The House and Senate have agreed on a compromise map, the Sparrow map we discussed in this morning’s post. Bob Mercer notes that the much amended House Bill 1001 passed the Senate 30–2 and squeaked through the House, over the objection of conservatives who still haven’t figured out how to hold a line, 37–31.
Now we can all have fun analyzing the map for potential impacts on the 2022 election. One of the easiest items to check is partisan leaning of each district, as calculated by Dave’s Redistricting, the online tool legislators used to draw their lines. Based on 2016 and 2018 votes, Dave’s Redistricting figures the statewide partisan split is 62.45% Republican, 34.99% Democratic, and 2.55% independent. Thus, the fact that 32 of the 35 districts have Republican vote percentages greater than 50%. Republicans break 60% in 22 districts. Republicans run between 50% and 60% in ten others. Democrats break 50% in only three districts, one in Indian Country and two in Sioux Falls:
- District 27—Oglala Lakota, Bennett, Jackson, eastern Pennington: 52.18% Dem, 45.69% GOP
- District 15—downtown Sioux Falls, west to I-29, north to Smithfield, the airport, and north Cliff: 51.37% Dem, 45.13% GOP.
- District 10—McKennan Park, east and north from Cliff to Washington HS and Great Bear: 50.57% Dem, 46.54% GOP.
To any Democrats who want to complain, oh woe, the Republicans gerrymandered us out of competition with this map, I issue a challenge to come up with any map, even wildly gerrymandered ones, that would produce any more Democratic-leaning districts. I tried and will contend better Senate districts for Dems are mathematically and geographically impossible.
All but two of the Senate districts are majority white. Two districts, 27 and 26 (Rosebud, Lower Brule, Crow Creek, and Chamberlain), are majority American Indian: 67.65% in 27, 53.44% in 26. Our Lakota and other tribal neighbors make up double-digit percentages in six other districts:
- District 28—northwest SD, including the Standing Rock counties of Corson, Dewey, and Ziebach and the white folks in Perkins, Harding and Butte: 33.04%
- District 32—a chunk of Rapid City north of I-90, downtown, and south to Monument Health: 23.94%
- District 21—south central SD, including Aurora, Douglas, the heavily Yankton Sioux Charles Mix, Gregory, and heavily Rosebud Sioux Tripp counties: 17.05%
- District 1—northeast SD, including most of heavily Sisseton-Wahpeton Roberts County and the progressively whiter Marshall, Day, and majority of Brown: 16.13%
- District 35—north and east Rapid, out to the Pennington part of Box Elder, down to School of Mines and Elks Golf Course: 11.21%
- District 24—the Capital district, with Pierre and Fort Pierre; all of Haakon, Stanley, and Sully, most of Hughes and Hyde: 10.07%.
Dave’s Redistricting doesn’t show the single-member House districts in 26 and 28; however, HB 1001 preserves that split from the current system to provide our Lakota neighbors with majority votes in 26A (mostly Mellette and Todd counties) and 28A (mostly Corson, Dewey, and Ziebach counties).
Update 16:56 CST: Democratic officialdom is speaking nicely about the new district map. Here’s South Dakota Democratic Party chairman Randy Seiler’s charitable statement on the passage of the Sparrow map:
South Dakota Democrats look forward to a competitive election cycle under the newly drawn district boundaries. Democratic legislators were actively involved in the redistricting process and worked to get the fairest maps possible.
We are pleased to see the North Rapid community has been united in District 32. For too long, that community has been divided between different legislative districts, and this map is an important step forward.
We appreciate the work of the Senate Republicans to make this a bipartisan effort, which has delivered fairer maps than we had the past ten years. We can all agree better, fairer maps are better for our democracy.
Thank you to Rep. Ryan Cwach and Sen. Troy Heinert for their long hours and tireless efforts serving on the House and Senate Redistricting Committees to get the best maps possible for South Dakota. Rep. Cwach and Sen. Heinert had a significant impact on this process through their thoughtful and diligent approach.
