Amendment V Campaign Called On To Return Illegal Contributions

Pat Powers

Vote_no_on_V

Amendment V Campaign Called On To Return Illegal Contributions
Dark Money Raised Illegally Mirrors Anti-Transparency of Amendment V

Fort Pierre, SD –– No on V Campaign Chair Will Mortenson has called for the Yes on V campaign to return all illegal contributions and come clean to South Dakota voters on their scheme to evade South Dakota campaign finance law. TakeItBack.Org and Open Primaries, two dark money organizations funding Yes on Amendment V, violated South Dakota law by explicitly raising funds to influence a ballot question, Constitutional Amendment V.

State law calls for organizations, including corporations like TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries, to swear under oath that no part of the contribution given to a ballot question committee was raised or collected “for the purpose of influencing the ballot question.”

TakeItBack.org issued a correspondence on October 4th (below) soliciting donations to “help us pass Amendment V,” while Open Primaries collected donations to influence Amendment V through a website called CrowdPAC (https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/74922/a-voice-for-every-voter-send-a- message-to-washington).

“The supporters of Amendment V must immediately return the illegal contributions obtained from dark money corporations that have no regard for South Dakota law. Amendment V would take party identification off the ballot so it’s no surprise that it’s being pushed by illegal, dark money from out-of- state,” said Mortenson.

“Campaign finance laws exist to protect South Dakota elections from just this type of hidden, out-of-state influence. Yes on V should give back every cent it received from TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries and apologize to the people of South Dakota for its disregard of our campaign finance laws,” Mortenson added.

As of the latest campaign finance report, Yes on Amendment V garnered 76% of its contributions from out-of-state and 92% of contributions from dark money groups like TakeItBack.org and Open Primaries who do not disclose their donors. Open Primaries alone provided $246,784.00, representing 71.92% of contributions to Yes on Amendment V.

TakeItBack.org is a 501(c)(4) corporation that does not disclose its donors. TakeItBack.org is run by long-time Democratic Party Bosses Rick Weiland and Drey Samuelson. Weiland also serves as Chairman of the Yes on Amendment V ballot committee. Open Primaries is a New York City-based 501(c)(4) corporation that does not disclose its donors. Open Primaries is an activist organization, pushing plans similar to Amendment V in several states.

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10 thoughts on “Amendment V Campaign Called On To Return Illegal Contributions”

  1. IRONY abounds…Rick Weiland…we need to get money out of politics…but I need yours to make this happen and I won’t tell you where it is coming from! #hypocrite

    I’ll be voting NO on V.

  3. Campaign finance laws are a farce, so complaining about the other guy breaking them is silly. That said, it is an opportunity to point out yet again that out-of-state interests fund the lion’s share of the ballot issues and should be voted down for that reason alone.

  4. Weiland and Samuelson getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar!! How funny. These two are getting rich off payments from the Manhattan billionaire while wrecking South Dakota’s political system. VOTE NO on all these stupid ballot measures. They are all cooked up by liberal nuts from New York.

    1. I agree with most of what you’re saying, but we should support Amendment R. That didn’t come from out-of-state, it came from the Tech Schools and the Superintendents that oversee them.

  5. Agreed, Punky…vote them all down! The easiest way to defeat a measure this year is to just oppose all of them.

  6. TakeItBack. What a funny name for someone like Weiland to use for his anti-American group. Wasn’t that his theme in his most recent failed campaign? Who is hijacking the country? It is people like him, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Tim “The Jerk” Kaine, and all their ilk. America’s foundational values are being attached by people like these, and I, for one, don’t support their vision of a socialist America. If you do, vote for them, if you don’t for heaven’s sake, get out and vote against all such people! The country is at stake!

  7. Weiland and Samuelson are big liberal hacks who are just trying to get rich off of this scheme. They need to be prosecuted for this. And so does AARP for cooperating in this illegal scheme. It is time for a RICO case to brought against all of them.

  8. Knobe is breaking federal FCC laws by pushing this garbage on his radio show too. Apparently it is not going well for his show these days.

  9. I think everyone reading this post is thinking “so what?” What good are laws if they can be broken without consequence. The allegation of illegality may turn away some potential Yes voters and put one more nail in the coffin of this stupid measure, but can anything be done to go after these lawbreakers? It’s ironic that the ones that claim we are a corrupt state are the ones that are violating our laws.

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