Category: Uncategorized

South Dakota, Wyoming Delegations Urge
U.S. Forest Service to Increase Timber Sale Program for Black Hills National Forest

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), and U.S. Reps. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) this week wrote to U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell to request the agency increase its timber sale program for the Black Hills National Forest (BHNF) in fiscal year 2016. Increasing timber production in the BHNF will help mitigate damage caused by the mountain pine beetle, reduce fire risk, and help sustain the existing forest products infrastructure.

“Approximately 17,000 acres of trees were killed in 2015 in the BHNF as a result of the mountain pine beetle infestations, which is an increase over the 2014 acreage killed by the mountain pine beetle,” the delegations wrote. “Equally as concerning, according to recent Forest Service statements, approximately 50 percent of the BHNF remains at high risk for mountain pine beetle infestation. Salvaging and utilizing those trees is far more preferable than allowing them to become fuel for forest fires that threaten the communities and forests of the Black Hills.”

Full text of the letter can be found below, and a signed copy can be found here.

Chief Tom Tidwell
USDA Forest Service
1400 Independence Ave, SW
Washington, DC  20250-1111

Dear Chief Tidwell:

We are writing to request an increase in the FY 2016 timber sale program for the Black Hills National Forest (BHNF).  Notwithstanding the obvious successes of the BHNF’s timber sale program, we are concerned that the sawtimber volume planned for sale in FY 2016 is inadequate to sustain the existing forest products infrastructure.

Although there have been some recent successes in fighting the mountain pine beetle in the Black Hills, the epidemic is far from over.  Approximately 17,000 acres of trees were killed in 2015 in the BHNF as a result of the mountain pine beetle infestations, which is an increase over the 2014 acreage killed by the mountain pine beetle.  Equally as concerning, according to recent Forest Service statements, approximately 50 percent of the BHNF remains at high risk for mountain pine beetle infestation.  Salvaging and utilizing those trees is far more preferable than allowing them to become fuel for forest fires that threaten the communities and forests of the Black Hills.

We request an increased FY 2016 sale program, with a sawtimber target of 220,000 ccf, which would:  1) sustain the current forest products industry; 2) salvage more acres of trees already attacked by mountain pine beetles; 3) treat additional acres resulting in reduced potential for further mountain pine beetle infestations; and 4) reduce fire danger.

We look forward to your response.  Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

###

 

Rounds Joins Colleagues in Letter Urging Secretary of State Not to Placate Iran

PIERRE—U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, this week joined his colleagues in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry regarding his recent assurances to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that new Visa Waiver Program (VWP) restrictions would not impact Iranian interests. The letter is critical of Secretary Kerry’s attempt to reassure Iran and highlights the fact that U.S. law is not the problem, Iran’s continued support for terrorism is. The Senators ask Secretary Kerry to make this clear in future interactions with his counterpart, as well as the fact that these reforms were drafted to address U.S. national security interests, not Iranian interests.

“Iran-sponsored terrorists and militants are responsible for the death of more than 700 Americans,” the Senators wrote. “As you continue to engage with Mr. Zarif, we urge—rather than seeking to placate the complaints of Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism—you to press him and his government to cease its support for terrorism and provide tangible evidence that it is doing so. We also ask you to clarify to Mr. Zarif and his colleagues that these reforms to the VWP were not drafted with Iranian interests in mind, but U.S. national security interests.”

The letter, led by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), was also signed by Sens. with Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.V.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Signed into law last month, the Fiscal Year 2016 Omnibus included reforms to the Visa Waiver Program that would prohibit an individual from traveling to the U.S. under the VWP if, since March 2011, they have visited Iraq or any country designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, or if they hold dual citizenship with those countries. These prospective travelers are now required to go through the standard visa application process. Iran is a designated state sponsor of terrorism, and these new restrictions apply to individuals who have traveled to Iran or hold dual Iranian citizenship. The provision allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive individuals if it is in the law enforcement or national security interests of the United States.

Foreign Minister Zarif expressed frustration with these restrictions, and the letter from Secretary Kerry assured him that the new law would not interfere with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the “legitimate business interests of Iran.”

Full text of the letter is below:

Dear Secretary Kerry:

We are gravely concerned about your recent letter to Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif that sought to allay Iran’s complaints about Visa Waiver Program (VWP) reforms recently signed into law in the United States.

As you know, the new reforms would prohibit any national of a VWP country who has traveled to a country designated by the U.S. Government as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since March 2011, or who holds dual-citizenship with designated countries, from traveling under the VWP. Instead, these individuals would be required to obtain a visa.  Iran is a U.S.-designated State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Mr. Zarif, who described reforms to protect the Visa Waiver Program against terrorist infiltration as “absurd,” also had the temerity to ask:  “Has anybody in the West been targeted by any Iranian national, anybody of Iranian origin, or anyone travelling to Iran?”

