I was working off my phone yesterday when the order came in yesterday from Judge Barnett on Initiated Measure 22, so I’m posting it here for your review.
IM 22 – Order on Severability by Pat Powers on Scribd
Had a note today from the Pierre Chamber of Commerce. With the invalidation on Initiated Measure 22 by the Court, the Pierre Area Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Welcome is back on in its original format.
They’ve been busy calling legislators trying to get the word out, and to let them know they’d be happy to host them for dinner & welcome them with open arms to South Dakota’s Capital City.
A return to fellowship. Kind of a nice Christmas gift.
KSFY TV interviewed Mike Huether, and on the heels of announcing his abandonment of the Democrat Party, he told them that he’s looking at running for Governor or Congress:
“i go as hard at this job as mayor or as public servant as i possibly can.” In a sit down interview at the Old Courthouse Musuem, Huether tells us he and his wife Cindy are in the midst of deciding what to do next where his political career is concerned. “Yeah i would love to be the governor of South Dakota. I’d love to be the President of the United States. I’d love to represent South Dakota as their senator or representative.”
The mayor tells KSFY he believes he could be a change maker in Pierre should he choose to run for governor, something he says many people have urged him to do. “I think they’ve seen what we’ve been able to accomplish in Sioux Falls and there’s this hope that we can do it maybe in another role as well.”
But the mayor also tells us he sees a compelling reason to run for U-S House in hopes of serving in Washington, saying as an Independent he would want to make Congress more cooperative and less partisan.
Is it me, or does he assume he’s a lot more popular than he really is?
The irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife.
Remember during the campaign this past fall, where the proponents of Initiated Measure 22 went after lobbyists, inferring that they’re all corrupt and trying to buy off legislators?
Now that an injunction has been filed, and a judge has determined it’s likely to be declared unconstitutional, many anticipate that the legislature will be called upon to fix the problems with the measure.
The word on the street among the lobbyist corps is that there are a lot of calls being made to engage them in this matter for this next session.
But, not from the people opposing IM22, but FROM THE VERY PEOPLE WHO ATTACKED LOBBYISTS AS BEING CORRUPT AND ACCUSED THEM OF BUYING POLITICIANS. Yes, you heard that right. The same people who spent the entire campaign attacking lobbyists and portrayed them as corrupt political bosses buying legislators are now out trying to hire lobbyists themselves.
Good luck with that one, guys.
From the Argus Leader, the Family Heritage Alliance has announced that they are championing a transgender bathroom bill for the 2017 legislative session, despite threats of a ballot measure:
The leader of a conservative state advocacy group Wednesday said he plans to bring another so-called transgender bathroom bill in 2017.
Dale Bartscher, executive director of the Family Heritage Alliance, said the conservative Christian group approved a draft of a bill last week that would bar transgender students from using the bathroom, locker room or shower room if it doesn’t match their biological gender at birth. The bill calls for schools to offer accommodations for “students with unique privacy needs, including transgender students.”
While details of the legislation, including which legislator would carry it, weren’t firm Wednesday, Bartscher said it was important to bring the debate back to the Legislature. He said he hopes it could be approved there sooner than at the ballot box, where voters could have a chance to weigh in on the issue in 2018.
“Quite frankly, we don’t want to see any initiated measure in 2018, we want to see the Legislature approve it and the governor sign it,” Bartscher told Argus Leader Media. “This issue is on the front burner for a lot of South Dakotans.”
This is coming at the same time as North Carolina is preparing to debate whether or not to repeal their own measure similar to what’s being proposed:
The legislature meets Wednesday to consider repeal of HB2, a state law requiring transgender people to use the public bathroom associated with the sex listed on their birth certificate. The law has prompted companies such as PayPal Holdings Inc. to cancel investments and sports leagues, including the N.C.-based Atlantic Coast Conference, to cancel tournament games that were scheduled to be held in the state.
The liberal Charlotte council voted 7-2 in an emergency session to a full repeal of the city ordinance the council passed in February that prompted the Republican-led legislature to then pass HB2 in March. The council had met Monday on the same issue, in hopes of adhering to the terms of a behind-the-scenes deal with Democratic Governor-elect Roy Cooper and the GOP-led legislature.
and..
The unexpected moves by the Democrat-dominated Charlotte city council, and countermoves by the Republican-dominated state legislature, come on the heels of last week’s special legislative session reducing the power of the incoming Democratic governor.
