New leadership of SDGOP already screwing up. Appear to be in violation of State Law & Federal regulations on reporting who is in charge.
Doing another drive-by for an update on the car accident that’s the South Dakota Republican Party, since the new group took over on February 22nd.
What has the new leadership of the South Dakota Republican Party accomplished in the two weeks they’ve been in charge?
- Announced they’re doing an audit for less than $2k. (Experts tell me that’s not what a real audit costs).
- They’ve lobbied against the Gov’s office to fix the Lt. Gov election situation.
- They spent the bulk of their time on HB 1052, lobbying for it, promoting a resolution for it, and making it the bulk of almost all their social media.
- They got facebook running after about a week and a half. (No twitter yet.)
What else have they accomplished? Well…..
** It appears the SDGOP has managed to violate SDCL 12-5-15 which states pretty directly “The name and mailing address of the state party chairperson shall be certified to the secretary of state immediately following the election or appointment of the state party chairperson.”
What do we see on the Secretary of State’s website in this screen grab from 1pm this afternoon?
Why, this says John Wiik is the current South Dakota Republican Party chair, and Brett Koenecke is the current Treasurer. Wouldn’t you agree, that would not appear to have been updated with the Secretary of State “immediately” after Feb 22 that Jim Eschenbaum is Chair and Tina Mulally is Treasurer? There’s no filing with the SOS at all. Because, why would there be?
Was new chair Eschenbaum out of the area? Well, no. In fact:
Despite the new chair Jim Eschenbaum himself physically being in the State Capitol Building on March 3rd – this past Monday – and posting about being in the Capitol, and testifying in committee just 2 floors above the Secretary of State’s office, he couldn’t be bothered to take care of the Party business he was elected to do when he was in the building?
Last I checked, immediately does not mean 2 weeks after the fact. New Treasurer Tina Mulally is also State Representative Mulally – and has been in the Capitol constantly for the last 2 weeks, one floor up from the Secretary of State.
Yet, neither got the job done.
** It also appears that the South Dakota Republican Party has managed to run afoul of the Federal Elections Commission’s guidelines at this point, because they also haven’t reported the party leadership changes to the FEC.
If information disclosed on the Statement of Organization ever changes, the committee must report that change within 10 days. Do this by filing an amended Statement of Organization. If the party committee isn’t an electronic filer, update the Statement of Organization by letter.
Here’s what the FEC’s information currently notes for the Republican party:
Yes, the SDGOP is an electronic filer. And no, there’s no records of them filing within 10 days, given that we’re now 13-14 days after the fact. Failure #2.
Under new chair Jim Eschenbaum, the leadership of the Republican party has only been all about pipeline posturing since his taking office. But he’s failing miserably in his first test of competency to actually run the South Dakota Republican Party.
Which is reporting to State and Federal Election authorities that he’s (supposed to be) the one in charge.
It’s going to be a long election season.
(But on the bright side, it will give us a lot to write about.)