Busy afternoon today!  Hot off the press – the Minnehaha County Republican Party has issued a censure against State Senator Tom Pischke for his on-line conduct:

Good Afternoon,

When I ran for Chairman of the Minnehaha County Republicans, I made a commitment to help restore constructive dialogue among all Republicans and to move forward together in a meaningful way.

At our very first executive board meeting, I introduced a Code of Conduct for consideration, which the board unanimously approved. I have since encouraged all members of the Central Committee to uphold these standards as well. While I may not have the authority to enforce the Code of Conduct on Central Committee members, I hold my executive board to a higher level of accountability.

With that in mind, I am informing the Central Committee today of a formal censure of our Minnehaha Committeeman, Tom Pischke. A recent Facebook post came to my attention that I believe was in violation of the Code of Conduct. I reached out to Senator Pischke and requested that he remove the post, which he did. However, the damage had already been done.

This action is not taken lightly, but it is consistent with our shared commitment to respectful and constructive engagement.

Sincerely,
Korry Petterson
Chairman, Minnehaha County Republicans

 

 

From Facebook, Representative Chris Reder is feeling a bit of heat on the residency questions he’s facing in his Legislative District, versus his apparent homestead in Minnesota, and offered the following in response.

However, with this being noted, It still leaves many questions dangling out there.

The property was purchased last July, and apparently includes a homestead exemption where someone has declared this as their primary residence.

And the corporate papers filed with the Secretary of State this past January say his address is Minnesota:

DTOM Foundation Paperwork B0345-5410 by Pat Powers

That being said, there appears to be some questions regarding where he’s established his residency that aren’t going away any time soon, especially considering that the property in another state is owned.

And he’s literally telling everyone that he’s just maintaining a leased space for a cot or a couch… apparently for purposes of voter registration.

I’m sure this isn’t done by any stretch of the imagination.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting today has a story up on how recent the anti-business sentiment of some South Dakotans has damaged the reputation of our state as being business friendly, into one where the door has slammed shut, and businesses are going to go elsewhere:

“The black eye that South Dakota has right now on Wall Street is immense,” said Gevo CEO Patrick Gruber.

He’s referring to HB 1052, a bill the Legislature passed prohibiting the use of eminent domain specifically for carbon oxide pipelines.

Gruber told SDPB if Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline doesn’t go through South Dakota, the company will move its plant to another state. This comes after Summit indefinitely paused its application in the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.

He claims the way the state Legislature handled the pipeline sent ripples farther than Pierre.

“It’s perceived as not a business-friendly state [on Wall Street], changing the rules mid-stream,” Gruber said. “The stuff that’s been done around that pipeline, it’s a travesty.”

and..

Sen. Crabtree said anyone can claim the state is open for business, but to get a true gauge on it, you have to look at the businesses themselves.

“You can have politicians go ahead and play politics, but the facts are that businesses are telling you that they don’t like it when the state chooses overregulation instead of innovation,” Crabtree said.

and..

“I think about a lot of the community and state leaders, farmers and ranchers that have come before us, those that have worked really hard to make the state a better place than what they found it. And they were driven to create opportunities that kept young people in our state,” Crabtree said. “I think a lot of those folks are rolling over in their graves right now with what the Legislature did. Instead of clearing the way for businesses and employees to thrive, we spent the last session trying to pass laws and created more regulation, more bureaucracy, and even started picking winners and losers. I don’t think that’s something we should be proud of.”

Read the entire story here.

Attorney General Jackley Warns Phone Providers About Unlawful Robocall Traffic

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley joins a bipartisan group of 51 Attorneys General in notifying nine voice service providers that they may be violating state and federal laws by continuing to route allegedly unlawful robocalls across their networks.

“These companies allow scams of all kinds to be passed on to the public,” said Attorney General Jackley. “This activity has to stop, and the Attorneys General are working to help their federal law enforcement partners.”

The Attorneys General are part of the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force which sent the letters to the nine providers. The letters demand the providers stop transmitting illegal robocalls and includes information about the task force’s investigation and analysis of each provider’s illegal and/or suspicious robocall traffic.  

