Author: @SoDakCampaigns

State Senate Candidate Roger Solum was nice enough to drop an ad at SDWC to encourage people to visit his new website for his State Senate primary campaign.

Please click on the link on the left hand side of the page, and take a look around.

And as always, I’d encourage you to visit our long list of advertisers, and check out their websites, such as United States Senator John Thune, Americans for Prosperity SD Chapter, Congresswoman Kristi Noem, the fine barristers at Redstone Law Firm, as well as my own Dakota Campaign Store, one of the State’s largest suppliers of campaign materials.

And if you might be interested, we do have other advertising spots available. Drop a note to the webmaster for more information!

(And Bonus, we have a new advertiser coming in June already!)

The Argus Leader is covering Congresswoman Kristi Noem’s comprehensive measure to overhaul the IHS system – something that’s been long overdue:

Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., said she plans to bring a bill that will address contracting, recruitment, billing and accountability at the federal agency following reports that indicated two reservation hospitals in South Dakota provided fatally flawed health care.

“We’ve known for decades that IHS was not meeting the needs of Native American residents in the region,” Noem said in an interview with Argus Leader Media, “but we haven’t seen reforms put into place that we know will really create positive change. That’s why this bill is so thorough, so we can have real solutions, not just a fix.”

and…

Noem’s broad legislation would cut red tape to allow the agency to more easily enter into long-term contracts for care services and faster hiring, to provide additional recruitment incentives like removing taxes on student loan repayment for medical staff and expanding the loan repayment program to include management staff.

It would also require the agency to develop a formula to ensure that areas with the most critical need get more funding for care accessed at non-IHS hospitals, negotiate Medicare-like rates for services from private providers and pay back private providers for any backlogged health care bills.

and…

“I’m just not going to leave this in their hands to decide what’s right,” Noem said, “because they haven’t been able to do that.”

Read all of this important article here.

US Senator John Thune is taking action over accusations regarding the Facebook organization manipulating news to eliminate conservative topics over liberal ones.

A top Senate Republican is pressing Facebook to explain how it curates news for its Trending Topics feature in response to a report that the company’s employees may have suppressed stories related to conservatives.

The leader of the chamber’s Commerce Committee, Sen. John Thune, said in a statement the social network “must answer these serious allegations,” first reported by Gizmodo, “and hold those responsible to account if there has been political bias in the dissemination of trending news.”

“Any attempt by a neutral and inclusive social media platform to censor or manipulate political discussion is an abuse of trust and inconsistent with the values of an open Internet,” Thune said.

Read the entire article here.

From the Argus Leader:

Brown, who had already endorsed Trump, was asked by the Boston Herald about whether he wanted to be Trump’s running mate. Brown volunteered Thune.

“I feel very strongly that John would be fantastic,” Brown said. “John’s from a smaller state but I don’t think states matter anymore. What John provides is he will carry the entire central part of this country, the left coast and the right coast, and he is that bridge to the establishment where he is so deeply respected on the left and the right, inside and out.”

and…

For what it’s worth, Thune didn’t endorse a candidate in the race for the GOP nomination.

And last year, GOP lawmakers in the Legislature did this to allow Thune to run for his U.S. Senate seat this year and be on a presidential ticket as well.

Read it here.

“Respected by the left and the right” sums up our senior US Senator, although the liberal extremists in the state Democrat party may disagree. We’d be well served to have him as our nation’s VP, although we’d hate to lose him here in SD.

An attendee at last weeks’ South Dakota Newspaper Association’s convention snapped this for me, and passed it on. Apparently members (around 130) were informally polled and asked who they thought the GOP nominee for Governor was going to be in 2018:

47% picked Marty Jackley, 23% picked Mark Micklelson, 9% picked Kristi Noem, and 5% picked Matt Michels. 17% went for “other,” assuming someone else is going to emerge.

The Argus Leader has a nice article today about Congresswoman Kristi Noem’s influence and ability to make sure South Dakota issues are valued in the Republican Congress:

“The choice of her on this committee says something about her, that she is somebody they have come to value her opinion and value her ability to work with others in the House,” Blanchard said. “The speaker of the House is a very powerful position and so nobody is going to be on that committee that he hasn’t picked.”