Iran-sponsored terrorists and militants are responsible for the death of more than 700 Americans.  During the 1980s, Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed over 290 Americans in Lebanon—including 241 U.S. servicemen in the Beirut Barracks Bombing of October 23, 1983. During the 2000s, Iran-backed attacks killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. On July 9, 2015, General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Senators:  “I know the total number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines killed by Iranian activities [in Iraq and Afghanistan], and the number has been recently quoted as about 500.”

As you continue to engage with Mr. Zarif, we urge—rather than seeking to placate the complaints of Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism—you to press him and his government to cease its support for terrorism and provide tangible evidence that it is doing so. We also ask you to clarify to Mr. Zarif and his colleagues that these reforms to the VWP were not drafted with Iranian interests in mind, but U.S. national security interests.

###

This January marks the rollout of the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance Reporting System, and for the better part of a week, I’ve been trying to figure out the improvements from the older systems to the new one.

And before I go into my own experiences trying to work with it, it’s an appropriate time for a primer/history on South Dakota Campaign Finance on-line reporting.

As someone who spends a lot of time looking through campaign finance reports, I was hoping we’d see some improvements to the system, such as being able to sort all filings by date, so as to see “what’s new.” This was a functionality in the very first filing system that was not carried over when it was redone in 2011, that actually was very helpful to filing researchers.

In response to my query about that possibility, I was informed by Kea Warne in the elections department that “You are able to search by committee name or candidate name to search for a particular one or search all to see an entire list of committees.  You cannot search by date submitted.”

Oh, well. That would have been an improvement over the old system. So I set myself to trying to find what were the actual improvements to the system on the researcher side of things. You know, trying to figure out what enhancements have been made in the interest of public disclosure and transparency?

So, lets talk about the various systems and their history.  Having been involved in politics since 1988, I can tell you that the transparency of the documentation in South Dakota Campaign Finance has taken various forms over the past decade or so.

Originally, you would have to go talk with Darleen Gage up at the Secretary of State’s office, and she’d point you to the files, and you would be able to have a look/see.   That was fine, but it was definitely a manual system.

As technology marched on, a computerized system was created which allowed you to look up filings by name and by date.

 

There was no aggregation of names, so if you wanted to look through the Republican State Central Committee, you had to go through a few pages of them.

That system, used from about 2007 up through 2010 can be viewed here, and featured a searchable field, allowing the user to filter the results slightly.

It was primitive, and it had it’s faults, but it allowed the user to perform the research on-line that had previously been limited to the hours of 8 AM to – 5 PM in Pierre.

2011 saw Jason Gant taking over the office with a wave of modernization of data systems for which he was alternately cheered and razzed for. Among the systems that received that dual response was an attempt to make the system more publicly accessible and transparent. As it was announced, the new system was “South Dakota’s first entirely electronic campaign finance reporting system“ which “allows a campaign committee’s finances to be recorded and tracked through the use of an online accounting ledger, making reporting as simple as clicking a button.”

His CASH system, while it was not everything to everyone, it was cheered by members of the media as “a big step forward.“ But, there was discontent in paradise. Some in the media groaned it should have gone further, and a few legislators howled about it going too far. They did not like an optional campaign accounting function was attached to the system, giving them the option to store their records on-line, and some of the less technically adept preferred paper filings, and didn’t like putting things on-line at all.

But, for all its foibles, it represented the first time that donor information was digitized and searchable, and represented a significant step forward for political transparency, as opposed to the previous system’s flat file with accompanying scan of the document, with no searchable donor function.  The new system allowed for wild card text searches, and provided broad amounts of information for a person’s political activity.

Searching on one name allowed you to find out what political committees a person was attached to, committees they made donations to, and other useful information you would normally have to pick through multiple reports for to find relationships and trace donations.

Unfortunately, that required someone to enter that data, and some legislators balked at doing it themselves.

While the release promises the “first entirely electronic campaign finance reporting system,” eventually, necessity caused that the be abandoned somewhat, and the scanned documents were returned. For those that submitted the information in that manner, the donor information would be typed in by hand by staff. Inefficient, but it was one way to maintain donor transparency, and respond to the grumbling by committees and elected officials who didn’t want to spend the time to enter the information themselves.