Companies receiving the warning letters were Global Net Holdings, All Access Telecom, Lingo Telecom, NGL Communications, Range, RSCom Ltd., Telecast Network, ThinQ Technologies, and Telecentris.

Copies of the warning letters are available here.

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The Minnehaha County Republican Party sent an e-mail out this morning and did a major information dump on it’s own County Central Committee Members. And some of it is very curious, as the P&L Statement they released indicates nearly $17,000 in campaign contributions to Political Action Committees and other entities taking place from January 1 through February this year.

MCR_P_amp_L_Q1_2025 by Pat Powers on Scribd

Here’s what this group is reporting that was spent at the first of the year:

$6k to the property rights group?!? $2500 to a Tonchi Weaver PAC (Citizens Action PAC) that was organized on December 2 – a month after the election.  $1500 to a Yankton area PAC, $2250 to the Alpha Center, $250 to a Drew Dennert PAC (Honest Leadership PAC) in Brown County, $1500 to the free-dumb caucus.  In fact, it looks like they were clearing out the checkbook as quickly as possible and sending it a lot of it elsewhere than to Minnehaha Republicans.

But that was only part of today’s information dump. The minutes were far more entertaining.

Minnehaha County Republicans Meeting 02272025 by Pat Powers on Scribd

Here’s where it gets funny, as apparently the Minnehaha County GOP didn’t just take minutes – if you scroll underneath that part, they actually transcribed about 80 pages of side chatter which ranges from backbiting elected officials and businesses to off the wall commentary .  And that’s just the start.  Here, they start backbiting at the Secretary of State:

Well, yeah, I mean, it’s. It’s just been unorganized for a very long time. Nothing against any of us at this table because I don’t think anyone’s just taking the time to do it like we talked about, just to make it just so that it’s easy to move it over.

The Secretary of State is just an absolute crap show.

Monet stuff.

Would you. So mlrw, they’re trying to get their paperwork caught up because it hasn’t been. And I mean, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not that big of a deal. But nobody at SOS can help. They’re like, we don’t know. You don’t need to. You don’t need to follow. It’s like, you know, okay.

It’s not like we’re going to get this bad.

She ran on knowing what to do. Monet.

Nice.  Here, it sounds as if board member Tom Pischke is participating on the meeting on the phone while going down the highway.

Okay, cool. Are you. Are you driving? I don’t necessarily. I mean, I want you getting into a car accident.

I’m. I’m driving. And being on the phone and talking on this. On this drive is a regular thing, so I’m just fine.

Yeah, I get it. But I don’t want to be the one that gets in trouble with Lisa’s.

No, I think you’re. Trust me, you’re okay. She knows that. I. I’m on the phone immediately, so.

Gotcha. Well, at least hopefully you got a headset on.

Yep, I got my earbuds in and I’m heading east. We’re still west of Chamberlain or west of Mitchell, but we’re getting there.

And they talk about having a conservative choice for a bank, and how the Boy Scouts “went stupid”:

Yeah. And then we’ll just. Are you just going to keep First Dakota? Yeah. Is that in Sioux Falls?

That’s the. The bank that I lobbied to move over to because they’re the ESG thing.

Yep. And they’re incorporated in South Dakota. They’re very conservative. Basically. The. The president of the bank said, it’ll be over my dead body or I’ll close the bank down before I’ll report information to the federal government. So. Plus they support a lot of conservative colleges around here.

Good to know.

Well, they were doing Boy Scouts until Boy Scouts went stupid. Right.

Not even Boy Scouts anymore.

And we find out they can’t do a Fundraiser offering USD tickets because they believe people hate the Coyotes:

I know Viking. I know Viking. Suites start at 10 grand.

It’s usually like 350 to 500 a person. But it’s unlimited food and drinks usually.

Should I drink a lot to hit 10 grand?  I mean I’m alive, but I don’t think I can get that.

