The Rapid City faux-conservative group, Citizens for Liberty, has had a long track record for goofiness, such as demanding taxpayer dollars pay for their scorecard research, and having their leadership circulating petitions to raise taxes. And claiming discrimination for getting kicked out of Pizza Ranch will always remain funny.
Today’s episode of eye rolling comes courtesy of their latest scorecard with bills that they specifically cherry-picked. But it comes with a twist. Here’s a couple of snippets from the scorecard:
What’s odd about this scorecard?
If you go back to look at the legislative record, and examine the Legislative Committee minutes, how intensely did Citizens for Liberty promote the legislation they’ve included on their scorecard? Not at all.
No representatives for Citizens for Liberty are on the record as bothering to show up to lobby on any of the legislation they’ve included in their “2nd Amendment Scorecard.”
Really. Not once. I went back and looked, and they are absent from the record on every one of the bills they’re including as part of their scorecard.
Clearly, they have lobbyists, as CFL has registered them as taking part in the 2019 State Legislative Session:
But….apparently Citizens for Liberty’s own lobbyists just didn’t think any of the legislation that makes up their cherry-picked 2nd Amendment Scorecard was important enough to actually show up, give testimony on, and ask legislators for their vote.
If we’re applying the same standards they use… doesn’t that mean they got a 0% on their own scorecard? And it is not like this is the first time. We pointed this out on a previous cherry-picked scorecard of theirs in 2018.
Aren’t we lucky to have such staunch defenders of the faith to show up, and tell everyone how conservative they aren’t?
If only they applied their own standards to themselves.
These are not serious people.
Citizens of Liberty : They pick & choose what Liberty they would like to grant on others. Libertarians would disagree especially with that Ballot initiative coming out to legalize everything by Levi.
Cherry picking or not, I’m really disappointed by so-called Republican at the bottom of the barrel. There people need to be real with their constituents about their beliefs:
If they listed all the gun bills? How was that “cherry picking?”
Hey look they put people alphabetical by their percentage..oh wait nope…had to get Stace on top for no reason other than his ego
So only lobbyists are qualified to issue scorecards? Citizens are not? That is a typical Establishment mindset.
Citizens for Liberty, you have a credibility problem simply by listing Stace at the top of the list. Stop showing him preferential treatment and at very least you appear a bit more credible. Until you can show South Dakota voters you are not a biased organization, you will be known as Citizens for Stace – which of course is a shame since he gets nothing done, and his meaningless representation reflects on every member in your organization.
If CFL has a “credibility problem”, then why does their 2nd Amendment scoreboard show all 5 Democratic Senators in with the bottom 11 most anti-gun Senators, scoring 33.3% or less?. And what is very interesting is Senator Lee Schoenbeck being among the 6 liberal anti-gun Republicans who join those 5 Democrats. Guns are only for hunting Senator?
Thanks Pat for providing the link.
Um.. the chart indicates he had the most votes for 2nd Amendment rights. They appear to have ranked legislators by %, number of votes, then alphabetically.
Stace Nelson Derangment Syndrome is almost as bad as Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Last I checked D came before N in the alphabet; Disanto got 100% also
Then J comes before N also—Jensen, before Nelson
A joke just like these scorecards always are
Nelson had 100% with 14 votes
Disanto 100% with 13
Russell 100% with 11
Jensen 100% with 8
In the House: Beal, Gosch, Haugaard, Jensen & Qualm are listed before Hansen, Chafee, Greenfield and others for the same apparent reason.
Or maybe they are showing favoritism for Arch Beal too?
Whatever formula it takes to make Stace first
Up is down, left is right, Liberal is good and conservative is bad..
Ridiculous attacking the messengers on these bad voting records. Where is the outrage over Republicans voting like liberal Democrats?
Even Heidelberger knows enough not to post how all these legislators voted on gun bills. For all his liberal bluster, he doesn’t want to out Democrats Liberal voting records on these gun bills. Because down inside he knows they are wrong on the issue otherwise he would be highlighting how all the liberals voted against the Second Amendment rights.
Pat at least posted it .
Mr. H agrees with grudznick that on the scorecard that ranks all the scorecards, the CFL gets an “F” grade.
Who knows here that a simple traffic violation in South Dakota is classified as a Misdemeanor crime and not an infraction as in other states. Who knows here that if you ever leave South Dakota and apply for a concealed weapons permit you most likely will not be able to in other states because you have any Misdemeanor. South Dakota’s onerous outdated archaic traffic laws were the subject of HB 1130 and passed the House but failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Think about that 2nd Amendment lovers and also think that the only opposition to changing these laws were South Dakota’s law enforcement, States Attorney’s Association, the Department of Public Safety, and the new Attorney General. Yes, there was money involved at South Dakota citizens expense. Try applying for a job out of state and forced to list all of your felonies and misdemeanors on an application and see them go directly into the wastebasket when you disclose these crimes, or basic traffic infractions in other states.
Hey here is a novel idea…don’t break the law
A typical uneducated South Dakotan reply. The intent of traffic violations were never meant to be classified as a criminal act and if that is the case almost everyone in the state would be considered criminals including law enforcement themselves. Anyone that has ever driven has committed a traffic violation, some however may have never been caught but they have all committed an infraction.
In US and state law there are three classifications of crimes: felonies, misdemeanors, and infractions. Traffic violations belong in the latter and why they do not get the protections of the US Constitution on these types of law violations.
Leave SD and find out for yourself how much damage it does to your life and then get back to us all. For example, a USD law graduate couldn’t get his law BAR license in Illinois because he had two SD traffic tickets considered a Class II Misdemeanor. In Illinois, these misdemeanors are considered serious crimes.
I have a better idea..why don’t you leave SD…you think we are all screwed up anyway.
and please don’t compare us to LIBERAL ILLINOIS with record budget deficits, record crime, restrictions on gun…ever think we are doing it right and ILLINOIS is doing it wrong?!