Category: Uncategorized

Kristi Noem Endorsed By NRA, Local Gun Rights Advocates

Earns A-Rating for Record Protecting 2^nd Amendment 

Sioux Falls, SD – Rep. Kristi Noem has been endorsed by gun rights advocates as a leader in defending our Second Amendment rights.

“As a small business owner whose operation is reliant upon citizens using their Second Amendment rights, I keep a close eye on our state’s leaders and what they are doing to protect our gun rights. With Kristi, we have a strong advocate for the Second Amendment and her record is second to none,” said Kristi Hoffman of Black Hills Ammunition.

“Anyone who has had more than one conversation with me probably knows I’m an avid hunter. Most days, I would rather be out in the field hunting with friends and family than anywhere else. While in Congress, I have firmly and consistently defended our Second Amendment rights, which are essential to our liberty and a core constitutional value,” said Noem. 

Noem has been endorsed by:

National Rifle Association (Noem is a lifetime member and has an A-rating)
Charlie Carter, Kones Korner Guns
Jim Claseman, Vice President, Thunderstik Lodge
Nancy First, Chief Executive Officer, Jack First Gunshop
Jeff and Kristi Hoffman, Black Hills Ammunition
Brandon Maddox, Owner, Dakota Silencer
Gregory Vecchi, Owner, Deadwood Guns 

“I am honored to receive endorsements from the NRA and local South Dakota business leaders and gun rights advocates who have put their trust in me to protect our right to bear arms,” said Noem.

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I’ve been hearing anecdotes for the last week within GOP circles that early voting is nearly 4 times as high as it had been last election. Today, the Secretary of State confirmed that early voting is occurring at a near record pace, and could comprise a staggering 35% of the vote:

Friday was the busiest day in the history of early voting for county auditors.

South Dakota Secretary of State Shantel Krebs told The Greg Belfrage Show Wednesday that she expects 30 to 35 percent of all voters this fall to vote by absentee ballot.

Read that here.

My fellow Republicans – 35% of the vote?  That’s a third of your electorate. Better get those early voting postcards out.

(Call me at Dakota Campaign Store, I’m happy to get you taken care of. – PP)

Fresh out of the Post Office Box comes a new postcard against Initiated Measure 22.

Attorney General Jackley Joins Challenge to Federal Government Withholding of Education Funds over Transgender

PIERRE, S.D.- Attorney General Marty Jackley announced that South Dakota has joined 18 other State Attorneys General and the Governors of Kentucky and North Carolina in an amicus or “friend of the court” brief, challenging the federal government’s withholding of education funds over transgender.

“President Obama’s directive that children of opposite sex must be required to share locker rooms and bathrooms under the threat of lawsuit and withholding of education funding has been halted by a nationwide federal preliminary   injunction.

Unfortunately, the federal government continues to act on its threat by forcing this extraordinary intrusion upon our schools. The Attorneys General are again stepping forward to protect children by asking the United States Supreme Court to allow school districts to avoid placing young children of opposite sex in the same bathroom or  locker room,” said Jackley.

The brief was filed in the United States Supreme Court in the case of Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., Mother Deirdre Grimm.

The case involves a school board in Virginia making accommodations for an individual born as a girl that self identifies as a boy wanting to use the boys’ bathroom in school. The Federal District Court entered a preliminary injunction requiring the school board to allow the girl to use the boys’ bathroom after it was directed by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to afford controlling deference to the Department of Education and Department of Justice letter that makes it discriminatory for a school to separate male and female bathrooms, unless each student is allowed to select either bathroom in accordance with that student’s asserted gender identity. The United States Supreme Court has stayed the 4th Circuit Court mandate and the District Court preliminary injunction, pending the disposition of a petition for certiorari from the school   board.

South Dakota had previously joined 24 other states in parallel lawsuits filed in Texas and Nebraska against the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice. The challenge was initiated by a letter threatening states with loss of all educational funding under Title IX unless every public school in the country allowed students to select restrooms, showers and dormitories based on their expressed   gender identity. A federal district court in Texas recently entered a  nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the letter, and withholding of education funding, which applies nationally.

There is no cost for South Dakota to join these proceedings.

Senator Soholt just posted this video on her facebook page about her support for Roads and Bridges.

It’s very nice, and professionally done. She spent some money on having this produced for Social Media.

If you’re a candidate, should you do this?  My answer is “Depends on how much you have in your campaign account.”  I suspect Senator Soholt, running against an independent, with no Democrat in the race, has enough of a budget to do so.  If you’re a beginning or challenger candidate, you probably don’t. If you want to do a video, by all means, do so. But shoot it on your phone, and use free editing software.

