Author: @SoDakCampaigns

There’s nothing that collects arrows like success. And South Dakota has recently drawn considerable fire in recent days for the amount of money being invested in the state through trusts.  A recent article in business insider magazine is pointing out that our small population state of South Dakota has managed to become one of the biggest destinations in the country for people’s money:

Financial secrecy laws in South Dakota have made the state a prime location for foreigners who want to conceal and protect their assets, with tens of millions of dollars tied to people accused of financial crimes and human rights abuses, according to newly public documents.

The Pandora Papers, leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), explores the secretive offshore system the wealthy and power use to shield their money. The millions of pages of documents were shared with media partners including the Guardian, BBC Panorama, Le Monde, and the Washington Post.

and..

South Dakota is so appealing to the ultra-rich because they want the best security, the best income, and the lowest costs, the newspaper says.

The state’s laws have moved to allow for more financial security to protect asset holders, the Guardian explains.

Read the entire story here.

How has it been allowed to happen that people and industry poor South Dakota appeals to the super-rich to invest their money?  Are you kidding? We’ve been working on building our attractiveness for investments for decades!  And we’re not afraid to tell people about it:

Governor’s Task Force on Trust Administration Review and Reform

The Task Force operates under the authority of Executive Order 2017-08. It is a body comprised of representatives from the trust industry, recognized as experts in their field and appointed by the Governor. This body has been assembled with the goal of establishing and maintaining South Dakota’s stature as the premier trust jurisdiction in the United States. Members of the Task Force were instrumental in crafting South Dakota’s Trust Company Act, South Dakota Codified Law (SDCL) 51A-6A, which helped establish South Dakota as a leader in the fiduciary services industry.

Members are appointed by the Governor to terms of three years. Responsibilities of the Task Force include reviewing and making recommendations for changing South Dakota’s trust administration statutes. The primary goals of the Task Force are to provide the most efficient and effective environment for the administration of trusts, and to provide a timely response to ongoing innovation and evolution in fiduciary services. The Task Force meets periodically, and provides the Governor with an annual report detailing its recommendations, by November 1 each year.

Executive Orders

The following Executive Orders established and amended the Task Force’s authority.

• Executive Order 97-10 – Establishes and Authorizes the Governor’s Task Force on Trust Administration Review and Reform

• Executive Order 97-12 – Amends 97-10; Removes limitation on number of members

• Executive Order 97-17 – Amends 97-10; Removes report submission deadline

• Executive Order 2011-14 – Reconstituted the Trust Task Force and implemented three-year terms for members.

• Executive Order 2014-14 – Continued authorization of the Task Force

• Executive Order 2017-08 – Continued authorization of the Task Force

Read all about South Dakota’s success story here.

Under Governor Janklow’s vision, South Dakota started down the road to becoming a financial powerhouse drawing such companies as Citibank to come to our state. And part of his vision also included making South Dakota more investment friendly, including for trust investment.

According to the website, “The Governor’s Trust Task Force” was originally assembled with the goal of establishing and maintaining South Dakota’s stature as the premier trust jurisdiction in the United States,” according to the Division of Banking.

If you think about it, Business Insider is actually writing their expose’ on South Dakota accomplishing what it set out to do those many years ago.

Mission accomplished!

South Dakota State Treasurer Haeder Opposes requiring banks to turn over individual account info to IRS if they exceed $600 of inflow or outflow annually

PIERRE– State Treasurer Josh Haeder opposes the federal government’s policy proposal that would require financial institutions to turn over private citizens’ personal bank account information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) if they exceed $600 of inflows or outflows in an account.

Haeder said, “I do not believe the federal government should give the IRS the unprecedented and unconstitutional power to peer into law abiding American citizen’s private bank accounts. This would be one of the largest infringements of data privacy in our nation’s history and is a direct assault on law abiding private citizens’ financial disclosure.”

This would impact well over 100 million Americans who currently have a bank account. In the last year alone, over 127 million Americans qualified for the CARES ACT (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) which deposited funds in excess of $600 into their bank accounts.  Funds deposited included $600 weekly boost in unemployment benefits from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation Program (FPUC) for the 25 million Americans who lost their job during the pandemic, roughly $3200 in Economic Impact Payments (EIP) and most recently Advanced Child Tax Credit Payments to millions of Americans.

“Simply put, this is a direct assault on all Americans of all economic demographics and includes all business and personal accounts,” said Haeder

Forcing banks to mine additional customer data that will be sent to the IRS without consent is a violation of the 4th amendment. See Carpenter v. United States as potential case supporting this violation.