Ryan said he chose Noem because of her keen ability to see how policies in Congress impact constituents outside Washington.

“Kristi may be South Dakota’s lone representative in the House, but she has given the state a prominent voice, building the relationships and coalitions she needs to get things done,” Ryan said in an email. “It’s why I asked her to serve on my advisory council, and one of the many areas where I look to her for insight.”

and…

Noem came into office in 2011 with a challenge common among the seven members who are their state’s only representative: how to make an impact without the opportunity to join forces and gain support from other members in their state. As a result, Noem has focused heavily on reaching out to other members, depending on the issue. This has enabled her to develop relationships with a wide swath of members.

“That education process during that year-long, gutting-it-out-battle to get the farm bill done, I think, had a big impact on Paul,” Noem said. “He recognized that I knew policy and was willing to work with people and would spend time to try to educate other members.”

Read it all here.

I had a few things to do in Madison this afternoon, and one of them was to make a social call on one of the candidates who has taken on the banner of representing the GOP in this years’ State Senate races, Jordan Youngberg.

Jordan is manager of an implement dealer in Madison, as well as being a small businessman himself, and he was gracious enough to give a few minutes of his time while I was passing through. I told him we should do one of my “5 Questions with…” features one of these days, so that will be coming sooner or later.

As a newcomer to the process, Jordan was impressed with the number of people who are gravitating towards, and offering help for his campaign. And that’s one thing that many Republicans who are running for office find – that there’s a large network of people across the state willing to lend their time & their efforts to make sure that good candidates have the tools available to run for office and win!

Current Meade County Commissioner, Former Legislator, & 1998 GOP US Senate hopeful Alan Aker was indicted yesterday for some actions that weren’t exactly prudent, according to a Lawrence County Grand Jury.

From KEVN:

Meade County Commissioner Alan Aker has been indicted by a Lawrence County Grand Jury on felony intentional damage to property charges.

and…

A Lawrence County Sheriff’s report recounts an incident on Elk Creek Road in February.  The report alleges that after a dispute over payment for work where Aker was hired as a contractor, that Aker came back to the property and cut off about 50 feet of railing from the project and took it with him.

Read it here.

So, when he goes to trial, is he going to have to hire counsel for his de-fence?

Cue that 2-note sound from the NBC Show “Law and Order” here. (Bum-bum).

Alright faithful readers – It’s time for another episode of The Svarstad Files, chronicling the long criminal history of Democrat Party State House Candidate Chris Svarstad as runs for the South Dakota State Legislature, dragging a chain of broken laws the entire way behind him.

On February the 29th Yankton Democrat Candidate Chris Svarstad compared himself to Republican State Representative Mike Stevens on crime on a campaign web page that as of tonight, is no longer there: Svarstad alleges “weekend passes and cover-ups” on the part of State Representative Mike Stevens…. but skips over the part where Mike Stevens isn’t a prosecutor. He isn’t some sort of jail administrator. He would have had practically nothing to do with any “Weekend passes.”

What was Steven’s role in the matter? Stevens was actually counsel for the defendant. His attorney.  So, as counsel for the defense, advocating for his client… well, it would actually be part of the job duties of a defense counsel, and he’d be in dutch if he didn’t do his job.

What makes the post even more bizarre is that given Svarstad’s past experiences with Attorney Stevens acting as a defense counsel prior to making that questionable statement, you would think he should have already know that.

Why would he know of Stevens’ work as a defense lawyer? Well, here’s where we have to take a look into The Svarstad Files:

In 2014, about 22 years after the case that Svarstad is using to poke at Representative Stevens, Svarstad (or someone paying Svarstad’s bills) hired Representative Stevens to represent him and act as his attorney because he was charged with use or possession of drug paraphernalia.

So, when he made the questionable statement about Rep. Stevens in the 1992 case earlier this month, Svarstad was already well acquainted with the role that Stevens serves within the system of American Jurisprudence in acting as a defense counsel. He’d already used Steven’s services himself.

Except, unlike the 1992 case, apparently there was not enough reasonable doubt for Stevens to get Svarstad off the hook on this drug crime for which he pled guilty about a year and a half ago.

Stay tuned for more to come on The Svarstad Files.