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The candidates are coming in this morning, and two surprises already. Speaker of the House Spencer Gosch has filed for Senate, as has former State Rep. Les Heinemann and State Rep. Tom Pischke, both for D25.

This is going to be interesting…

Yesterday, after Congressional Challenger Taffy Howard had boasted in a facebook post that “We crushed Dusty on signatures, now let’s crush him at the ballot box,” I took a more critical look and it sure seemed there was an apparent disconnect with regards to the number of petition signatures filed according to the Secretary of State versus what Taffy Howard was claiming on Facebook.  (I used charts and everything).

And it looks like I greatly vexed the Congressional challenger, because under the post, I had this scathing comment left on my website.

With her being so firm on her declaration of petition signature victory and “crushing Dusty,” as she announced, it opens up an opportunity to explore other aspects of her campaign and whether she is crushing it.. or, is it possible that she’s actually flushing it?

So, here we go – Taffy Howard versus Dusty Johnson: Flushing it, or Crushing it?

So, looking at a few areas, it looks like there’s maybe one tie in the area of signature collection. But, I’m not seeing any evidence of crushing on Taffy’s part in attendance records, fundraising, or endorsements.

We’ll continue to watch and see if Taffy announces any more wins, and be sure to look at them with a critical eye.

Kristi for Governor Statement On House Impeachment Committee’s Failures

STATEMENT
March 28, 2022

Kristi for Governor Spokesman Joe Desilets released the following statement in response to the House Impeachment Committee’s recommendation against the impeachment of Attorney General Ravnsborg:

Public Safety Secretary Price summarized the situation in front of the House Select Committee on Impeachment perfectly when he stated “The Attorney General’s actions throughout the investigation, the findings from our review of the crash events, along with the context provided by the pre- and post-crash behaviors draw the conclusion that he is unfit to hold the position as the chief law enforcement officer for the state of South Dakota.”

By not recommending his removal from office, these House members have made it clear that they are more concerned with the protection of one of their own than they are about the conduct of our state’s top law enforcement officer and holding him to account. The people of South Dakota deserve better. The full House will have the opportunity in the coming days to correct the failures of this committee and I hope that they take their duty seriously and do what is right in this matter.

The House Committee on impeachment has spoken.. er.. well, they issued their report with little to no public discussion, with the recommendation of “Do Not Impeach” on a party line vote.

I’ll post the report as soon as it’s available.

The House as a body can choose to move forward and reverse the committee. But we have to wait until April 12. And we’ll want to see what’s in the report.

Governor Noem Announces Formation of South Dakota County Leaders Coalition and Endorsements From 27 County Commissioners

PRESS RELEASE – March 28, 2022

Pierre, SD – Today, Governor Noem’s campaign announced the creation of their coalition of South Dakota County Leaders. Along with the creation of this coalition, Governor Noem’s campaign released the initial list of county commissioners endorsing Governor Noem and forming this coalition. This follows the initial rounds of endorsements from state legislators and county sheriffs that have been previously announced. Governor Noem’s campaign will be growing this coalition throughout the campaign, adding additional current and former elected officials at the county and local levels across South Dakota that endorse and support her re-election campaign.

Governor Noem stated the following in making this announcement:

“The partnership between state and local government is crucial to an efficient and effective government. I’ve been proud to partner with our county leaders across South Dakota throughout my first term, and Lieutenant Governor Rhoden and I are proud to have their support in our re-election.”

Lincoln County Commissioner Joel Arends stated the following about the endorsements of himself and his fellow county commissioners:

“Governor Noem kept South Dakota open for business when other states around us were shutting down. Her leadership on local issues such as economic development, business expansion, and workforce development are key to strong counties and communities. Governor Noem has been a great supporter of our counties and I am proud to endorse her re-election for Governor of South Dakota.”

List of Endorsing Commissioners (Ordered by County)

Beadle – Denis Drake
Beadle – Doug Ramsell
Beadle – Rick Benson
Beadle – Tom Hansen
Brookings – Larry Jensen
Brookings – Mike Bartley
Brown – Doug Fjeldheim
Brown – Duane Sutton
Brown – Mike Wiese
Charles Mix – Colin Soukup
Clay – Travis Mockler
Codington – Lee Gabel
Codington – Myron Johnson
Codington – Brenda Hanten
Custer – Craig Hindle
Davison – John Claggett
Hughes – Randy Brown
Hughes – Tom Rounds
Lawrence – Bob Ewing
Lawrence – Brandon Flanagan
Lawrence – Randall Rosenau
Lawrence – Randy Deibert
Lawrence – Richard Sleep
Lincoln – Joel Arends
Lincoln – Tiffani Landeen
Pennington – Gary Drewes
Pennington – Lloyd LaCroix

For any local and county elected officials that would like to join Governor Noem’s South Dakota County Leaders coalition, contact Chris Hupke at Chris@KristiForGovernor.com.