Thinking in a “campaigny” mode, The money you would spend on a professionally shot and produced video would also get you pretty far on a postcard that’s directly targeted to people you know will vote, versus a professionally produced video that I’m seeing up in Brookings, and don’t have that person on the ballot.

It’s the sniper approach versus the scattergun approach. Both have value, but it depends on what you’ve got to spend.

Social media videos, newspaper ads, tv, they all encompass the scattergun approach where you blast messages out there and hope you hit a voter (much like goose hunting).  They’re tried and true techniques, and have been used for years.

But so have Postcards, robocalls, e-mail campaigns, etc. They’re of a directly targeted nature – a laser or sniper approach – where you go exactly to the person you know who has a history of voting in, say 3 of the last 4 general elections.  They’ve been around almost as long as political newspaper ads have been.

Why target? Odds are, if you have a targeted voter who has pulled the lever in several elections, you can count on them voting again. So you need to get your name in front of them, even if it’s for a moment when the card passes from their mailbox to the trash.

(Yes, I do quite a few postcards through my business Dakota Campaign Store.  They work and they aren’t going away anytime soon.)

To me, targeting your message is of foundational importance in a political campaign. Think of it as a cake. A targeted message would be a layer in the cake. There is also a layer for traditional newspaper and broadcast advertising.

And if you can afford it, there’s a place for social media videos. They’re like icing to make it pretty, polished and professional looking. Possibly sprinkles.

How does it fit into your campaign? I’ll close by saying that there’s no rights or wrongs, it all depends on what you can afford, and what you want to emphasize.

Rounds, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Provide Financial Stability to Muni Bonds

Allows high quality municipal debt to be classified at a level equivalent to debt issued by corporations

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), members of the Senate Banking Committee, led a bipartisan group of senators in introducing legislation to allow high-quality municipal debt to be classified at a level equivalent to debt issued by corporations. Debt sold by state and local governments is currently excluded from consideration under a rule requiring banks to hold enough highly liquid assets to fund their operations for 30 days. This exclusion may create a disincentive for banks to hold their positions in the municipal-debt market, potentially making it harder for state and local governments to issue bonds to fund infrastructure projects.

“Making sure South Dakota and our municipalities have access to capital at the best possible rates is vital for communities to finance important infrastructure projects,” said Rounds. “Our legislation would allow banks to count qualifying municipal debt as High Quality Liquid Assets, helping to maintain demand for the debt which would prevent borrowing rates for municipalities from dramatically increasing.”

Under proposed rules issued by federal banking regulators, debt sold by states and localities isn’t eligible to count as High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA), which means they won’t qualify as assets necessary for banks to retain under new funding requirements issued following the financial crisis. These requirements ensure that banks maintain a liquidity coverage ratio that includes holding a certain amount of HQLA, but prohibits munis from being considered as HQLA. The rules effectively cabin off an entire category of high-quality and highly liquid debt from being considered as HQLA, limiting the incentive for financial institutions to hold these assets and potentially adversely affecting the issuance of such debt by states and municipalities.  

The Federal Reserve recently weighed in on the issue, making limited changes to their previously issued rule. However, the two other regulators involved—the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp—have made no changes to allow the institutions they regulate to count municipal bonds toward their liquidity buffers. The Rounds-Warner-Schumer bill would categorize certain types of municipal debt as Level 2B, on par with certain corporate debt, and would receive a 50% equivalent to the liquidity ratio requirement. This action would bring municipal bond debt on par with corporate debt, and help stabilize the municipal securities market. 

In addition to Sens. Rounds, Warner and Schumer, the legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), David Vitter (R-La.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.).

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With regards to the Argus Leader story this AM where two of the three candidates running for the legislature were Muslim….

“Muslims have been talked about a lot in some of the political campaigns that are going on so I think that it’s important for people to be aware of the Muslims in their own community and I think it’s important for Muslims to define ourselves within the larger community,” Koch said. “We live here and we want to have a positive impact on our state and our community.”

Michael Saba, a Democrat and Muslim, is running for a District 9 House seat.

Apparently, no one bothered to actually ask Saba.

A commenter noted under my original story that he’s actually a practitioner of a Christian faith. And the passage noting his religious beliefs are now mysteriously absent from the story this afternoon.

(Maybe they should have picked up the phone.)

I was working and then on the road for part of it, although I did catch a portion of it.

What did I miss? And who do you think won?