That system brings us up to the present day, and the system rolled out in the last week or so. The latest and third incarnation of campaign finance reporting is generically titled the “Campaign Finance Reporting System,”  which you can find at http://sdcfr.cloudapp.net/Search/Search.aspx, hosted out on the Microsoft azure cloud.

What do I think?   Well…. How about I tell you about my experiences in using it?

Upon entering the system, if you’re attempting to perform a search, you’re required to drill down to a separate page:

Upon going to that page, you’re given the option of searching by committee name or type.   And upon clicking on one of them (name in this instance), you’re prompted to select committee name.

But, didn’t it say search up above? Well, yes, but it isn’t a search. Not at all, unless they mean by search, you scroll through hundreds of committees and “select” the one you’re after. The new system seems to lack an option to do a nominal, or even a rudimentary wildcard search, as had been allowed in the 2007 version back nearly a decade ago. You don’t search for a committee, as much as you are required to scroll through the list seeking the one you want.

If you don’t know the name of the committee, there’s no broader searching functionality provided, and you could have to manually peck through 460 PAC’s and Committees, with no notation of filing or dates of the election cycles, which leaves you guessing even further.

Once you select a committee, you are presented with the following screen:

The screen is reminiscent of the prior CASH system, shown below…

… but without digitized donor information available, and while the new system has added phone numbers to the committee information screen, it is in what some may consider a more basic layout.

According to Deputy Secretary Kea Warne, the Secretary of State’s office has “received positive feedback from committees that have used the new CFRS system.” When asked about additions or changes to the newly rolled out system, I was informed the office does “not have any plans for enhancements.”

I asked the Secretary of State’s office about the notation that had been on the website – up until today – on the search screen in bold red that “documents created in the new CFRS after January 4th, 2016 can be found in a search utilizing the “Date Received” and/or “Date Filed” criteria, as I was unable to find where you could do that. They replied that they “decided not to include the search function for date submitted and date filed due to not everyone filing online.”

And in response to my inquiry, they removed the language.

While the Secretary of State office claims positive feedback from filing committees using the new system, (I haven’t used it myself to enter data), enhancements in the system for the media or casual researcher are not evident. In fact, for the researcher, the system’s interface lacking the ability for any text or wildcard searches appears to be less sophisticated than the system originally introduced by Chris Nelson in 2007, and with the alternatives of endless scrolling or paging through dozens of pages of committee names, it is far, far more unwieldy to use.

What should be concerning to transparency advocates is that with the new system transparency has taken a giant leap backwards when it comes to the availability and searching of donor information that was present in the preceding system. The new system has eliminated that functionality, and returned to the roots of the 2007 system, ignoring any evidence that the State of South Dakota ever dipped a toe in the waters of that kind of campaign finance transparency.

There may be more “user friendly” enhancements on the back end which are not evident to the public researcher. I’m sure there are. But if it was a choice between enhancing the experience of a few hundred political committees, or maintaining and improving the transparency for several hundred thousand taxpaying South Dakota citizens, I’m sure you can guess which one they should have chosen.

But don’t take my opinion on it. Try all three for yourself…

Original Campaign Finance System Reports (2007-2010)

CASH Campaign Finance System (2011 – 2015)

New Campaign Finance Reporting System (2016 – )

And let me know what you think.

 

In a message to a joint session of the legislature yesterday, Governor Dennis Daugaard presented bold plans from his administration to address challenges that the administration has faced during his tenure. However, reaction to his plans have varied from support to skepticism. And that’s within the confines of the Republican caucus.

As noted by the Associated press:

Lawmakers should pass a half-cent sales tax increase to improve South Dakota’s lowest-in-the-nation teacher pay so it’s competitive with neighboring states, Gov. Dennis Daugaard said Tuesday in his State of the State address.

The sales tax increase would raise more than $100 million in the upcoming budget year, most of which would be put toward helping raise the state’s target average teacher salary to $48,500 per year. If approved, it would be the first permanent increase to South Dakota’s sales tax rate of 4 cents per dollar in nearly half a century.

and…

“To do two tax increases in a row, back-to-back is tough,” House Majority Leader Brian Gosch said, referring to fuel tax increases that lawmakers approved last session for road and bridge funding.

and…

On other issues, the governor again exhorted legislators to consider an expansion of the Medicaid health coverage program for disabled and low-income people. Daugaard’s position a departure from other Republican governors nationally who have declined to expand because they oppose President Barack Obama’s federal health overhaul.

But Daugaard has said the state’s costs for expansion would have to be covered by savings in part by expanding access to services that are fully funded by the federal government. That would free funds for boosting potential enrollment by about 50,000 residents.

Read it all here.

