Author: @SoDakCampaigns

Getting reports out there of candidates going hard negative in their attempts to take out their opponents. Unfortunately for them, it seems to be mostly backfiring, and is being taken negatively by the very people they’re trying to convince.

In the District 17 Senate Race, Jeff Church is trying to get people to recognize his name against incumbent State Senator (and new mom!) Sydney Davis in South East South Dakota.  How has he been approaching it?  Well, not very positively, as there are reports of Davis supporters with her yard sign at their houses being left a poison packet, attacking Davis:

Not shockingly, the poison packet being left to try to sway Davis voters bases it’s attack on the cherry-picked Citizens for Liberty scorecard.

Despite telling candidates all the time, I still have to repeat that you can’t lead with negative attacks. Unless your name ID is equal or close to your opponent, it will just ring hollow, and you’re trying to convince someone that they made a bad decision before.  They’re not going to replace a known friend with an unknown person lobbing bombs, so targeting supporters is just a mistake, and a waste of money.

But don’t just take this as a lesson for newbies. Incumbents do crazy things as well when they’re feeling the heat.

Here’s a lesson from State Senator Tom Pischke who is apparently feeling the heat from the person who is likely to replace him, Jordan Youngberg.

This person who had a Youngberg sign found themselves directly harangued by Youngberg’s opponent (Tom Pischke), who not just smeared Youngberg, but asked for money. The end result was that Youngberg’s support was not just strengthened, but this now fired up supporter has taken to facebook to underline her support to all of her friends and neighbors.

And Tom isn’t just limiting his attacks to in-person. It’s part of his fundraising program:

As opposed to running on his own merits, Pischke has taken to leaving personal notes in fundraising letter falsely claiming his opponent as having a liberal voting record.  I’m told that once again, the CFL cherry-picked scorecard was used as reference.

Why does an incumbent of several years feel the need to go on the hard attack? Because his legislative successes are slim and none. Getting kicked out of caucus, demanding the National Guard chase jet chemtrails, and leaving bottles of syrup on the desks of women are not the things that bolster one’s legislative credentials.

The hard attacks coming from the candidates all smack of desperation.  And if you’re so inclined to reject these tactics..

You can donate to Sydney Davis for District 17 Senate here.

And you can donate to Jordan Youngberg for SD Senate by sending a check to:

YOUNGBERG FOR SD SENATE
613 S Allen Ave
Colman, SD 57017

Keep the tips and info about the attacks coming!

Noting the South Dakota Republican Party’s National Convention Delegate Selection regional and statewide selection process tomorrow evening, and understanding that a certain Congressional wannabe is going to be trying to get people to send her to the National Convention, I thought it might be an opportune time to remind people what Taffy Howard had to say about the South Dakota Republican Party bringing President Trump to South Dakota for an event earlier this year:

..while I have a deep admiration for what Trump has been able to accomplish, I do believe he is being used by the establishment elites in our state to give themselves some standing with their conservative constituents, which I don’t want to help in any way.

Read Taffy Howard’s screed here.

Yep. In what was one of the biggest events that the Republican Party has put on in South Dakota in modern history had Taffy declaring that “I don’t want to help in any way,” because she has that much loathing for the Republicans who have been elected, and the Republican voters who have put them in office.

GOP National Convention delegate hopefuls, keep that in mind when Taffy asks you to send her to the National Republican Convention tomorrow night. “I don’t want to help in any way.”

Just sayin’

If you’re looking for some insider baseball for the South Dakota GOP, there’s some big things happening behind the scenes.   And – try not to be shocked – but it involves the Minnehaha County Republican Party screwing up. Again.

No, it doesn’t involve them doing nothing when it comes to local candidates (again).  Or working against incumbent elected officials (again).  This time, it looks like R. Shawn Tornow botched up the National Convention Delegate Selection process to send people from Minnehaha County to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July to nominate the GOP’s Candidate for the fall presidential election.

So what happened?

In Wednesday April 3rd’s Argus Leader an ad was placed by the Minnehaha County GOP announcing the meeting to select delegates would take place on April 23 at Grace Baptist Church in Renner, SD:

And accordingly, the meeting was held, and Minnehaha County selected their delegates to attend the regional and national delegate selection process taking place tomorrow (in Pierre, I believe).   So what’s the problem?