Haeder said, “There is zero quantitative or qualitative evidence that this proposed measure will aid in collecting taxes from tax evaders.”

The IRS is a constant target of cyber criminals and in recent years has suffered significant breaches. This reporting requirement will consistently put a large amount of sensitive financial data in transit to the IRS and will be at constant risk of cyber-attack. The IRS does not currently have the capability to effectively utilize or protect this data.

If passed this will be one of the largest and continuous data mining exercises against Americans in our history and will put a constant strain on customer privacy, data security and overall safety of the banking system.

Designing a system to track and report all account inflows and outflows of $600 or more for every customer will have a devastating cost impact on small community banks and credit unions.

A goal of the banking industry is to reduce the number of unbanked Americans. A bank account is an important step in creating a positive relationship with financial institutions and is a steppingstone to financial health. Requiring banks to police accounts and constantly reporting to the government may create a lack of trust, causing many to close bank accounts increasing the number of unbanked Americans.

There are no guardrails in place to prevent any abuse of this information by the IRS or other government actors.

This proposal may cause massive increases in tax preparation costs for America’s small businesses which is the heartbeat of our economy.  Haeder said, “The federal government has a spending problem, fixing that should be the priority, not invading the privacy of law abiding citizens.”

The Marty Jackley for Attorney General campaign has sent out a fundraiser announcement for Thursday October 14th with over 100 event sponsors.

With a suggested contribution for sponsors of $1000 per couple, that’s a pretty considerable amount of fundraising taking place next week!

Count on your local paper
By U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)
October 4, 2021

When I was growing up, there were a lot of things I could count on: more than one Rounds brother to a bedroom, a prayer before meals and a local newspaper in the house.

I learned early on the local newspaper was not only a source of information, but also a source of income. One of my first jobs as a kid was delivering the Minneapolis Tribune. When I got my driver’s license, I began distributing papers to the other paperboys. That job required me to be up at 4 AM to meet the truck that would drop off the papers. Those were some early mornings and during the winter months I think I almost ruined dad’s Plymouth Station wagon driving through snow-packed roads and below zero temperatures with more than 500 pounds of newspapers. I’d always have one of my little brothers in the backseat helping put together the inserts so we could get done in time for 8:30 AM church. When I was in high school, I began working for the Capital Journal cleaning the presses with Derald Gross and delivering the afternoon edition of the paper to other paperboys in the area.

As a young paperboy, I didn’t fully understand the importance of the newspaper I was tossing on the front step, but I certainly do today. In our fast-paced, digitally-generated news world, there is something special about picking up a local newspaper – even if you get a little “newsprint” on your hands. It’s reassuring knowing you can trust the reporter because they are a neighbor or, in most cases, a friend. A newspaper is meant to be a source of unbiased information and local newspapers in South Dakota provide just that.

My office subscribes to local newspapers from across the state, and every time I get a chance, I take the opportunity to peruse them. You can learn so much from the local paper like who is getting married, who is having a birthday and who recently passed away. You can also keep up on the local sports teams and what is happening with various organizations in town. Sure you can see a lot of things on social media today, but let’s face it, most of us don’t have hours to scroll through and see all that is happening.

As an elected official, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of the local newspaper in effectively conveying a story. I’ve always done my best to fulfill requests from our South Dakota media because I know how important timely, reliable news is to the people of this state.

Unfortunately, across our nation, more and more towns are losing their newspaper leaving communities without a central gathering place for the news. Nationally, statistics show that more than one-fourth of local papers have shut their doors during the last 15 years.  As someone who cares about the integrity of my news source, I would hate to see that trend continue. Thankfully, in South Dakota, our state continues to be served by over 120 newspapers which publish either daily or weekly.

As we celebrate National Newspaper Week, I want recognize and thank everyone working for our state’s local newspapers. From the editor to the advertising sales rep and the reporter to the delivery person, you all play a vital role in keeping our communities connected, vibrant and strong. And that’s something I know I can count on.

As released by the Senate this morning, here are the names of the Senators signing off on the special session for the impeachment proceedings for the Attorney General.

Senate Petitions for 2d Special Session by Pat Powers on Scribd

Senators Bolin, Breitling, Cammack, Castleberry, Crabtree, Curd, Diedrich, Duhamel, Duvall, Foster, Heinert, Hunhoff, Johns, Johnson, Klumb, Nesiba, Otten, Rohl, Rusch, Schoenbeck, Schoenfish, Smith, Steinhauer, Symens, Tobin, Wheeler, and Zikmund all signed the petition for a special session.

