really hope will come to pass in this glorious new 2024:

1. Legislature Leaves Initiative and Referendum Untouched (Pierre, March 12, 2024): South Dakota’s laws governing election laws on ballot questions will remain unchanged after this year’s Session. The Senate last week rejected the last of several bills introduced by conservative Republican House members that would have severely curtailed if not made practically impossible citizen initiatives and referenda. Representative Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids) sponsored five such bills, ranging from increases in petition signature requirements to felony charges for relatively minor infractions of petition law. Critics said Hansen’s proposals lilely would not have withstood court challenge. “We’re sick of losing to Cory Heidelberger, Rick Weiland, and Jim Leach in court,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska). “A lawyer like Jon should be able to recognize the legal realities and not pick fights he knows we’ll lose.”
2. Sioux Falls Report Wins Pultizer for Reporting on Corruption in Pierre (Sioux Falls, May 8, 2024): Patrick Lalley has won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. The Sioux Falls Live reporter earned the award with his months-long reporting on corruption in the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development, specifically multi-million-dollar contracts awarded to an Ohio firm to produce Governor Kristi Noem’s “Freedom Works Here” advertising campaign. With the help of a number of inside sources (remarkable given the insularity and political captivity spawned by generations of one-party rule in South Dakota), Lalley was able to document a rigged bidding process that guaranteed contracts and other favors to out-of-state consulting firms connected with Noem’s close political advisor and friend Corey Lewandowski. Instrumental in drawing national attention to Lalley’s reporting was a photo of Noem and Lewandowski snuggling at an Aspen ski resort during what Noem had claimed was a trip to speak at a conservative think tank.
3. Noem Loses Communications Staff (Pierre, May 15, 2024): Governor Kristi Noem appears to be without any official communications staff. Press secretary Amelia Joy announced on Instagram last night that she is leaving Pierre to work on imminent Republican nominee Nikki Haley’s Presidential campaign. Haley confirmed this announcement with a post showing Haley and Joy together at the Lincoln Memorial doing Charlie’s Angel poses with several other female campaign staffers. Hours later, the Governor’s Office issued a terse press release announcing that communications chief Ian Fury was leaving the Second Floor to seek opportunities in the private sector. Fury has been unavailable for comment on any story for two weeks and has been silent on social media since April 4. Sources at the Capitol report hearing Fury and the Governor arguing and shouting vulgarities at the door to the Governor’s Office last night and seeing Fury leaving the Capitol with a large box immediately afterward. Noem, who has been without a chief of staff for nearly a year, now has six vacancies in top-level advisory positions.
4. State Moves New Penitentiary from Lincoln County to Eagle Butte (Canton, July 17, 2024): In a surprise appearance, Secretary of Corrections Kellie Wasko appeared before the Lincoln County Commission yesterday and announced that the state has abandoned plans to build a new state prison in rural Lincoln County. Acceding to vigorous opposition from local landowners, Wasko said the state would instead build the new facility in Dewey County, along Highway 212 on the outskirts of Eagle Butte. “We wanted to keep the prison near Sioux Falls to attract workers,” Wasko told the commission, the majority of whose members had expressed opposition to siting the prison in Lincoln Coujnty, “but we realized we have lots of unemployed workers available in Indian Country. Lincoln County doesn’t need any economic boost; Dewey County does. The remote location will increase safety. Plus, we think the prospect of being shipped off to the reservation to spend years under the watchful eye of Indian guards will deter a lot of crime.”
5. RV Voters Celebrate Residency Victory, Abandon Capitol Camp (Pierre, October 15, 2024): After occupying the Capitol Complex in Pierre for 45 days, RV owners declared victory in their battle for recognition of their voting residency in South Dakota, as Governor Kristi Noem signed an executive order directing Secretary of State Monae Johnson and all county auditors to approve voter registration forms from any citizen presenting valid evidence of a permanent address in South Dakota. Secretary Johnson’s attempt to purge the voter rolls of all voters registered at RV mailbox services in Sioux Falls, Emery, Box Elder, Spearfish, and other towns sparked a nationwide uproar among full-time travelers who live in their RVs. RV rights protesters began arriving in Pierre and occupying the Capitol Complex on September 1; by September 20, the first day of early voting, the parking lots and surrounding streets were packed with over 1,000 RVs. Another 2,000 RVs settled into parking lots and camping sites throughout Pierre and Ft. Pierre and participated in daily convoys around the Capitol and Governor’s Mansion. The protest was largely peaceful, and Governor Noem ordered law enforcement not to take action against the protestors, many of whom draped posters of Governor Noem on horseback and the slogan Freedom! The protestors also brought a much-needed boost in sales tax to the Pierre/Ft. Pierre area. Upon the Governor’s announcement, RVers flocked to the Hughes County Courthouse, cast ballots for the general election, and then hightailed it out of town. “We’re glad the Governor finally returned us to the fair status quo that existed before the current Secretary of State started tromping on our rights as Americans,” said protest leader Jenna Mae Fithwell. “Now we gotta get moving—winter’s coming!”