In reviewing the Governor’s proposals, I asked some legislators to give me some feedback on what they thought about the Governor’s State of the State address, and the Governor’s proposals. And the wariness over the proposed tax increase as noted by House Majority Leader Brian Gosch seems to be evident with other members of the GOP.

State Representative Lance Russell of Hot Springs offered an unvarnished assessment of the Governor’s proposals. When asked, he noted that to him, the State of the State address offered “More taxing, more spending, more welfare, more mandates, and no great announcements of new private industries that will contribute to the taxable value of the state’s future.  And no vision.”

Representative Jim Bolin found more to like in the address, especially in some of the points that weren’t primary focuses by the media, such as the new state park proposed by the Governor. Bolin noted, “My reaction is that we have no agreement yet with the feds on Medicaid expansion, so out of respect for the governor and his request that we withhold judgment, I will not comment at this time.  I am supportive of the effort to make some adjustments for future employees in the state pension system.  I am very pleased by the work we are doing on rail line expansion and the refurbishing of old lines.  Good for everybody.  I like the effort to push dual credit classes juniors and seniors in high school.  I like the efforts we are making to develop Good Earth State Park near where I live and the work being done in Custer Park is great.  The efforts to develop a new park in Spearfish Canyon is noteworthy as well.”

On the education portion of the package, with the Governor’s 1/2 cent of sales tax to fund high salaries for teachers, Bolin, a majority whip for the GOP Caucus, echoed what Gosch had to say on the tax proposal; that “the Blue Ribbon Task force proposal will face major hurdles as the two thirds constitutional amendment passed by the voters in 1978 makes any tax hike very difficult.  The fight over this question will be a dominant question this session.”

State Senator Deb Peters, Chairwoman of Senate Appropriations had been listening to the main proposals on Education and Medicaid develop over the last year, and was not surprised to see that they took the form that they did. Deb noted that “an important component of working on the legislation will be how they work on accountability for the distribution of the new funds, versus how it is balanced with local control,” expressing the legislature’s desire for the funds to go where they intend – to teacher’s salaries – without stepping in and usurping local control from school districts in making decisions.

Senator Peters is also watching the Medicaid Expansion proposal carefully, as negotiations have been going on for quite a while, but an agreement for the federal government to step in and take over their treaty responsibilities has still not happened yet. She noted that South Dakota’s Native American population wants the access to care, and she believes it is the right thing, but “we have to balance that against the Medicaid expansion itself.”

The next 30 days will be very telling as to what is going to happen with the Medicaid expansion in South Dakota, which is already drawing opposition from groups such as the South Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative, free market group which has already begun campaigning against the measure.

With at least two major measures proving to be controversial before their bills have been written yet, the 2016 legislative session could be interesting to watch in light of the election year politics that are sure to be involved in many of these decisions for legislators.

Stay tuned.

State Senator Ernie Otten was kind enough to send along a note about the upcoming Legislative coffees for his district, in case you’re in the neighborhood:

The following District 6 Legislative Coffees have been scheduled. Please publish and share. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend:

Saturday, Feb. 6
Tea City Hall, 1:30 pm

Saturday, Feb 13 (2 locations)

• Harrisburg American Legion, 9:30 am
• Lennox Pizza Ranch, 1:00 pm (please come early and support their new owner, Michael, by having lunch)

Saturday, Feb. 27
Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce Legislative Coffee will include Districts 6, 9, 16 and 25
Holiday Inn City Centre (8^th St. & Phillips Ave) from 10-11:45 am

 

With Noem Support, WOTUS Disapproval Hits President’s Desk

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Kristi Noem today joined the House in passing legislation disapproving of the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule.  If today’s legislation is enacted, the controversial rule expanding EPA jurisdiction to small ditches, prairie potholes and even seasonally wet areas will have no force or effect.  With approval from Congress, the legislation now heads to the President for his signature or veto.

“As written, the Waters of the U.S. rule could become one of the largest federal land grabs in U.S. history,” said Noem.  “Everyday tasks, like spraying your lawn for mosquitos or your crops for disease, could now become federally regulated activities that carry fines worth upwards of $30,000 if a farmer or homeowner is found in violation.  I’m proud Congress has moved this legislation forward.  I strongly urge the President to understand the burden this regulation puts on families and sign our legislation to withdraw it.”

In May 2015, Rep. Noem helped the U.S. House of Representatives pass the bipartisan H.R. 1732, the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act of 2015, which would send the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers back to the drawing board on the WOTUS rule.

Noem has also called on the EPA to define regulated navigable waters on a map after an alarming graphic was released that has raised questions about how extensive the EPA’s regulatory authority could become.  Read more and view the graphic here.