As of this morning, the State House of Representatives has yet to follow suit.

Update – those who didn’t sign were Senators Julie Frye-Mueller, Brock Greenfield, Jack Kolbeck, Ryan Maher, Al Novstrup, Jim Stalzer, Maggie Sutton and John Wiik. That doesn’t mean they have a position for or against, they simply called the session once the threshold was reached.

From KELOLAND News, while the House remains gagged on their own order, the Senate is apparently tired of holding their votes for convening a special session for impeachment secret at the House’s request:

Names will be released Monday of state senators who want a special session of the South Dakota Legislature to consider whether the state attorney general should be impeached and barred from public office.

The announcement came Sunday from Senate president pro tem Lee Schoenbeck, the chamber’s top member.

There’s no word yet on whether the names of House members will be released.

Read the entire story here.

Keeping the vote secret was ill-advised at best, and an affront to open government at worst. So much so that the Senate is apparently done playing along.

This evening, “Matt Paulson’s Insiders” text updated offered this interesting tidbit about next years’ Sioux Falls Mayoral contest:

Insider Text: Hearing rumors of a liberal challenger in the mayoral race from multiple sources. Word is that a private Facebook event is going out for a campaign announcement on Tuesday afternoon. If true, the candidate will be a huge contrast to Mayor TenHaken.

After a couple hours of reaching out to Sioux Falls contacts, I managed to track this down from Facebook:

The event is sponsored by Taneeza Islam, former Sioux Falls City Councilman Andy Howes, and Susan Kroger, who along with Islam is part of the women’s only LEAD South Dakota group.

What I’m hearing is that sources are saying Islam will supposedly be challenging TenHaken in next years’ mayoral contest with the announcement coming on Tuesday.

Taneeza Islam is the executive director for the “South Dakota Voices for Justice/South Dakota Voices for Peace” group, which notes itself in press releases as “diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist” and their “mission is to build power and enable healing in refugee, immigrant and Muslim communities by amplifying their voices and working in solidarity with all who dismantle bigotry and racism.”

Their website notes that she formed the group after “two bigoted resolutions and one bigoted bill were introduced during South Dakota’s legislative session” and she “was contacted by lobbyist friends in the state capitol about these bigoted pieces of legislation.” According to one bio, Islam was former “Civil Rights Director for the Council on American Islamic Relations – MN Chapter.”

We’ll know for sure after Tuesday.

After last week’s on 9/30) 6-1 vote of the State Senate Legislative Redistricting Committee, the lone vote against the proposals that were passed, State Senator Jim Bolin, asked if I’d post the map proposal he was in favor of, the legislative reapportionment proposal labeled as “Falcon,” from the Senate Redistricting document page, along with the description for his preferred mapping scheme. 

Falcon Legislative Redistricting Map by Pat Powers on Scribd

 

DESCRIPTION OF THE 2021 REDISTRICTING MAP LABELED “FALCON”

(This is not a legal description. It is a general outline of each legislative district.)

