Former Chief of Staff For Bill Janklow and former Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson announced his support of Amendment V today:
On a day in which the former Republican leader in the state Senate endorsed Amendment V, the state Republican Party announced that it was devoting tens of thousands to defeating the measure.
Dave Knudson, the former GOP leader in the Senate and the chief of staff to former Gov. Bill Janklow, announced his support for the amendment, which would create non-partisan elections in South Dakota by removing political party labels from ballots in county, state and federal elections. In the announcement, Knudson said he was worried that the partisanship exhibited in Washington, D.C. was seeping into the state Legislature.
“We must stop this troubling development,” Knudson said in the announcement.
What the article doesn’t mention is that Knudson is a former Democrat who switched his party, but not his views, to run for office. And he joins the other Democrats in pushing this measure to hid party labels and prevent independents from spilling the vote in the fall election by ensuring only the top two vote getters have an opportunity to appear on the fall ballot.
It’s a process which will shut out the grassroots, and only leave it open to the wealthy who can buy the most TV time. on March, April & may – a time when most haven’t even considered getting serious about the elections under the current system – extending races by months and months.
So, what else isn’t the press telling you about Amendment V?
- —As I’ve mentioned before, the Amendment V effort is funded by Enron billionaire John Arnold through his 501(c)(4) “Open Primaries” organization based in Manhattan
- –Arnold has “donated significant amounts to the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee” [Houston Chronicle May 2, 2012]. And he’s no knight in shining armor. As I’ve noted, as detailed in Rolling Stone (September 26, 2013) on Arnold: In 2011, Pew began to align itself with a figure who was decidedly neither centrist nor nonpartisan: 39-year-old John Arnold, whom CNN/Money described (erroneously) as the “second-youngest self-made billionaire in America,” after Mark Zuckerberg. ….In the book [The Smartest Guys in the Room] that the [Enron] movie was based on, the authors portray Arnold bragging about his minions manipulating energy prices, praising them for “learning how to use the Enron bat to push around the market.” Those comments later earned Arnold visits from federal investigators, who let him get away with claiming he didn’t mean what he said. [Click here to read]
- –“Open Primaries” is run by John Opdycke, a political operative for Lenora Fulani, the self-professed “fringe candidate” in New York who represented the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan and the International Workers Party; the Legislative Director of “Open Primaries” is the self-professed “Democratic Party strategist” and union activist Al Benninghoff; the Communications person for “Open Primaries” is NARAL activist Zach Handler
- —one of the biggest supporters of “Open Primaries” is Bernie Sanders
- –Getting back to South Dakota, and Dave Knudson above – Amendment V is being pushed by SD liberals –Tom Daschle, Tim Johnson, Pam Merchant, Drey Samuelson, Rick Weiland, Casey Murschel, Bernie Hunhoff, & Vernon Brown;
- –and in addition to the New York billionaire, the other financial supporters of Amendment V are the political allies of Rick Weiland and Tim Johnson and labor unions.
If you’re thinking of voting yes on Amendment V, take a long look at the company you’d be keeping. Because it’s a dinner party for liberals and the wealthy to reshape the political system at whim, and cutting grassroots Republicans out of the process. Because they won’t be able to afford the price to play.
Knudson is a nice enough guy but he is barely a Republican. He donated money to Tom Daschle, Tim Johnson, etc.
Does it seem like everyone supporting V is a failed candidate for office? Weiland, Frankenfeld, Knudson (Dave and De). I know there are others I’m not thinking of. Perhaps they need to consider that the election system wasn’t the problem?
Where is the lawsuit against V from mortinsen and the GOP?
Are Rick Knobe and Joe Kirby “failed candidate[s]” for office? What’s fascinating about this measure is how scared the Repub establishment is by it.
V goes too far…..conservatives, liberals, Independents, libertarians and constitution parties should all be scared of V…..
It denies access to the general elections….end of story…only the top 2 make it….they could have opened the primaries and stopped there but they didn’t….then
they are trying to hide information from voters…..WHY? and where did we give the voters less information ?
and can anyone supporting this resolve how the LT GOV position is not a constitutional crisis…its an Amendment not an IM…Legislature can’t change it……
it is also one thing to run in a city or a legislature vs running statewide…it will be all about name ID
What offices has Joe Kirby held?
What has knobe won in the past 40 years?
Miss Congeniality?
No, they’re just stupid.
This is classic from the Daschle folks. They are trying to prop up pretend Republicans to make this look “bipartisan” when it’s being pushed just by liberals. Next thing you know they will roll out Larry Pressler to say how he’s a “strong Republican for V.” Do these people ever get tired of lying?
agreed on propping up RINOs for political effect. reprehensible and odious. under the guise of “parties wasting the tax dollars of all” it’s actually a case of liars denying the preponderance of voters, all party-affiliated, the right to have their tax dollars support a transparent and orderly party polling process during the state’s natural local election cycle. liars all.
I’m willing to bet our pretend Republican governor is also backing this.
The governor has come out against V.
http://my605.com/pierrereview/?p=13897
i wish i had money, i’d take that bet
All Republicans need to stop this liberal power grab!
Independents and 3rd parties will also have virtually no access to the general election if this passes…but that is what Weiland wants….he lost 17% to Pressler being in the race running as an Independent
No on V is embarrassing. Thus should be a slam dunk to kill.
That is the problem with the “republican” party in SD and other states, liberals and democrats cannot get elected, so they change their party affiliation and run as r’s and we get liberal/democratic policies passed or brought up by them that undercut our state.
I would suggest that you, and anyone else, get involved with your local Republican party so you can get to know how the potential candidates stand on issues, before they run for office, then you can help the good ones to get elected.
Does anyone think this piece of crap V will pass?
Vote no!!!!
I sure hope not Linda..but keep spreading the word…NO on V!
“V” doesn’t help the liberals or the Democratic Party, but it will help the moderates of the two major parties.
With the passage of “V” more moderates will be elected to assure that issues like teacher pay are more thoroughly discussed and bills concerning bathroom usage will be ignored.
On of the great disappointments of the 2016 legislative session is how the state’s sales tax was raised with a flippant attitude and with no thorough evaluation or political sophistication as to whether the money for increased teacher pay could have come from somewhere else like the results of zero-based budgeting or the shifting of budget priorities.
In absence of a significant moderate voice in Pierre, the Governor had to rely on what moderate Republicans there were in Pierre along with the Democrats to pass a teacher pay bill, which got the job done (hopefully), but it also raised your taxes without a true evaluation of our fiscal reality due to the finite and delicate majority that existed in Pierre last winter on this issue – a majority of moderation which can be expanded in the future with Amendment “V”…..
Vote “Yes” on “V” and vote for moderation so that issues can be honestly discussed and passed rather than just being passed with an attitude from a more delicate world were “It’s all or nothing”…….
that completely mischaracterizes the debate on the sales tax increase
shaking my head at the distortion of facts on that and V….
NO on V!
No one cares what Dave Knudson thinks. Why do these people, known or unknown (unknown in this case), think people care what they think?
Is there a liberal cause Knudson has not contributed to?
Dav and De Knudson, Joe Kirby Chuck Parkinson, Don Frankenfeld….none of these people are real Republicans…they are all country club republicans at best….they are all liberal and should be Democrats…but they trot them out to claim to be “bi-partisan” give me a break
The No on V is more bipartisan than the Yes as Jay Davis is a true Democrat, believes what he believes and as a democrat is adamantly against V. I have seen him speak and describe how V will be horrible for Democrats, but like Heidelberger…Dems are following another false prophet named Weiland looking for the promised land he never finds.