We encourage all Democrats in South Dakota to get acquainted with their new district and consider whether they or someone they know should run for office there. We are excited to work with candidates and potential candidates for office. These new maps shuffle the board and present new opportunities for Democrats to win seats across the state and restore balance in Pierre [Randy Seiler, SDDP press release, 2021.11.10].
It could be worse…
OK, Randy–
“We encourage all Democrats in South Dakota to get acquainted with their new district and consider whether they or someone they know should run for office there. We are excited to work with candidates and potential candidates for office. These new maps shuffle the board and present new opportunities for Democrats to win seats across the state and restore balance in Pierre”
1. Balance? Randy, did you ever hear of the great number Zero? Instead of mealy mouthing towards bipartisanship, why not just admit, hey our Opponent Republicans are a little warped, we;re gonna do them a favor, and RETIRE THEM ALL for 10 years? Why not? Democracy can produce a 40% Democrat , 40% Progressive and 20% Libertarian Legislature, with NO republicans, if the people Vote that way.
Why not ZERO? Its a Good clean concept.
2. All Democrats? Democrats have been running for years and losing. Its time for a new concept.
The idea of Democrats and republicans SHARING government perpetually is really BORING and actually
does not take into account what the PEOPLE want.
3. Better WAY.
We have to invent a BETTER way of getting the people’s will into ACTION.
Elections every 2 years isnt cutting it. SO MANY people don[‘t vote. And those that do vote
are BORED by the super conservatism of the Demnocrats
and the very bad tendencies of the republicans to ignore the will of the people.
Parties a ren’t working.
We need multiple parties like in Europe.
Assuming there will be 2 parties in SD forever is a VERY bad assumption/.
The fact that the Infrastructure Bill had to be passed with bipartisanship, lead by Senators Sinema and Manchin. This successful venture shows why it’s important to elect Moderates and NOT Radicals from either side of the political spectrum to accomplish great things for the American people.. South Dakota Democrats are going to have to get back to electing more reasonable minded people and not candidates from the fringe elements if they ever hope to become a successful political party again in the Rushmore State.
ABC, I actually I do agree with you on the point you made for a multi-party system…they would better represent those of the respective Fringe and Centers of our political spectrum. Radical Left could have their party, the Radical Right to have their party and the Centers could each have their own political parties.
Clearly, the MVP here for you libbies is Mr. Smith. Behind the scenes he must have crafted one swell deal. It also seems that perhaps those who are insaner than most have lost yet another battle.
The town of Wall is going to be upset, and Gordon Pederson is spinning in his grave, clawing his way upwards and will likely stalk about tonight.
Democrats will do well in this new district map and would do even better with funding. Howard Dean may have been a screamer, but he had a damn good strategy idea https://medium.com/liberaldemocratexpand/howard-dean-and-the-50-state-strategy-1be36f1aef4f
Guy – there are no “radicals” on the left in SD. All the SD radicals are of the right wing variety.
Richard, if that were truly the case, then we should see more elected Democrats in South Dakota. But, we don’t and we haven’t for years because the party in both the state and the nation have taken a hard left turn. However, after the passage of the Infrastructure Bill, we may begin to see the Moderates regaining more influence in the Democratic Party. It’s becoming increasingly evident that Centrists in the party are very concerned about the extreme left wing’s negative influence of late on the Democrats and how that could play-out in next year’s elections. The more reasonable elements of the Democrat Party began to realize after the party lost several seats in the U.S. House last election.
Like ABC, I believe a multi-party system may be a better alternative for all parties. That way, the extreme left wing could leave the Democrat Party and finally let the Moderates and Blue Dogs have some peace in reestablishing a more reasonable party that is closer to middle American values. I would propose the same thing for the Republican side as well.
Mr. Schriever, are you claiming Messrs. Seiler and Nesiba and Ms. Duba are not of the radical, alt-left? And what about the staff of that Sioux Falls newspaper and that young woman on the K.E.L.O and Mr. H? Those, sir, are radical leftists.