It appears that there was a reading comprehension issue on the part of the chairman, ex-attorney R. Shawn Tornow, where he skipped over part of the South Dakota Republican Party bylaws, which reads as follows:

2. The county chairman in each county shall cause to be held at the county seat a special County National Convention Delegate Selection meeting on a date and time on or between April 15 and April 25 in the year for which a National Convention of the Republican Party is to be held for the purpose of nominating a candidate for President and Vice President. Such county meeting shall be open to all registered Republicans residing in the county; public notice, including publication in the official county newspaper, of such a meeting must be given at least 15 days in advance, and all appropriate means of providing notice of such meeting shall be used. It shall be the responsibility of the county chairman to notify the state secretary of the State Central Committee at least 15 days prior to the meeting. If the County GOP organization fails to hold the required County National Convention Delegate Selection meeting, the state chairman may authorize some other method of selecting delegates from that county subject to the approval of the State Executive Board.

By way of further explanation, the bylaws specifically note that the county chairman is to call a meeting in the Minnehaha County Seat. So of course, for Minnehaha County, R. Shawn Tornow called for the meeting to be held in Renner, SD.   Last we all knew, that big town of Sioux Falls would be considered the County seat of Minnehaha. Not Renner.

And that’s a problem.  Because it invalidated the vote for Minnehaha County, and rendered their delegates all outside of compliance with the SDGOP bylaws.   You would think an ex-attorney might have familiarized himself with the rules. But, no.

What were the consequences? What I am hearing is that SDGOP Chairman John Wiik, with the support of the SDGOP Executive Board, has publicly disclosed that the exec board members present on an emergency exec board meeting on Friday voted unanimously (with one abstention) to decertify Minnehaha’s delegate selection meeting to send people to the National Convention.

Even better – don’t forget that bylaw. If the County GOP organization fails to hold the required County National Convention Delegate Selection meeting, the state chairman may authorize some other method of selecting delegates from that county subject to the approval of the State Executive Board.

So, subject to the approval of the exec board, it has now become the State Party Chairman’s choice.

But that’s not all..  There’s a part II that you need to keep in mind. That the group had already called a meeting before this major cock up.

Minnehaha Meeting by Pat Powers on Scribd

Scheduled for a week from tomorrow on May 9th, the Minnehaha County GOP Central Committee Members called a meeting by petition, because Chairman Tornow had not held a meeting for an election to fill the vacant position of Treasurer, as demanded in the bylaws, after 6 months have gone by, according to the petition circulated.  Obviously, at least some members of the Minnehaha County Central Committee were already mad with the County Party’s (lack of) leadership team.

This meeting was called even before the Minnehaha National Convention Delegate meeting was decertified.

And now, right before an already unhappy meeting calling county leadership into question, Minnehaha GOP County Chair R. Shawn Tornow just screwed up the National Convention Delegate selection process in such an epic manner that in my 35 or so years of being involved,  I’ve never heard of it happening before.

What are the chances that someone might bring a motion to vacate the Minnehaha GOP county chair position after nothing but problems with how the county party has been run?

We don’t know if they’ll add a motion to vacate the chair or not…. but there are rumors circulating that they will.

Stay tuned. Because things are going to get very interesting when it comes to the Minnehaha County GOP

South Dakota College Democrats put out a statement recently endorsing the pro-Hamas protests at universities across the nation, and try to paint it all in shades of grey, versus recognizing it as Israelis defending themselves against terrorist attacks:

Even more curious that they are defending a protest that took people hostage as they were trying to do their jobs:

One facilities worker, who was not named, had been exiting the building at the time of the take over when protestors occupying the lobby wouldn’t let him leave.

According to The Columbia Spectator, the worker yelled ‘they held me hostage’ after finally being let out of the building. 

Shortly after the unknown worker left, the outlet reported that another three workers were allowed to leave the building before protestors relocked the doors.

Columbia University said on Tuesday afternoon that any students occupying the building face expulsion.

Read that story here.

Standing with Columbia Students isn’t aging so well for the SD College Dems, is it?

