House State Affairs passes SB12 bill to ban million dollar loans. And adds nuclear amendment to cap candidate donations to 10k

Senate Bill 12 took an interesting turn this morning.

House State Affairs was discussing the bill to ban million dollar loans to state campaigns from people like South Dakota’s Soros, Toby Doeden, who had to change his $100k donation to a loan after it was pointed out that you can’t do that just because you have money.

The bill had Sponsor Michael Rohl testify in favor, and Brian Lewis was sent from Dakota Action PAC (Toby Doeden’s PAC) to do his master’s bidding.

Unexpectedly, an amendment was brought forward came up from Rep. Spencer Gosch, which requested that legislators do the following:

A candidate with a federally authorized committee, as defined in 52 U.S.C. § 14 30101, et seq., (January 1, 2025), may not transfer more than ten thousand dollars per year, to any political committee organized pursuant to this chapter.

They added the amendment without much discussion, and sent it to the House floor on a 12-1 vote. The one vote against the bill – after putting her hands on her head because thinking is hard – was State Rep. Brandei Schaefbauer. She is apparently too far in Toby Doeden’s pocket to extricate herself, so she did what Toby wanted.

So, on a 12-1 vote, the measure is passed.  It remains to go to the floor and back to the Senate in concurrence. But do they really know what they did?  Here’s where we can see the chaos they just wrought.

• The poison pill measure seems to go after Congressman Dusty Johnson transferring money to a state committee (adding a second subject on to the bill).  But it goes after not just Dusty, Gosch’s amendment swipes at Senator Thune, Senator Rounds, and KristiPAC.
• The bill would shut down donations from Senators Thune or Rounds to the State GOP in amounts over $10k annually. So, SDGOP ready to collapse financially?  Sorry. You’re capped.   SDDP taking $15-20k or more monthly from National Dem Party candidates from time to time?  Well, that’s going to take attorneys to figure out whether they can take it, and if so, whether they could send any to their state account.
• Remember Governor Kristi Noem’s KRISTIPAC $35k donation to the No on G Committee? That will definitely be “No Go” for any future support, past the 10k cap.
• Presidential candidates rolling cash through, and allowing state party organizations to take some off the top for their trouble? That’s over.

I’m kind of wondering whether they really thought things through.  But given that it came from our taxpayer-funded Hawaiian cliff-diving Representative.. I tend not to think so.