Additionally, in May 2014, Rep. Noem joined 231 Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle on a letter urging the EPA and the Secretary of the Army to withdraw the proposed rule.

###

South Dakota’s chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation will be hosting upcoming seminars in Rapid City and Sioux Falls on “The Sordid History of Political Correctness.”  Interested in attending? Here’s where you can make your reservation:

RAPID CITY

Please join us for a free dinner and a special presentation of
The Sordid History of Political Correctness
by the Grassroots Leadership Academy’s Stephanie Maier.

Maier is a political, democracy, and media educator who has worked to expand democracy and free-market economics in thirteen countries. She has also worked in campaign management and grassroots advocacy in the United States, and she is now working with the Grassroots Leadership Academy (GLA) to educate activists throughout the country about the principles of freedom, prosperity, and individual liberty.

Day and Date:                     Monday, January 25, 2016
Place:                                   Minervas Restaurant
Address:                               4111 Lacrosse Street
Rapid City, SD 57701

Time:                                    5:30 – 7:30 P.M.
Tickets:                                 include dinner
Ticket Deadline:          Friday, January 22, 2016

Please reserve your FREE TICKETS at www.GLARapidCity.com
or contact Chad Krier at (605) 370-2778 or [email protected]
for more information.

SIOUX FALLS

Please join us for a special presentation of
The Sordid History of Political Correctness
by the Grassroots Leadership Academy’s Stephanie Maier.

Maier is a political, democracy, and media educator who has worked to expand democracy and free-market economics in thirteen countries. She has also worked in campaign management and grassroots advocacy in the United States, and she is now working with the Grassroots Leadership Academy (GLA) to educate activists throughout the country about the principles of freedom, prosperity, and individual liberty.

Day and Date:                     Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Place:                                                   Callaway’s
Address:                               500 East 69^th Street
Sioux Falls, SD 57109
Time:                                    6:30 – 8:00 P.M.
RSVP Deadline:                   Friday, January 22, 2016

A variety of Callaway’s delicious homemade pies will be served!

Please reserve your FREE TICKETS at www.GLASiouxFalls.com
or contact Chad Krier at (605) 370-2778 or [email protected]
for more information.

In the Washington Post today, South Dakota’s US Senator John Thune observed that President Obama isn’t exactly pursuing an aggressive legislative agenda in his last year in office:

Obama’s need to work with Congress effectively ended late last year, after lawmakers passed a two-year budget accord and approved a spending package to keep the government open for the bulk of the coming election year. And the political reality was evident in Obama’s speech, which centered on a high-minded appeal for a more inclusive and responsive brand of politics but included no specific proposals in that area.

Instead, he called on Congress to take action only on a handful of issues whose chances of passage this year range from slim to none.

“The speech tonally was very different than previous years,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. “It’s almost like, ‘Okay, I’ve done what I can, and I’m going to continue to do what I can this next year by executive action.’ But I think he’s been on the glide path out of here, and I think the speech tonight reflected that.”

and…

Each carries deep political complications and thus little chance of advancing through Congress in a presidential election year.

“If I had to handicap, I’m not sure any of them get done this next year,” Thune said after the speech.

Read it all here.

I noticed that Bob Mercer had the following statement on his web log:

Brown is term-limited after eight consecutive years in the Senate and isn’t running for a House seat.; Justin Cronin of Gettysburg, the House appropriations chairman, is running for Brown’s Senate seat.

Read that here.

Dang it. I had that weeks ago, but it had been embargoed by my correspondent who had informed me.

That’s the trouble. The better inside information you get, the more you tend to hear people say “But, don’t put it on dakotawarcollege yet.”  Aargh! Seriously? You guys kill me when you say that.

At events or around Pierre, it used to be that people would turn around and walk, or run, in the other direction because they didn’t want to confirm or deny anything – they just wanted to avoid questions altogether. Now, as this website has matured over the last decade, they’re more comfortable in telling me stuff.  But, they don’t always want to let the cat out of the bag *just yet.*

I’ve always honored those requests, with the caveat that if I hear it from other sources, yes, the cat is already out of the bag.  Leaving me sitting on information that I’d like to use….. but I can’t just yet.   And no, I’m not going to disclose who told me about what.

Right now, I’m sitting on another legislative retirement, and two returning legislators from the past who are returning, and giving it another go, as well as a few other tidbits. No, the GOP ED hasn’t been selected as of yet, but I’m hearing that people are being discussed.

For those of you who do have insider tips and information, you’re always welcome to e-mail, or call me. (My number is easy enough to find.).  And remember that “But don’t put it on dakotawarcollege yet” is the bane of my existence.