Looking a little busy for the Primary season… and we still have a couple of days to go. 1 more day in person, and then waiting for the stragglers coming in via mail:

There are more petitions being filed than I can keep up with, having to work a day job and all, so I’ll post an update later.

Did see Marsha Symens withdrew from running for the Senate. So, something might be afoot there. Keep an eye on that District.

I wonder if the Democrats run Jay Williams because they know I’m going to have fun with it?

Well, after running for State Senate in 2020, and before, Jay Williams has filed petitions today to run for District 18 House.

“Laissez les bons temps rouler!”  Let the good times roll!

Taffy Howard, Challenger for Congress seems to be busy finding her own truth this morning. As she’s posted a video where she claims she “crushed” Dusty Johnson in signature collection.

So, Taffy claims that they’ve “turned in more than 4200 petitions, with more than 150 volunteers across the state. We handily beat Dusty on Signatures, now we’re going to handily beat him on election day.”

Unfortunately for Taffy, as my mother would have said, she’s full of beans. Because here are the figures from the Secretary of State:

Despite Taffy’s claims, according to the Secretary of State, her team collected and submitted 3478 signatures, and based on her validity sample, the Secretary of State estimated she had 2866 valid signatures.

What did the SOS have to say about her opponent, Dusty Johnson’s petitions? Did Taffy actually “crush him” as she claims?

Well, no. Not at all.  Because Dusty actually turned in 3582 signatures to Taffy’s 3478. For Taffy, who appears to be arithmetically challenged, that would be more than she turned in, according to the official record.

What’s more, Dusty is credited with a higher validity rate, 85.78% to Taffy’s 82.43%.

Taffy turned in far less than she claimed, certainly didn’t “crush” her opponent, and at least at first blush, in her campaign she seems to have an issue with following the 9th commandment as handed down to Moses.  (Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor).

Considering both of them have far more than needed, it’s more than a silly debate for Taffy to try to claim false momentum on. Once you turn in, you’re done, and it’s time to get to the business of campaigning.

Now if she can only show that her donations weren’t trending on a downward path.

 

Tax Day 2022 is knocking on the door. If you asked the South Dakotans who are diligently prepping their tax returns, I doubt the IRS is viewed favorably by few, if any of them. In fact, not that people sit at home and rank their favorite federal agencies, but if they did, my guess is that the tax-enforcing agency, which often looms large over the American people, would rank near the bottom. It has unfortunately gained a reputation for its overzealous authority and poor customer service – the inability to simply answer phone calls, for example – and last tax filing season was particularly miserable for taxpayers.

In addition to bad customer service, serious concerns have been raised about the agency’s inability to properly handle confidential taxpayer information. In fact, as recently as last year, the IRS faced a massive leak or hack of private taxpayer information – information that somehow ended up in the hands of ProPublica, an outfit that promotes progressive causes, which last June went on to publish taxpayers’ private information. Now, nearly one year later, neither the Treasury Department nor the IRS have provided any meaningful follow-up about the apparent data breach, nor has anyone been held accountable for this major breach of trust.

Rather than prioritizing accountability and efficiency, Democrats instead focused on massively expanding the IRS – both in the number of agents and the agency’s reach into private citizens’ lives. They wanted to require banks, credit unions, and other financial service providers to report to the IRS when a business or customer made total deposits or withdrawals that exceeded a certain amount – $600 if the president had his way. Essentially, anyone who has a job or has saved a bit of money could have been subject to a Washington bureaucrat snooping through his or her checking account. Clearly, these partisan proposals had little to do with improving taxpayer services or increasing agency accountability. Democrats’ main interest in handing the IRS a supersized budget increase – proposing to nearly double the agency’s size – was to help pay for their partisan tax-and-spending spree.

Fortunately, the Democrats’ partisan crusade has stalled – hopefully permanently. Any resources going to the IRS must be paired with serious reform, including measures to improve customer service, ensure that existing resources are being used efficiently, and promote smarter and more effective audits. I am a cosponsor of a bill, the Tax Gap Reform and IRS Enforcement Act, which would codify additional protections for taxpayers against IRS overreach. This legislation would help ensure that the IRS is not able to target taxpayers for their political and ideological beliefs, and it would prohibit the kind of bank reporting requirements that Democrats sought to impose in their “Build Back Better” spending spree. It would also take steps to improve taxpayer services, increase IRS expertise, and better develop the information we have on the tax gap – the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid.

South Dakota taxpayers hired me to be a good steward of their hard-earned money, and I am doing everything in my power to protect every single dollar that is sent to Washington. I hope we’ll be able to move away from Democrats’ intrusive and reckless Build Back Better proposals and toward bipartisan efforts to reform the IRS and ensure that taxpayers can reliably depend on the agency.

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