6. Voters Restore Abortion Rights in South Dakota (Sioux Falls, November 6, 2024): South Dakotans voted 55% to 45% yesterday to approve an initiated amendment writing protections for abortion rights into the state constitution. Yesterday’s results mirrored the results of statewide ballot questions in 2006 and 2008 in which South Dakotans rejected abortion bans. Planned Parenthood, which initially resisted this initiative on shaky and shifting grounds, claimed credit for the victory, attributing voter turnout to its multi-million-dollar campaign featuring stories of women who have been denied vital health care in South Dakota under the draconian abortion restrictions triggered by United States Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
7. Democrats Gain Seats in Legislature (Dell Rapids, November 6, 2024): Rallying around ballot questions on abortion rights and sales tax reform, Democratic candidates flipped six Republican seats in the House and four in the Senate in Tuesday’s Legislative races. One House seat flipped belonged to Representative Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids). “Hansen was so busy traveling and wining and dining his fancy out-of-state political allies that he forgot the folks here in Dell Rapids who elected him,” said one voter who declined to give her name. “Meanwhile, the Democrats were out knocking on every door in town and talking to people about the real freedom that comes from respecting women’s choice and working on issues that put food on the table. That’s what we need more of in Pierre.” Even with Hansen out, Republicans retain a 57–13 majority in the House and a 25–10 majority in the Senate.
8. Biden Wins Four More Years (Washington, DC, November 7): President Joe Biden has won reëlection. The last results from Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona have shown Biden defeating Republican nominee Nikki Haley 82,444,019 to 78,989,104 in the popular vote and 281 to 257 in the Electoral College. Both margins are narrower than the margins by which Biden won in 2020, indicating that Haley’s presentation of herself as an honest, principled Republican drew more mainstream Republicans, moderates, and independents to the GOP side than the radical MAGA voters who were mobilized by Donald Trump’s celebrity and authoritarianism and who disengaged from politics when Trump suffered a humiliating public meltdown following his convictions for election interference and endangerment of national security. Despite some fringe efforts at delaying counts in Florida, Texas, and South Dakota, final results from all states were available within 48 hours of the closing of the polls, thanks to massive efforts by local officials to run secure and efficient elections.
9. Noem Fudges Numbers on Food Tax Repeal (Pierre, December 4, 2024): Governor Kristi Noem in her budget address yesterday said that loss of sales tax revenue on food would result in pay cuts for teachers and job cuts state employees. Speaking to legislators, Noem said the voters’ decision to repeal the food tax on a 72%–28% statewide vote in November will cost the state over $200 million dollars a year. Noem said the 5% reduction in K-12 aid and a 6% reduction in the state’s workforce. Legislators from both sides of the aisle were quick to point that such cuts are not on the table and that the Governor’s budget figures don’t add up. Reëlected Senate Majority Leader Casey Crabtree (R-8/Madison) pointed to figures from the Legislative Research Council indicating that the food tax repeal, which takes effect July 1, 2025, will cost closer to $120 million and that steady growth in state sales tax collections in the Black Hills and along the I-29 corridor largely erase that shortfall. Crabtree declined to speculate on how the Governor’s numbers came out so wrong, but numerous observers in Pierre suggested the mass turnover on the Governor’s staff this year has left her without knowledgeable advisors.
10. PUC Approves Summit CO2 Pipeline (Pierre, December 20, 2024): The Public Utilities Commission voted 3–0 yesterday to approve  Summit Carbon Solutions’ application for a permit to build pipelines to carry carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and other customers to sequestration sites in North Dakota. The PUC rejected the Iowa-based company’s application for the project and another CO2 pipeline plan in September 2023. Summit secured the PUC’s support this time with a revised plan that follows a circuitous route across land where owners have agreed to profitable terms without the threat of eminent domain. “Summit stopped threatening landowners and instead offered to work with them and share the profits,” said Commissioner Chris Nelson. “That’s what changed my vote. Now we have a project where landowner rights are respected and we can start sequestering carbon dioxide to help fight climate change. Everybody wins!”

If anything like those stories come to pass in 2024, you’ll hear about it here on Dakota Free Press!

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Past Dakota Free Press/Madville Times Wish Lists: Sixteen years of jump-off points to alternative South Dakota futures!