Mr. Guy, so you are talking about something like this? I think we have this:
Libbies Those Insaner than Most
Mr. H Mr. Howie, the Overgodder
The Conservatives with Common Sense are that sweet spot you all seek. Join us for breakfast.
Come on Guy and grudz, your two peas in a pod. Skunks in the middle of road.
The new map for my old district four now takes small part of Roberts and takes Jason Frerichs out of his old district and puts him in a very red turning one where he won’t be as well known. Nice move by those in power to get rid of a Very successful Dem in the future.
Grudz…No, they are not radical leftists in my book, not by a long shot. The press people are just media people, out looking for a good story which focuses on some form of political conflict…that’s what makes a story news. Ms. Duba follows a long tradition of Bohemian, anti prohibition, anti big agribusiness, anti big Sioux Falls money Democrats. Catholic, small family farmer, Coop oriented, they have been a part of South Dakota politics since the turn of the twentieth century.. Mr. Nesiba is a thoughtful, well educated man from the eastern tier of counties…like Tim Johnson and certainly not a radical. Our blog host has a wonderful talent for presenting issues and taking a liberal but fat from radical position…look elsewhere for your radicals the Democrats in South Dakota are a pretty tame, sane bunch.
Mr. Peterson…I’m hopeful Mr. Frerichs, because of his family’s years of service will be able to survive in the new district…you are correct..it was a hit job by the Senator from Watertown.
Ms. Duba is Catholic? I’d never have thunk that.
Mr. Nesiba is a political operative with nefarious intentions, which he will not voice out loud. I don’t think he was born in South Dakota.
Let’s see how many insane on the right. Qs, not the star trek variety but the real insane. Proud boys, proud but still boys. Any evangelical you care to name, made up Jesus boys, do they let women in? They supported that wonderful Christian Donnie by 81%. Any white surpremist you care to name. 2020 election boys, you know, the trump won signs. Anti vaxers, 95 percent right wing, get the iron lungs ready. Right wing militias, dozens of those. 3 percenters, You can get a good list of the formal groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Now Guy you like to say the left took a left turn. What about the crazies elected within the Republican party? The right has gone fascist and brag about it. Juan Williams said it right “the GOP is now the party of grifters and kooks:” Remember when Republicans actually used to generate policy?
Grudz, of course I’m “talking about something like this”. Why not? I’ve been a proponent of the multi-party system for at least the past 25 years. Like ABC has said, it’s become quite apparent that the two-party system does NOT represent everyone adequately. Why have these intra-party fights when we could have multiple parties to respectively represent everyone. NO MORE ideological purity tests, NO MORE intra-party civil wars and NO MORE “primarying people” when you can have multiple parties that represent all ideologies. It’s the same kind of thing they’ve already figured out in Europe.
Mr. Anderson, grudznick can put together a list for you of those insaner than most, in the legislatures, if you wish.
Grudz, multi-party system…it’s time for America.
Grudz…are you now reading minds??? Nesiba a political operative with nefarious intentions??? My goodness, aren’t they all??? Get out your Mighty Karnac hat and start throwing glitter into the air…you’ve got an act with legs.
grudz and Guy – yooze guys are so far to the right the center right appears to you to be the left and the actual center appears to be radically left to you. The reality is there are hardly even any traditional centrists in this state. The fun house mirror image of the world is where you get your perspective.
Guy – rank choice voting might be able to usher in a more multilateral legislature.
I am all for multi-party democracy. Compromise and collaboration become NECESSITIES in such arrangements. grudz is hell-bent on one party rule.
I’ve been moved without moving, from a rapidly urbanizing #6 to a deeply ruralist #16.
If you like the final results of this years redistricting process, then you should thank the Democrats in Pierre, because without them the Blackbird/Sparrow map would have never passed the House. This map, a Senate map, passed the House 37 to 31 with all seven Democrats present voting for it.
