Category: Uncategorized

I’d heard that this was coming, and it looks like Speaker of the House Spencer Gosch refused to release the votes of the House members on who was calling for the Special Session to consider impeachment, and now he finds himself trying to defend keeping a vote of the legislature secret:

The Argus Leader and the South Dakota Newspaper Association jointly filed a lawsuit Wednesday with the South Dakota Supreme Court. The complaint alleges the Glenham Republican, who presides of the state House, is in violation of state open records laws by refusing for weeks to make public the names of lawmakers who formally signed a petition calling for the special session into Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg next month at the capitol.

“It’s inexcusable for Speaker Gosch to continue hiding this information from the public,” Argus Leader News Director Cory Myers said, noting attempts to work with Gosch and his private attorney to resolve the matter were unsuccessful. “There’s a constitutional requirement to record legislative votes, and at the very least, an obligation of elected servants to be transparent about their processes.

Read the entire story here.

The Senate had already released the information, because in the minds of most people, it’s kind of hard to justify keeping a vote of the legislature secret. And except for a few, just about everyone believes that votes of the legislature are public information.

As I’d noted before, keeping the vote secret was ill-advised at best, and an affront to open government at worst. I don’t see how this goes the house’s way.

I’m hearing tickets are going fast for this event!  Click on the post to find out more, and to reserve yours!

KELOland’s story on the Taffy Howard congressional announcement doesn’t seem to have done her any favors..

Howard will try to capitalize on a shift within the Republican Party that is largely based on loyalty to former president Donald Trump. She has positioned herself to the political right of Johnson, a popular imcumbent who has held the seat for three years. Howard has echoed Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, and has criticized Johnson for voting to voting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Watch it here..

Maybe she shouldn’t have been part of the Republican bashing “Dynamic Duo” at the pillow guy forum and signed that letter.

People might get ideas..

Just a few housekeeping items worth mentioning.

The SDWC Political Twitter feed is back for a trial run, as long as it manages not to bog down loading times. I had pared down a number of the scripts appearing on the page, but as soon as I went to cloudflare to kill some of the bots, traffic from China, and other things scanning my site, load times are much better so I’m able to give it a return shot.

I’ve had several inquiries, but I do still have a couple prime spots available for advertising on the website. Drop me a note today if you’d like to get locked in. (And as I love my long term advertisers, I do discount 1 month for every 6 month commitment.)

Had a speaking engagement with the SDSU Political Science Club last night, and it went very well. I’m usually pretty speaking-engagement averse, as I really hate talking about myself. And when I post, I edit and re-edit. But I managed to fill a half hour without too much difficulty and don’t think I sounded too stupid.  It’s my ultimate goal to start doing a weekly vlog post, so that might mean forward motion in that direction. We’ll see.

This morning, I had a legislator reach out on why I haven’t written anything about the House ‘Grouse’ redistricting map. I told him that important thing to note is the three previous columns on redistricting were all guest columns. If a member of the House committee wants to send me a column on why their map is best, if they want to write it up, I will run it.

And that goes the same for guest columns on other topics.  I always welcome those who want to contribute on current topics of political interest, as I’m usually crazy busy and that’s good content I don’t have to write.   Is that an invitation to send me stuff bashing candidates? No. It’s an invitation to expand the knowledge of readers on topics they might be misinformed about or should be better versed in.  Send me a note here, and we can discuss.

Other that that, as we’re getting into the campaign season, I’m planning to discuss candidate and campaign related topics. Any facet of campaigning you are interested in discussing or knowing more about? As I was telling the SDSU students last night, I’ve been doing this stuff for more than 30 years, so hopefully I can provide some insight candidates and workers can find useful. Leave a note in the comment section, and I’ll cover it in the weeks coming up.

Stay tuned!

41 more people hospitalized this week for COVID over last week, plus a few more in the ICU in Sanford’s latest infographic on their COVID cases.

So, Taffy Howard posted this photo from her announcement this AM in Sioux Falls..

Not a large crowd on this one.. I’m seeing State Rep. Tom Pischke, Former State Rep. Manny Steele, a couple family members, and a smattering of others.  Her announcement in Rapid City ended up being canceled due to weather.

Funny that Tom Pischke is there, as he was a big backer of Liz May last primary. I think May had more people at her announcement for that race.

What are your thoughts?

Members of the House Redistricting Committee have found an interesting way of countering arguments that they’ve drawn a map that protects their allies. They’re accusing State Senator Lee Schoenbeck of being intelligent:

Senate Pro Temp Lee Schoenbeck — one of the most influential Republican lawmakers — accused House members of maintaining “gerrymandered” boundaries in order to preserve current districts that are favorable to their plans for reelection.

“It looks like someone accidentally spilled something on the map,” he said of one district proposed by the House. “They are making a concerted effort to create or protect districts for people.”

and..

He (State Rep. Drew Dennert) charged that Schoenbeck was “a very intelligent political operative,” who had taken to attacking the House proposal because he was losing support.

Read it all here.

Well, darn that intelligent Schoenbeck. I’m sure Dennert is doing his best not to be accused of that same flaw.

Probably the most interesting thing that came up yesterday besides this story was that independent of it, I was contacted by a State House member who was asked his thoughts on how the map looked. They hadn’t been provided the House version, so they called me looking for it.

Just in case it was a fluke, I called another member of the House of Representatives. They hadn’t seen it either.

And we continue to move towards to the special session.

A few moments ago, Matt Paulson’s Insiders text update announced that Rich Merkouris is running for the Sioux Falls City Council seat currently held by Christine Erickson, who is ineligible to seek another term:

Rich also has a website up at https://www.merkourisforcouncil.com/

It looks like Taffy Howard is having a busy day. First, it looks like she’s done ‘exploring’ her run for congress, considering how ridiculous the exploring was in the first place when she was running the whole time:

State Rep. Taffy Howard, R-Rapid City, is formally kicking off her campaign for Congress today with a pair of events. The first is this morning in Sioux Falls and the second is this afternoon in the Black Hills. She’ll challenge Congressman Dusty Johnson in the June primary

— Joe Sneve (@Argus_Joe) October 12, 2021

And, according to one twitter source, Taffy also just singed on to a letter demanding a do-over for the 2020 election, which demands a forensic audit of the results of all 50 states:

https://t.co/ALC7gTJjdE
Rep. Taffy Howard from South Dakota just signed the letter after we put it out. Thank you Rep. Howard

See thread In Florida, only one State House Rep, Anthony Sabatini, signed this letter!!!!

— Diane “DefundtheBBC” (@DMB12445) October 12, 2021

“We have come to the conclusion that all 50 states need to be forensically audited. Voter rolls should be scrubbed with a canvass of the voters to ensure future integrity of our elections”

“We call on each state to decertify its electors where is has been shown the elections were certified prematurely and inaccurately”

Yeah.. kind of like trying to make someone un-pregnant after the baby is nearly a year old. It just isn’t a timely effort.

From an article in the Argus Leader, PUC Commissioner Gary Hanson has announced that his current term is his last:

Gary Hanson had been attending to the affairs of his father, as well as his duties on the PUC, this summer.

Next year will mark his 20th year on the PUC, having won a new six-year term in 2020. And when that term is over, Hanson said he is done with political office.

and..

All told, Hanson has run in 18 elections, including primaries, runoffs and general elections. He hasn’t lost one of them.

“Politics is my life,” he says.

Read the entire article here.

I’ve said before that 2026 is going to be the biggest year in politics that we’ve seen in a decade or two, and that continues to hold true.