The well of political goodwill in the state “is very poisoned,” said J. Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. “It just seems like both sides are trying to make one another sweat as much as possible,” he said. North Carolina has had fierce partisan battles in the past, he said, but “this has taken it to a whole new level,” he added.
The word is on the street in South Dakota that there may be pressure being placed upon some of South Dakota’s larger communities via their convention bureaus and chambers of commerce from outside groups intimating that they would bypass South Dakota for national conventions and tournaments should such a measure pass.
Will that influence legislators in the 2017 legislative session? We shall see.
Attorney General Explanation Released for Initiated Measure Authorizing a Physician to Prescribe Life-Ending Drugs to Terminally Ill Patients
PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley announced today an Attorney General Explanation for a proposed initiated measure has been filed with the Secretary of State. This statement will appear on petitions that will be circulated by the sponsor of the measure. If the sponsor obtains a sufficient number of signatures on the petitions by November 2017, as certified by the Secretary of State, the measure will be placed on the ballot for the November 2018 general election.
The measure is entitled “An initiated measure authorizing a South Dakota licensed physician to prescribe drugs that a terminally ill patient may take for the purpose of ending life.”
Under South Dakota law, the Attorney General is responsible for preparing explanations for proposed initiated measures, referred laws, and South Dakota Constitutional Amendments. Specifically, the explanation includes a title, an objective, clear and simple summary of the purpose and effect of the proposed measure and a description of the legal consequences. The Attorney General Explanation is not a statement either for or against the proposed measure.
To view the Attorney General Explanation for the measure, as well as the final form of the measure submitted to this office, please click on the link.
http://atg.sd.gov/docs/Ballot%20Explenation.Prescription%20of%20Life%20ending%20drugs.pdf
The cards keep coming in – Merry Christmas wishes from Attorney General Marty Jackley and his family.
Merry Christmas from US Senator John Thune – Here’s the 2016 Christmas Card for the good Senator.
With regards to former Democrat Mayor Mike Huether, upon his abandonment of the Democrat brand that helped his rise to power in South Dakota’s Largest city; I had a thought last night.
If he’s going to shed the Democrat brand and go independent in his ambitions for higher office, as he declares himself a moderate in conservative South Dakota, where is he going to draw his votes from?
If I think of Mike Huether that way…. I can’t help but think of a Republican who went independent, Larry Pressler.
Pressler had been more conservative (in addition to having had a lot of people vote for him over the years), yet in his race as an independent, with far more statewide name ID, and a very long history of people voting for him, he could only place third in the US Senate Race. In fact, if you look at this chart from Ballotpedia…
Running as arguably the independent with the highest name ID in State history, Larry Pressler could not move past 20%. And more importantly, what he did do was steal votes from the Democrat in the race, Rick Weiland. If Weiland could have had Pressler’s votes, he would have been within 10,000 votes of Rounds, instead of 60,000.
With Mike Huether, you have a lesser known candidate, with no statewide campaigning experience; now former Democratic Obama Delegate self-identifying as a moderate. I can’t envision a scenario where he steals votes from any well-defined Republican candidate in deep red-state South Dakota.
But what he does do – and we in the GOP should love this – is fracture the voting bloc of the opposition. Let’s say we have a race for Congress as follows…
| Republican | Dusty Johnson |
| Democrat | Ryan Casey |
Certainly, Republican advantage. Dem is generally an unknown quantity, but there is a generational component for Dem nostalgia, coming as the son of one of their prior candidates, so there could be some excitement generated in Dem circles. The Dem Party (or it’s current empty shell) would get behind their candidate, and might even get excited about him… as opposed to the current crop of what they have to offer.
Now, throw Huether into the mix.
| Republican | Dusty Johnson |
| Democrat | Ryan Casey |
| Independent | Mike Huether |
Mike Huether is not going to pull votes from the Republican. In this, and almost any case, with Huether in the contest, I would argue that Huether causes the race to go from Republican advantage to Republican certainty.
I argue that Huether splinters the vote enough that he becomes their ultimate spoiler. He isn’t conservative to draw off those who rail on about “the establishment” from the Republican candidate. For Democrats, he’s about as establishment as they come, and may draw off the few remaining business oriented Democrats, and those Dems who otherwise reject the Bernie Sanders wing of the SDDP.
I don’t see any scenario where he can pull out a win. His only possible road forward is to act as the biggest spoiler that Democrats ever saw. And (borrowing from Ghostbusters) he has become the “form of their destroyer.”
Agree? Disagree? Think he can somehow pull Republican votes running as a “Moderate former-Democrat?” The floor is yours.
