Proponents of House Joint Resolution 5001 to propose a vote to choose whether to switch South Dakota to a primary voting system for all statewide offices just dropped a huge bombshell in their pursuit of legislative success.
This afternoon HJR 5001 prime sponsor Rep. Tyler Tordsen released a letter of support from 7 of the 8 9 living past South Dakota Republican Party chairmen, representing over a quarter century of GOP leadership, urging passage of the measure:
The only ones missing from this list, the 8th living past State Republican Party chair and immediate past Chairman Dan Lederman, currently sits on the State Republican Party’s Executive Board and also serves as chairman of the Union County Republican Party. The 9th, also not signing the letter is former GOP Chair Arlene Ham. (My bad, I missed Arlene when I wrote this, who served as party chair in the late 70’s. Arlene is 88 years old, and I hope she is with us for many more years to come – she’s a great lady!)
The letter is an open letter to all Republicans noting in part:
This constitutional amendment will guarantee that every Republican has a voice in the party’s nominations for Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Auditor, State Treasurer, Commissioner of School and Public Lands, and Public Utilities Commissioner.
We have each had the privilege of leading our party as State Republican Chair, and we know that our South Dakota Republican Party is a strong, growing party. We need to keep the momentum going and invite more participation and engagement in our elections. That’s what HJR 5001 will do.
It’s time to let every Republican participate in our party’s nomination process, and to make our state convention a time of unity as we join together for the fall campaign. We ask you to please vote Yes on HJR 5001.
This will weigh on the minds of members of the House State Affairs committee who will be hearing the measure tomorrow morning at 7:45. The committee includes as members several sponsors of the measure on the panel.
Bring Pam back!
no. I like Pam personally but she was a terrible chair. She ran the SDGOP like it was the Governor’s personal PAC. There was no active recruitment of candidates, no support for candidates or communication with the county parties at all. She focused on raising out-of-state money and that was it.
No, we don’t want Pam back. Sorry!
Where’s Lederman? I can’t imagine he wants the dysfunction to continue.
I suspect Lederman agrees with them but didn’t want to add his name because it would detract from their message. Either that, or they didn’t want him to add his name because they know it would detract from their message. Either way, those are some powerhouses in the Republican Party — that letter packs a punch!
I like all of these people but they all represent the era when the central committee rubber stamped the governors selection.
Lederman was the guy who blew the lid off of that. That led to the convention chaos of 2022 and this will lead to future primary chaos in 2024 and or 2026. It’s inevitable that a party that supports Trump will not eventually start electing Trump loyalists in primaries.
We are in uncharted territory with politics in the Trump era and SD is ripe to go hard Trump at any time.
This is an honorable, and honest letter from some solid life long republicans, none of whom were bomb throwers.
Maybe retaliation but definitely not honor.
On the fence a little about this. I think if we want a large Republican turnout, then it’s not right to cut a portion of our delegation from the mix. I do fear that turning this to an open party vote will allow a candidate to register as Republican, run as a Republican, then turn out not to be so. Remember democrats will try any scheme possible to gain power. This is a state party issue and should be left at the state party level.
It would be actually easier now for Democrats to make a run on the convention process, then it would be for them to do that when all Republicans vote. All they have to do is register a group of people as Republican precinct delegates, and make a run at convention.
I don’t need a crystal ball to predict what will happen if this is not fixed:
Candidates for PUC will recruit precinct committee people with a promise to be totally opposed to pipelines, or the use of eminent domain by any privately-owned utility companies. They won’t mention that if they are successful in getting on the PUC, having publicly announced they are opposed to something will disqualify them from voting on the siting permits for whatever that something is, if they even know that themselves.
The Insanerest Delegates will descend upon the convention and won’t know what they are doing, they will complain about having to pay for their registration fees, motel rooms & meals, will try to weaponize the platform and resolutions, and accuse anybody who tries to reason with them of being a corrupt RINO.
After the convention, the county chairmen will try to get them to do their jobs, of making phone calls, delivering yard signs, going door to door, walking in parades, working as poll watchers, and they will refuse, because their 2-line job description was too much to bother reading.
A better question than “who is afraid of precinct committee people?” is “why are we tolerating this shit-show?”
Like the founders said, “[we are endowed by our creator with the ability and will to have a more perfect pure democracy.” 😀
This measure won’t make a bit of difference.
In fact, it will make things worse unless one finds a way to squelch where the real action is .. up-stream of the vote in social media.
It takes virtually no time at all to change voter sympathy/apathy/preferences via dubiously trusted weaponized algorithmic information feeds.