New organization Elevate Rapid City, the merged organization of Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce, Ascent Innovation, and SD Ellsworth Development Authority, was active up at this past legislative session with pro-business advocacy.
As part of those efforts, the group recently issued their pro-business legislative scorecard for legislators representing the greater Rapid City Area:
Of the candidates with primary elections this year, Senator Jessica Castleberry and State Representative Jess Olson were scored at the highest level for the group, with State Rep Dave Johnson who is running for Senate recognized as a business advocate.
Who didn’t make the grade? Of candidates in primary elections, State Rep. Taffy Howard had the lowest score with the group, who indicated she voted with business 22% of the time. She was closely followed by District 30 Senate hopeful Julie Frye-Mueller, who voted with business only 25% of the time, and Sen Phil Jensen, who the group cited as voting with business 38% of the time.
Among the bills the group took a position on, Taffy Howard’s and Julie Frye-Mueller’s scores took a hit by voting against such measures as House Bill 1100, to begin the research and development of a new bioprocessing facility as a joint venture of the School of Mines and SDSU, as well as HCR 6017, to create an interim legislative study to address infrastructure and funding support related to the expansion of Ellsworth Air Force Base.
So it’s obviously a liberal organization since they support castration and hysterectomies for children…
I think supporting Ellsworth is pretty fundamental American and South Dakota issue.
Senior Schoenbeck, if you want to cherry-pick about Ellsworth, would you not consider protecting children a pretty fundamental American and South Dakota issue?
I hope you aren’t defending Jess Olson and her vote against children?
That concerns me.
Jess olson needs to be defeated
I date you yo find ANY tape from the session where she even remotely sounds like a Republican
She’s a republican all right. Goes to church, pays her taxes, runs her own business and wants government out of our pockets and bedrooms. I appreciate this scorecard and am glad District 34 is in good hands. Deitrich is a lawyer that works for Monument Health. Jess has a masters in health care administration. This is a time when we need professional adults and they are both that in spades.
The low scorers are the same people who love score cards IF they are written and compiled by their organization, Citizens for Liberty. How does it feel now?
This is a fair assessment of Black Hills area legislators and their pro or anti business mentality. Yes, there was the one bill in regard to controlling surgeries for minors. But take that bill out of the equation and you see how the rest really don’t give a rip about western SD (or SD in general) and are more interested in pushing their own warped sense of morality and self-serving wackadoodle issues that have little to do with moving SD forward. Don’t take my word for it, its easy to see, just look it up on sdlegislature.gov and check out everyone’s sponsored bills and how they voted overall.