• District #1.  All of Day, Marshall, and Roberts counties plus most of rural Brown County including but not limited to the towns of Groton, Hecla, and Frederick.  It does not include any part of the city of Aberdeen or the town of Warner.
• District #2.  This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 3–5, 3-6, 3–9, 3– 12, 4–5, 5–18 and 5–20.
• District #3.  This district is within the city limits of Aberdeen.  It includes the city of Aberdeen except for two precincts on the southwest edge of the city.
• District #4. All of Clark, Deuel, Grant, and Hamlin counties plus portions of rural Coddington county including but not limited to the areas around Henry and Florence.
• District #5. The city of Watertown plus areas of rural Coddington county on the east side of the county.
• District #6. This district is entirely within the boundaries of Lincoln County. The cities of Harrisburg, Lennox, and Tea, plus the townships of Delapre, Grant, Lavalley, Perry and Springdale, plus the Sioux Falls precincts of 1-14 and 1-16.
• District #7. The city of Brookings plus the townships of Brookings and Medary.
• District #8. The counties of Lake and Moody, plus all areas of Brookings County not included in district # 7.
• District #9. The voting precincts in Minnehaha County consisting of VP–6, VP–7, VP–8, VP–9, VP–13, VP–16, VP-17 and the precincts in Sioux Falls, 3–14 and 3–17.
• District #10. This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 4-4, 4–6, 4–7, 4–8, 4–9, 4–10, 4–11, 4–12.
• District #11. This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 1–6, 1–9, 1–10, 1–17, 3–10, 3–11, 3–13, 3–15, and 3–16.
• District #12. This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 1–3, 1–4, 1–5, 1–11, 1–12, 1–13, 1–15, 1–18, 5–10, 5–17, 5–19, and 5–21.
• District #13.This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 2–1, 2–10, 2–11, 2–12, 2–13, 2–15, 2–18, 5–11, 5–12, and 5–13,
• District #14.This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 2–2, 2–3, 2–6, 2–7, 2–8, 2-9, 2–14, and 4–13.
• District #15.This district is within the city limits of Sioux Falls.  Precincts 4–1, 4–2, 4–3, 4–14, 5–1, 5–2, 5–3, 5–4, 5–6, 5–7, 5–8, 5–9, and 5–14.
• District #16. All of Union County and the portions of Lincoln County not included in Districts #6, 12, and 13.
• District #17.All of Clay and Turner counties plus the voting precinct that is in the farthest southeastern portion of Hutchinson County.  (The Menno area.)
• District #18. All of Yankton County plus the cities of Tabor and Tyndall and the voting precincts that surrounds those two towns.
• District #19.Hansen, Kingsbury, McCook, Miner, Sanborn, and the portions of Hutchinson County not included in District #17.  (All of Hutchinson except Menno and the voting area surrounding the town.)
• District #20.Aurora, Davison, and Jerauld counties.
• District #21.Charles Mix, Douglas, and Gregory counties plus the area of Bon Homme County not included in District #18 and all of Tripp County except the three voting precincts that border the White River and are at the northern border of the county.
• District #22. Beadle and Spink counties.
• District #23.Campbell, Edmunds, Faulk, Hand, McPherson, and Walworth counties plus the northern portion of Hyde County not to be included in #26 and the portions of Brown County and Aberdeen not included in Districts #1 and #3.
• District #24. Potter, Stanley, and Sully counties, plus all of Hughes County with the exception the precinct at the far southeastern portion of the county that encompasses the area generally known as “The Pocket.”
• District #25. The voting precincts in Minnehaha County of VP–01, VP–02, VP–03, VP–04, VP–05, VP–10, VP–11, VP-12, VP–15, VP–21.
• District #26.Brule, Buffalo, Jones, Lyman, Mellette, and Todd counties plus the voting precinct in Hughes County that is known as the “Pocket”, the southernmost voting precinct in Hyde County that encompasses Stephan, and the three voting precincts in Tripp County in the northern portion of the county that are not included in District #21.
• District #27.Bennett, Haakon, Jackson, and Oglala Lakota counties plus the eastern portion of Pennington County including but not limited to Wall, Scenic, Wasta, Quinn, New Underwood and the rural areas near these communities.
• District #28. Butte, Corson, Dewey, Harding, Perkins, and Ziebach counties.
• District #29. All of Meade County not included in the Rapid City conurbation district.
• District #30. Custer and Fall River counties plus portions of rural Pennington County including but not limited to Hill City, Deerfield, Keystone, and Rochford, and Rockerville and the rural areas near these communities.
• District #31. Lawrence County

Minnehaha County Republicans are going to have a presentation on redistricting at their next luncheon on Wednesday, October 6th.

Check it out at the 41st Street Pizza Ranch next Wednesday at 11:30.

Governor Abbott, 10 State Governors To Hold Press Conference On Border Crisis In Mission

AUSTIN – Governor Greg Abbott and 10 state governors will hold a press conference on the border crisis on Wednesday, October 6 in Mission, Texas. The Governor will also be joined by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steve McCraw, Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) Chief Nim Kidd, and Texas Military Department Brigadier General Monie R. Ulis, and National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) President Brandon Judd.

MEDIA RSVP IS REQUIRED.

WHO: Governor Greg Abbott

          Arizona Governor Doug Ducey

          Georgia Governor Brian Kemp

          Idaho Governor Brad Little

          Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

          Montana Governor Greg Gianforte

          Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts

          Ohio Governor Mike DeWine

          Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt

          South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem

          Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon

          DPS Director Steve McCraw

          TDEM Chief Nim Kidd

          General Monie R. Ulis

          NBPC President Brandon Judd

WHAT: Press conference
WHEN: Wednesday, October 6 at 12:00 PM
            Media check-in and setup begins at 11:15 AM