Now, if you put your Democratic hat on for a moment. This final map does give Democrats in Sioux Falls two legislative districts (15 and 10) where they are the majority unlike the prior ten years when that was only true in one (15). But ironically this has been done at the expense of 15. Democrats also believe that 12 might now be more competitive, but if you look at 12, 12 lost a purple and a blue precinct to 11 and 15 respectfully, but then gained two purple/blue precincts from 13, and at 13’s expense I might add. Thus, I question if 12 is more competitive and those Democrats still living in the new 13 should be very upset because 13 has become even more Republican.
But all of this is a partisan viewpoint, which none of us should have in advocating and reviewing the legislative process for redistricting, but what we should all have is a constitutional view of this whole process, and when you do that you will recognize that the final map approved by our legislature, when it especially comes to Sioux Falls and Rapid City, is unconstitutional.
Now, why is the new map unconstitutional? Well, because the state constitution states that the legislative districts must be compact, but if they were compact, then Sioux Falls would have eight legislative districts based on it’s 2020 Census population and not be involved in ten and Rapid City would have three legislative districts and not four based on it’s 2020 Census population. AND actually, Rapid City has five if you include the airport area.
Is there any good news coming from this new map from a constitutional standpoint you might ask? Well, for Sioux Falls we have gone from having four of nine legislative districts found associated with Sioux Falls being all urban districts to now six of ten legislative districts being all urban districts. So the final map enacted does go in the right direction, but it fails in my estimation any true constitutional muster because instead of working from the cores of Sioux Falls and Rapid City to find legislative districts our legislature worked from the outlying rural areas of Sioux Falls and Rapid City and then moved inward to draw the legislative district lines, which is counterintuitive to how one makes legislative districts which are compact and thus constitutional. AND, they did this counterintuitive approach by invoking the word “conurbation” into the debate, which suggested that Sioux Falls and Rapid City have conurbation areas, but that is not intellectually true or honest, because a true conurbation area only speaks to urban areas by definition while our legislature allowed conurbation areas to also include rural areas into the overall equation as well.
So in the final analysis, if you like what you see here as an overall map, then thank the Democrats. But, if you believe that urban and rural voices should be protected, then what was enacted has failed that priority and in so doing has also failed constitutional muster.
JKC’s constitutional challenge depends on this sentence from Article 3 Section 5: “Legislative districts shall consist of compact, contiguous territory and shall have population as nearly equal as is practicable, based on the last preceding federal census.”
JKC, do we have court precedent that establishes the definition of “compact” and sets a threshold for determining whether districts violate that definition?
A multi-party system? Sure, great. But it is not Chairman Seiler’s job to start multiple new parties; it is his job to build the one he chairs into an effective organization.
And remarkably, as JKC notes, the organization actually had a positive effect, helping the Schoenbeck mainstream enact a Legislative map over the objection of the harder, more Trumpist right wing of the SDGOP.
Roll calls: Nays in the Senate were Bolin and Frye-Mueller. Nays in the House were Aylward, Beal, Dennert, Fitzgerald, Gosch, Greenfield, Gross, Haugaard, Howard, Kevin Jensen, Phil Jensen, Chris Johnson, Karr, Ladner, Marty, May, Mills, Milstead, Mulally, Odenbach, Perry, Sue Peterson, Pischke, Randolph, Reimer, Soye, St. John, Vasgaard, Weis, and Wiese.
Charlie Hoffman, Fred Deutsch, and Tim Goodwin voted for the map. They are the only three real rightwingers who jump out at me as House supporters of the bill.
If the moderate liberal, Cory Heidelberger says this is as good as the left will get, then I’ll accept it.
-I’ve begun a New History of Humanity named ‘THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING”.
-A ten year collaboration between anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow.
-It reimagines the beginnings of society without the bias of manipulative writings by the Roman Catholic Church and attempts to relay the history of groups, using the newest archaeological data.
– Seven hundred pages.
– Join me, if you dare to change your ingrained program.
Labels matter. The infamous 10 legislators who voted against investigating the impeachment of Ravnsborg and who complained the loudest about the redistricting are radicals, not conservatives. Conservatives work to support and defend a constitution and principles, not themselves, not their party.