I think I’ve been on the road nearly every day this last week helping my oldest move to Brookings, taking my wife back to Spearfish, running child #4 to the Sioux Falls airport to return to DC, and working on campaign materials.  Lots of windshield time to listen to what’s going on in the world, but not a lot of time to write about it.  So, the big one in South Dakota related news..

Not sure that there are many people who haven’t heard about the Governor’s new book and the kerfuffle that’s arisen from the passage she wrote about a dog she made the decision to put down after it killed animals and turned to snap at her.

Noem’s book comes out in May. The Guardian obtained a copy and reported how Noem recounts the story of Cricket – a 14-month-old, wire-haired pointer – ruining a pheasant hunt and killing a neighbor’s chickens.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket tried to bite her, proving herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.

“At that moment,” says Noem, “I realized I had to put her down.”

And..

Noem defended her story on Friday, saying it demonstrated the harsh realities of rural life that only recently saw her family put down three horses too.

Read that here.

Farmer shoots dog that killed livestock. Despite all the pearl clutching attached to the reaction from people who are less rural than most South Dakotans, I don’t think it’s exactly a shocking headline in this state.

Whether or not is constitutes cruelty is a discussion we’ve actually had before, and not that terribly long ago, such as back in 2014 when the state’s current animal cruelty law was debated over raising it from a misdemeanor to a felony:

Sen. Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, gave an example of an act he thinks should be legal but might be interpreted as a felony under the proposal: A neighbor of his killed his own dog with fencing pliers after the animal was caught killing another rancher’s sheep.

“It was humane,” Rhoden said. “The dog was killed instantly. But who interprets that?”

The proposed animal cruelty law includes, among a long list of exceptions, both “any humane killing of an animal” and “any reasonable action … for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous.” Advocates of the bill told Rhoden those clauses would protect that rancher, though Rep. Anne Hajek, R-Sioux Falls, added that she doesn’t “feel really good about what (Rhoden’s neighbor) did.”

Read that here in the Argus Leader.

So, no. Not cruelty under South Dakota law. Not even close, despite the pronouncements of the on-line panels of judgement.

I might view it in a different lens, as in the last decade, I had a dog that exhibited vicious behavior. We treated it under advice of our vet. Training, anxiety meds. Nothing worked. After it had bitten our son for the second or third time, the last being kind of a nasty bite on across his stomach, we were out of solutions. Couldn’t rehome a vicious dog, humane society wouldn’t take it. Even our vet conceded that while they didn’t usually euthanize, they agreed to do so in this instance.

But I’m an urbanite. Had I been on a farm, I would concede that I might have taken a more expedient and hands-on approach, because that’s what those out in the country tend to do with their own animals.  Although, unlike the example in legislative testimony, I don’t think I would have used fence pliers.

If a farmer or rancher’s animal is giving birth, they don’t necessarily call the vet. If one is sick, they might treat all sorts of things themselves.   If an animal is killing or running down livestock.. well, historically, they also deal with that end of things themselves.  It’s not something they’re proud of. It’s just handled.

Is that done less as time marches on? I would say so. Maybe. We could probably reduce the marginal or borderline cases further if our state actually had more veterinarians or a veterinary medicine program (currently 4 years at SDSU, then transfer to Minnesota to finish it) to turn out more of them.

I think we can all agree that we all like our dogs. But having had to make a far more sanitized version of the same decision with a problem animal, I can’t condemn someone living out on a farm for just dealing with it, as they have as long as there have been farmers & ranchers in the state.

As shocking as it may be to those on twitter and social media, sometimes farm stuff and dealing with animals isn’t pretty, but dealing with things directly does happen in South Dakota, and it’s just a fact of life that it happens.

Looks like Richard Thomason is victorious in his race for Sioux Falls City Council tonight:

Richard Thomason will take the Sioux Falls City Council’s At-Large C seat after defeating Jordan Deffenbaugh in Tuesday’s runoff election.

Thomason, who served two years as a state representative for South Dakota’s District 13 and currently works at Central Bank, got 6,160 votes.

Read the entire story here at the Argus Leader.