Yeah, yeah. Because the stadium is so phenomenal. It’s got out of hand.

It’s crazy. It’s considered number one.

I was trying to think of what else we did.

We might be able to do something along those lines. Maybe with the jackrabbits. Can’t do the Coyotes for the hate.

Jeez. The coyotes aren’t all bad. I married one.

And, not just USD. Apparently the leadership of the Minnehaha Republican committee also has some issues with the new Lt. Governor.

Well, I’m just. At this point, I’m just making sure everybody’s aware that. That those bills are up Monday morning. So I. I am going to propose an amendment, but still going to vote probably against the bill because I. I think it’s the wrong thing to do. But my amendment makes it so that at least the pick for if the governor would have to pick who the lieutenant governor is on the petition process, because I believe the people of South Dakota, one way or another, should have a pick, a vote on who the lieutenant governor is, because that person is one heartbeat away from being their next governor.

So, yeah, that is going on there.

I’m definitely against it, even even with the amendment, from the standpoint that, yep. If he sits there and does what he did with Van Heisen, I mean. He could have. He could have somebody in the wings that we don’t. Or we think he’s going with this person, we vote him down.

And then the person in the wings is even worse.

Exactly.

Yep.

That. Bad idea. Yeah.

That frigging crap with Van Heusen is just.

Yeah, well, there’s a lot of inside baseball, inside politics with that pick, I’m sure.

Oh, yeah. I mean, Jack. That’s why Jack didn’t run. He knew he was going to be. Once Kristi moved on. He knew he had the job.

And there’s another 20 pages of this chatter.

Those are the inner transcribed workings of the Minnehaha Republican Central Committee.

And you wonder why the GOP Organization for the largest county in the state exists as it has for such a long time?

The Republican Roundtable group (not affiliated with the Minnehaha GOP) is hosting a panel of lobbyists and Governor Larry Rhoden today for lunch, as they provide a 2025 Legislative update for many of the young business leaders of Sioux Falls.

Check it out.

We had another busy week out in Washington! We continue to meet with representatives from South Dakota organizations who travel to DC, as well as nominees for positions within the executive branch. We also held another “vote-a-rama” on Friday night into early Saturday morning on a budget resolution. This version includes an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was included in the House version of the resolution. If these tax cuts are not extended, South Dakotans could pay an average of $2,421 per year in additional taxes. It took us all night, but the Senate was able to pass this budget resolution that gets us another step closer to delivering on President Trump’s agenda: securing the border, bolstering our national security, unleashing American energy and extending tax cuts for hardworking Americans. More on this and the rest of my week in my Weekly Round[s] Up:

South Dakota groups I met with: Representatives from the City of Box Elder; representatives from South Dakota Trade; Mark Luecke, CEO of Medgene Labs; leaders from the Eastern South Dakota Soil and Water Research Farm; Joni Ekstrum, Executive Director of South Dakota Biotech; Ethan Gladue and Taylor Van Emmerik, students at the University of South Dakota who were in town with the Fraternal Government Relations Coalition; South Dakota members of the U.S. Travel Association, including Secretary of Tourism Jim Hagen; Bret Afdahl, Director of the South Dakota Department of Labor’s Division of Banking; South Dakota members of the Small Business Payment Alliance; and South Dakota members of 340B Health.

South Dakota towns represented: Box Elder, De Smet, Hartford, Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Tea, Utica and Watertown.

Other meetings: George Street, nominee to serve as Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center; Thomas Mason, Director of the Los Alamos National Lab; Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, Director of the Missile Defense Agency; Matthew Lohmeier, nominee to serve as Undersecretary of the Air Force; Michael Jensen, nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict; Hung Cao, nominee to serve as Undersecretary of the Navy; Brandon Williams, nominee to be Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration; Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi; Dr. Mike Witherell, Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab; Dr. Young-Kee Kim, Director of Fermilab; Dr. John Wagner, Director of Idaho National Laboratory; Lara Abrash, Chair of the Board of Directors at Deloitte; and Aaron Lukas, nominee to serve as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. I spoke to a group from the Conference of State Bank Supervisors who are in town for their annual fly-in event. I hosted our Senate Bible Study, where Galatians 5:16 was our verse of the week.