Mr. Nolan has a powerful thought>
“I do not know if I can survive three more years of Democrats stumbling over themselves to disavow the Democratic platform in a doomed attempt to win bad-faith culture wars. It is too painful, like watching ruthless hunters herding panicked animals over the side of a cliff. The poor, dumb beasts inevitably go extinct if they are not able to outthink such a rudimentary strategy.
. . . Drive across the country. What are the most important problems you see? There is poverty. Homelessness. A lack of affordable housing. Vast and jaw-dropping economic and racial inequality. There is a lack of public transportation, a broken healthcare system, environmental degradation, and a climate crisis that threatens to upend our way of life. These are real problems. These are the things that we need our government to fix. These are what we need to hear politicians talk about.
. . . I guarantee you that neither “cancel culture” nor “critical race theory” nor, worse of all, “wokeness” will grab you as enormous problems after your exploration of America, unless that exploration ranges only from a college faculty lounge to a cable TV studio to the office of a rightwing thinktank. These are all words that mean nothing.
. . . Republicans will push these culture wars as far as they can, but it takes Democrats to make the strategy work. There are two types of Democrats falling for this trap now. One type is the group of fairly well-meaning people who assume that the fact there is a cottage industry dedicated to amplifying these terms in the media means there must be something to them. The other type are the opportunistic Democrats, who often brand themselves “centrists”, who see the culture wars as a way to steal power from the left wing of their own party, even if it comes at the cost of hurting millions of Americans.
We have seen this movie before.” . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/democrats-fake-culture-wars-crt-republicans
How are 65 county seats and their bureaucracies either conservative or sustainable? They’re not; but, it’s the way Republican cronyism and patronage built barricades to democracy by providing benefits of the public dole to those who say they deplore big gubmint in a state that hates poor people.
I remember having a conversation back in the 90s with none other than Bill Janklow on SDPB when Dakota Midday was still called South Dakota Forum about consolidating counties and making two regental universities community colleges. He said he carried a “bloody shirt” for bringing a similar suggestion to the legislature and regents.
Time to go to work. Fire Up!
Cory,
I have yet to have researched case law concerning the word “compact” in regards to redistricting, but whenever I look the word up in a dictionary it is defined as dense. So, if you want to be compact with redistricting, then you work from the most dense areas of the state and then move out from there.
The most disingenuous reality of this whole redistricting process from the start was the use of the word conurbation. A true conurbation area is like the Twin Cities and its adjoining suburbs. It is not like the Twin Cities, its suburbs, and then reaching out to St. Peter, Fairbault, and Rochester to define a conurbation area, but that is what our legislature did when they allowed Sioux Falls, for instance, to be seen not only as a city itself with potentially total urban legislative districts, but it also included the rural and small communities around Sioux Falls as well to draw the legislative district lines for Sioux Falls. The mere fact that the legislature was willing to look at a conurbation area in that context, which is inverse in my estimation, proves their intent, or motive, which was unconstitutional relative to the word compact, which is found in the state constitution.
The Sioux Falls map, and even the Rapid City map, are also unconstitutional, or should we say constitutionally extra, where an unprotected class, which are the two major political parties were protected, especially in Sioux Falls, where a political or partisan welfare consisting of an equality of result was applied or guaranteed for both parties at the expense of respecting individual communities within the greater community of Sioux Falls; a respect, if exercised, which would have given Sioux Falls eight and not just six totally urban legislative districts, and in so doing, would have respected and exercised the constitution duty to make legislative districts compact.
It is interesting to note that some years ago when Joe Barnett, Aberdeen, was Chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, he proposed a Legislative District Map that placed Roberts, Grant, and Duel as one district. His proposal also placed Marshall, Day and Clark in a district. His goal was to leave county lines intact, as much as possible. When that redistricting map went to the Senate, the GOP Senator from Grant County at that time, didn’t want anything to do with even a part of Roberts County. The GOP controlled Senate followed his lead and passed a plan that split Day County instead.