Taking 2 minutes off from making postcards and trouble, as this is hot off of the my e-mail for Minnehaha County Commission candidates ean Karsky and Dan Kippley:

Dean Karsky & Dan Kippley are teaming up to serve Minnehaha County residents by running for Commission.

Dean is the current Commission Chair and is serving his 8th year. With Commissioner Jean Bender declining to seek another term after serving 10 dedicated years, Kippley has determined he will attempt to fill her shoes. He offers the passion, vision & available time to serve. Please join the Karsky & Kippley team to share your priorities. For those able to contribute to the campaign, thank you in advance. Can’t make it, and want to make a difference?

Send checks to: Sioux Empire Better Government Committee, 2712 S 5th Ave, Sioux Falls, SD 57105

If you recall the chase down the highway and the arrest of Republican District 17 House candidate Robin Schiro from a week or two ago in Union County, it looks like Clay County has caught up with her, because she’s in the Clay County jail this time.

From the Clay County Sheriff listing of inmates:

You can read about it here.

I hate it when that happens.

South Dakota Rejects Biden’s Dismantling of Title IX

PIERRE, S.D. – Governor Kristi Noem and Attorney General Marty Jackley announced that South Dakota will not stand for President Joe Biden’s dangerous dismantling of Title IX, the over 50-year-old civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

“Mediocre men do not have the right to steal opportunities from exceptional women,” said Governor Noem. “South Dakota has the toughest law in the nation to protect girls’ and women’s sports. We will defend our laws. We will preserve the rights of women. And we will see President Biden in court.”

The U.S. Department of Education released its Final Rule redefining Title IX’s historic “on the basis of sex” to “on the basis of gender identity” in education programs or activities, a direct affront to Title IX’s foundational purpose. The Bostock decision warned of this consequence.

In 2022, Governor Noem signed the strongest bill in America to protect girls’ sports. She followed that action by leading a letter co-signed by 15 Republican governors urging the Biden Administration not to take this action. And, more than five months ago, Governor Noem led eight of her fellow Republican governors in urging the NCAA to rewrite its Transgender Student Athlete Policy.

“The Biden Administration is undermining State authority and one of Title IX’s major achievements, giving young people an equal opportunity to participate in sports,” said Attorney General Jackley.

The Final Rule attempts to coerce states to adopt Biden’s agenda and policies. The State of South Dakota looks forward to joining efforts to enjoin this Rule before its detrimental effect takes place August 1.

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Ellsworth Task Force Leaders Announced

MADISON, SD–Today, the Executive Board of the Legislature announced the Senate membership on the Ellsworth Task Force, which will explore current and future developments surrounding Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Senate members of the Ellsworth Task Force are Senator Michael Walsh (Chair) (R-35), Senator Red Dawn Foster (D-27), Senator Helene Duhamel (R-32), Senator Jean Hunhoff (R-18), and Crabtree.

The formation of this task force underscores South Dakota’s commitment to the continued success and viability of Ellsworth Air Force Base and the surrounding region.

Majority Leader Casey Crabtree expressed his confidence in the Senators selected to serve. “The Senate has made economic development in South Dakota a major priority,” said Majority Leader Crabtree. “We have the opportunity to strengthen America’s national security and grow prosperity for the surrounding region. These Senators understand the importance of Ellsworth Air Force Base to our state and nation.”

“Ellsworth Air Force Base is an integral part of the Rapid City community and a strategic location for our nation’s military,” said Task Force Chair Walsh. “I look forward to helping ensure that we as a state are doing everything possible to support the Ellsworth Air Force Base.”

Walsh was appointed to the vacant District 35 Senate seat by Governor Kristi Noem earlier this year. He is a Marine veteran, volunteers as a Key Spouse at Ellsworth Air Force Base, and is a volunteer boxing coach on the base. District 35 is home to the air base and Box Elder School District.

“I’m especially appreciative of Michael Walsh stepping up to chair the committee,” added Crabtree. “With the air base in his district along with past military service and time spent volunteering on base will help this group land the plane and stay on target.”

The Ellsworth Task Force will convene for its inaugural meeting with House members at an upcoming date. The Ellsworth Task Force plans to convene for meetings in Box Elder and Sioux Falls in the legislative interim period.

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