Hearings: I attended four hearings. Two of them were closed hearings in the Select Committee on Intelligence. The other two hearings were in the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). In the first SASC hearing of the week, we heard from Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, nominee to serve as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You can watch a clip of my questions here. In the second, we heard from the leaders of U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command. Watch the clip here.

Classified briefings: I had two classified briefings: one as part of my work on the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the other on operations in East Asia.

Votes taken: 36 – As I mentioned, we voted through the night on amendments to the budget resolution. For past vote-a-ramas, because this legislation isn’t able to be filibustered, Senate Democrats have held up the legislation by debating on the floor and offering a series of amendments. Despite the delay, the Senate still passed the budget resolution. In addition to the vote-a-rama, we also voted on nominees to several executive positions and Congressional Resolutions of Disapproval to overturn Biden-era regulations that are still in place from the previous administration.

Legislation introduced: I introduced legislation to help rural hospitals that are at risk of being closed. The Rural Hospital Technical Assistance Program Act would codify an existing pilot program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides technical assistance to rural hospitals to prevent closures, improve their financial and operational performance and strengthen essential healthcare services in rural communities. You can read more about this legislation here.

My staff in South Dakota visited: Aberdeen, Custer, Deadwood, Dupree, Ft. Pierre, McIntosh and Timber Lake.

Steps taken: 53,645 steps or 26.42 miles.

Photos of the week:

Leaders from SD Biotech

Leaders with the City of Box Elder

Representatives from the South Dakota Tourism Industry

The author of the Bluestem Prairie website noticed my post on Representative Chris Reder yesterday, and how the Representative currently has little relation to the state, except his driver’s license and voter registration. And, they took it upon themselves to do a bit more digging:

Read the trail of documents there. On Tuesday, he wrote More on Rep. Reder’s home in Minnesota – Property noted as “owner occupied.”

That got me wondering what “owner occupied” means in Clearwater County, Minnesota. I was used to seeing property classified as “homestead,” but thought “owner-occupied” might mean something else.

I called Clearwater County Assessor Patty Flaa for the answer. Are “owner occupied” and “homesteaded” synonymous? 

Indeed they are, she replied, noting the information in the files on Reder’s property. It is possible that a relative lives at the home for Reder to claim the homestead classification, though his own explanation in an email to an acquaintance (see below) doesn’t suggest this is the case.

and..

Jeepers, I hope someone tells the county assessor. In the meantime, I’m wondering what causes Republican candidates in the district where I live to raise such questions about the state where they claim residency.

Read the entire story here.

Is this getting to the point where someone needs to get more serious about looking into the Representative’s primary residence? Could be.

Dusty Johnson Raises Over $1 Million in First Quarter

Mitchell, S.D. – Today, Congressman Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) announced that hundreds of South Dakotans from 50 communities helped him raise more than $1 million in the first quarter. This record-breaking quarter leaves Johnson with $6.8 million cash-on-hand across his campaign committees. More than 80% of the individual donations to Johnson’s committees came from South Dakota citizens.

“I’m honored by the support we have received,” said Johnson. “Clearly, folks are excited about our progress securing the border, standing up to China, and advancing conservative policies. I’m a workhorse, not a showhorse, and I’ll continue to roll up my sleeves and deliver for South Dakota.”

Johnson’s fundraising entities include Friends of Dusty Johnson (campaign committee), Dakota Leadership PAC (federal) and Dusty PAC (state). Detailed campaign finance reports will be filed and available in advance of due dates for the respective committees.

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Hot off the press this AM. The Brown County GOP is out their main speaker as South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden is no longer attending the event being held at one of Toby Doeden’s properties.

Not that you can tell, since they are unable to put dinner details into the facebook message. But trust me. It was being held at one of the Doeden properties.

I would not blame the Gov for taking a hard-pass either.