It is also interesting to recognize that the Legislative Redistricting Map that was recently enacted, doesn’t even follow Township boundaries. Instead the line chosen is the “Former Sisseton Wahpeton Indian Reservation Boundary”, which splits apart two Townships and in addition, adds five more Townships from Roberts County to the new District 4. Only time will tell if this plan serves the desired goals.
Well Larry Kurtz, Janklow did remake the University of South Dakota at Springfield into The Mike Durfee State Prison. Mike Durfee was a Highmore boy by the way. Not much of a bloody shirt I guess. It must have been the name, Springfield, there are at least seven other Springfield’s in the US with prisons. You could look it up.
Springfield?
“D’oh” (annoyed grunt)
We expats should be kinder and gentler to our Democratic friends who remain and battle single party rule and red state failure every day. With their perseverance maybe some day South Dakota will be safe for progress again.
You know, the multi party system would only work if everyone had representation. Only 24% of Republicans in California and the 35% of Democrats in South Dakota would finally have representation. If everything was according to that. Of course that will never happen in a winner take all America. If you lose you have no representation.
Mr. H, I suspect young Mr. Greenfield is a closet Conservative with Common Sense, and only voted NAY on the law bill to camouflage himself. He is very powerful and was probably in the know that the libbies were going to join up enmasse and that it would pass by 2 votes, so he had the leeway to vote NAY.
Grudz…and why do the so called conservatives with common sense need a closet to reside in?? I think its not a very crowded closet.
As I read the vote tally, Sen Brock Greenfield (the “young Mr Greenfield” to some) was among the 30 Senators to vote “Aye” on the plan which was eventually adopted by the “legislatures”.
Multi Parties is the way to go.
Sweden has 8 or 9 parties represented in Parliament. They have 87% voter turnout in Sweden, as against our 54 to 55 nationwide turnout in US.
Right now, a far left, left, center left or Center Candidate has just as much a chance of being governor in 2023, as a Democrat does. So why not?
We the people create Democracy daily by what we do. Democrats and Republicans are only choices, not inevitability’s.
Maybe the American electorate in 2021 isn’t as hungry to vote as democratic owners of the government, as they do in Scandinavia and other countries. Maybe there will be underclass of citizens who refuse to vote, ever. Then let’s create something new, Now!
Democracy isn’t a once every 2 year activity, it is what we make it. Why not elections every 12 months, in the summer?
We can change things in many ways, as we think and assume that We can do it Now!
Actually, why not elections every 6 months? The Legislature can meet 2 times a year, easily!
It is not church or a museum or a tradition. It’s OUR democracy, let’s change it to what we want!
Mr. ABC, your idea of a bunch of parties is a good one. Why, today we have from left to right, the alt-left libbies, the moderates, the Conservatives with Common Sense, the Insaner Bunch, and the Insanest of Them All. That’s at least 5 groups, but 4 of them all wear an “R” on their tweed caps.
sting! District 32 looks great to me – my only lost election (of 12 in which I ran) the Republican primary was lost by less than 150 votes. After my endorsement the Democratic candidate, he won by over 300 votes will! (in a strong Republican district 32)
“Velly” interesting. District 32 is (still) a special place! The only race, I out of 12 runs. An that by less than 200 votes. The Democrat I endorsed and supported won by over 300!! The next election was another win for me.
These new constituents will no longer be ignored – Hurray!
Ah, we well remember Mr. Katus. He then tried to run for an even more meaningless office, if I recall, and lost. But yes, Mr. Stan, you propped Mr. Katus up and then you knocked him down. Now you’d probably have to run in a district that is far insaner, the District numbered 30.
Whatever happens No more Noem pleez
Well..I believe Mr. Frerichs is recalling Milbank’s Senator Harold Halvorson…we used to say he was the Senator from “Eisenhower’s America”.
Perhaps Mr. Stan will run in a Republican primary against Governor Noem. Now that would be a sight. Mr. Katus could pitch in and bring his support along, too.
Well..I’ll buy in …South Dakota needs Stan…or someone like him.