Fighting with police constituency small, but constituency against bestiality being a crime even smaller. Still against John Teupel for State Senate.

If you remember the election of 2020, I had done a post regarding former State Representative John Teupel, who was running for the State Senate at the time, noting that he was not someone I could support for the legislature. And a lot of that was geared towards the fact that in 2018, I considered it poor judgement to when he decided to raise hands against law enforcement:

Former State Representative John Teupel had previously served in the State House of Representatives from 2001-2004.. and had been a Majority Whip for the House from 2003-2004.

So, as took place in August 2018, how does a former State Legislator get arrested, charged with assault against a law enforcement officer, and it does not seem to make the news in any way, shape or form?

This took place in August of 2018 – Literally less than two months after Teupel was giving a nominating speech at the end of June in front of the Republican State Convention for Attorney General Candidate John Fitzgerald, this same person was arrested for assault against a law enforcement officer.

As you can see, the charge of assaulting a police officer (a felony) was disposed of and pled down with a guilty plea of resisting arrest, and in October of 2018, Teupel received 4 days in jail, being required to successfully complete anger management classes, a year of probation, etc.

Not exactly a resume builder that makes me want to get behind him for State Senate. If you find yourself fighting with law enforcement as a 56 year old man.. you might want to re-evaluate your decision making process. And the legislature is not the place you want to do that.

Read that here.

He went on to not win his Senate race against Tim Johns on a vote of 58/41.

But there was another interesting contest in 2020, where a number of people were competing within the confines of the Republican party to be delegates to the State Convention. I was running, and gained a slot (only to have COVID cut that short), and John had similarly, but unsuccessfully, offered himself up as a candidate.

Quite a while later, I was speaking with a former board member about the process, and was told how there was also some vetting from those with Trump campaign who wanted to avoid any preventable embarrassments and that might have contributed to Teupel not being selected as a delegate. Being ever inquisitive, and just kind of nosy, I asked “So, did that have anything to do with the assault charge?”

And they replied, “No, it was all about when he made a floor speech about bestiality.”  You can imagine a record needle being drug across a record here.  Wait, what?

So, I actually went and looked it up. And there was a long ago speech on the floor of the State House I think we had all forgotten about. But, in case you need a reminder..

In 2003, a measure was proposed to the South Dakota State Legislature, House Bill 1061, to provide for the crime of bestiality. Basically South Dakota has done away with it as a law at one time, but was finally getting back around to a bill to say it was ok to like your horse..but it needed to draw the line at the relationship being strictly platonic.

But there was surprisingly some opposition to it. And the most vocal was State Representative John Teupel.

Legislators didn’t like talking about the measure at all on the floor because of the topic dealing with some of the worst sexual deviants, but Representative Teupel got up and gave his speech. While he claimed he “wasn’t rising in opposition of the bill,” he did have a very detailed three point notation of his “concerns.” #1, “With a class 6 felony, they usually have an identified victim of the crime.”  #2 “With the prosecution of a crime like this,  there’s not really a plaintiff you can put on a witness stand.”  And there was also concern #3..

Concern #3 was the concern that kids who were “sexually experimenting” would be caught in something like this as a young age, and be labeled permanently as a sex offender, when it might have “been a phase that they would have outgrown.”

Teupel went on declare that he’s not “opposed to the measure” but “has concerns about the legislation.”  And despite his concerns, he actually was an opponent, and went on to be one of the votes against making bestiality a crime.

Obviously, with people still remembering it in 2020, it hasn’t been forgotten.

So, looking at my previous story, while I think the fighting with police constituency is pretty small in District 31, I tend to think the constituency against bestiality being a crime is probably even smaller.

And that’s why I’m still not going to support former State Representative John Teupel for State Senate in D31.