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader has an article this AM noting that two of the three Democrats running in the District this fall happen to be practicing Muslims.  I’m not sure why it’s a big deal, but the Argus thinks it is:

“Muslims have been talked about a lot in some of the political campaigns that are going on so I think that it’s important for people to be aware of the Muslims in their own community and I think it’s important for Muslims to define ourselves within the larger community,” Koch said. “We live here and we want to have a positive impact on our state and our community.”

Michael Saba, a Democrat and Muslim, is running for a District 9 House seat.

Koch said he decided to fill the Democratic vacancy in the District 9 in August after candidate Holly Boltjes withdrew. He said he hopes to support Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s proposal to expand Medicaid in the state and oppose measure that could reduce rights of LGBT people.

Read it here.

I’m hearing more about him being a liberal in this article than I am about him being a Muslim.

If it was an article intended to be about a candidate’s religion and the legislature, the biggest issue the article ignored is South Dakota’s 2012 ban on Sharia Law which was heard and signed into law during the 2012 Legislative session. After about 20 states in the union proposed measures, South Dakota is one of only seven states (Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama) which have passed a ban.

The measure did attract some national attention at the time. According to MSNBC:

HB 1253, which passed 29-4 in the state Senate on Tuesday, is about as brief as they come — one line: “No court, administrative agency or other governmental agency may enforce any provisions of any religious code,” it reads.

Gov. Daugaard’s general counsel Jim Seward testified that the bill served to “answer the question of the Sharia law” without being unconstitutional or interfering with business interests.

This bill was motivated by a “growing demographic concern in Sioux Falls,” Seward said, referring to the influx of immigrants from majority Muslim countries.

“I would be less than fully honest with you if I didn`t also say that part of the purpose of (HB)1253 is to deal with what I am going to say generally has been referred to as Shariah law,” Republican Rep. Roger Hunt, who sponsored the bill, said in a judiciary committee hearing.

and…

The South Dakota bill does exactly what that Oklahoma legislation did, “albeit in a slightly more general manner,” said CAIR’s Abbas, who was involved in the successful challenge to the Oklahoma measure.

Read that here.

The measure, solely sponsored by State Rep. Roger Hunt, was a bit more controversial in the House, passing 47-22….

But once it was taken up in the State Senate, if flew through on a 29-4 vote.

District 9’s delegation at the time (including those grouped together by re-districting) unanimously supported the measure which stated simply “No court, administrative agency, or other governmental agency may enforce any provisions of any religious code,”  which applied on a broad basis to not just Sharia Law, but Canon Law, and other religious codes.

The Governor signed it, and it’s the law of the land in South Dakota.

If there was one issue you would have thought the Argus would have noted in an article they just felt they had to write about the topic of Muslims running for the legislature in South Dakota, it would have been that.

What do you think?

(What was that I was saying last week?   -PP)

Gov. Daugaard To Appoint
David Lust To District 34 State House Seat

PIERRE, S.D. – Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today that he will appoint former state Rep. David Lust of Rapid City to the vacant seat in the state House representing District 34.

Lust will succeed Rep. Dan Dryden, who passed away last month. Rep. Dryden’s current term began in January 2015 and ends in early January 2017, prior to the next legislative session. Lust will serve until the end of that term.

“Rep. Dryden’s passing left a real void, and I appreciate David Lust’s willingness to return,” said Gov. Daugaard. “District 34 voters elected David Lust four times to represent them, and he was an excellent legislator.”

Lust is an attorney and a partner at Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore in Rapid City. He previously served from 2007 to 2015 in the state House, and was House Majority Leader from 2011 to 2015. Since leaving the Legislature, Lust has served on the Ellsworth Development Authority and on the State Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners.

“It was very meaningful to me that Judy Dryden asked me to apply to complete Dan’s term, and I thank the Governor for this opportunity,” said Lust. “Dan was a good friend and a great person, and it means a lot to be able to complete his term and fulfill his commitment to the people of District 34 and the state of South Dakota.”

Rep. Dryden was also a candidate for reelection to the state House this fall. Under South Dakota law, Dryden’s name will remain on the November ballot. If Dryden is reelected, it will create a vacancy for the term that begins in January 2017, which would also be filled by gubernatorial appointment. Gov. Daugaard would plan to appoint Lust to fill that vacancy as well.

District 34 includes western Rapid City, generally including the areas west of Mt. Rushmore Road, Dinosaur Hill, and “the gap” on West Main Street, and including sites such as Camp Rapid, Canyon Lake, the Sioux San Hospital, West Middle School, and Southwest Middle School.

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