Had someone forward me an e-mail that the State GOP had supposedly sent out to delegates/precinct committeepeople last night. Which despite my status as a precinct person who was in an contested election and won, I did not receive.
Even did a search of my e-mail, but no e-mail from the party yesterday.
Which is kind of odd, since I registered. Have the e-mail receipt that I did register to go along with my certificate of election from Brookings County. (Cool fact, the County Finance Office here in Brookings laminates these here, which I find tremendously amusing).
Which brings up questions to me about how well the convention is being managed, how well they are following their bylaws, and what else they are forgetting to do.
Such as this rule under the State Republican Party bylaws:
C. Committees: Prior to the state convention, the state chairman shall designate the members of the platform committee, rules committee, resolutions committee, and credentials committee. The platform committee shall conduct hearings around the state prior to the state convention. The convention chairman shall appoint any other convention committees.
You can read that here as filed with the Secretary of State.
Does anyone recall the State Party hosting the required platform committee “hearings around the state prior to the state convention?” Me neither.
On the news and press release and calendar sections of the SDGOP’s website, they spend a lot of time contemplating the lint in their navels, but nothing about the required platform committee meetings. Hm. There’s no provisions for these to be done via zoom, so they’re supposed to have honest to god hearings.. which don’t seem to have happened?
Does this mean that they won’t be able to put forth a platform, since they haven’t followed their own platform rules? How is that going to affect the legitimacy of the entire convention?
Because, now that they’re in charge, I’m sure the people in charge of the convention wouldn’t want to be accused of screwing things up. And not following their own rules.
Their Zoom meeting they have planned must be the “statewide” meeting they are going to hold?
They did the meetings online and shuffled around people chairing committees last minute. I was supposed to be on one of the committees until it suddenly changed.
Some people got the emails and some people didn’t. I did not, but my wife did and we listened to the end of the zoom call which was informative. There’s this thing called process that must be followed in any organization or else chaos will ensue. You can change the rules, but you can’t change the rules on the fly. If the rules were not followed in the processes of the committee hearings, then there cannot be any amendments or changes to the rules from the last convention. The voting of constitutional officers remains the same and will be conducted with process. I for one am hoping for a smooth and orderly convention.
This is a convention. Not that big of a deal compared to legislature where rules were bypassed and completely ignored for the sake of the scary Covid. This state has set a precedence of not following its own rules, laws, or whatever else they want to. SD is known for making up things as it goes along and pp usually likes it, until his handmaidens are no longer in control.
I remember previous conventions had platform committee meetings set up multiple regions leading up to convention. They would be held in a public place and all Republicans were invited to attend. This state party threw out a zoom invite at the last minute and expects that to satisfy the bylaw requirement. What a joke.
in 2020, because of Covid, we did not have a platform committee because it was not feasible to hold public meetings. The decision was made to keep the platform unchanged from 2018. A resolution committee was formed which met via zoom.
Even when platform committee meetings have been held around the state, the number of people who show up at the convention wanting to add planks has been problematic. They take up so much time that the committee members can’t get done in time to attend other events, We got tired and hungry, to the point of being tried and hangry.
The best way to conduct this is to require that all amendments to the existing platform be submitted well in advance of the convention, at the meetings which are supposed to be held.
If the platform committee has not been holding meetings as required, they should leave the platform as is.
Resolutions should not be accepted from the floor but should also go through a committee hearing, as well.
If they allow 600-800 delegates to introduce, discuss and vote on both resolutions and amendments to the platform from the floor, it’s going to be a shitshow. That is all.
I thought all the “on-line” provisions were removed from the by-laws once COVID was over.
Hopefully, someone has a copy of the approved bylaws from the last convention. I wouldn’t put it past the current monkeys in charge of the SDGOP circus to do a little CYA tweaking…. Might be a situation to compare today to yesterday.
I expect the convention to be extremely interesting.
I do not believe the current leadership of the state party will be able to successfully be able to conduct a successful convention. I expect party rules & bylaws, and possibly state and federal laws, will be ignored, leading to legal challenges of their slate of candidates.
I also think it’s unlikely they will be able to pay for all the expenses they’ll be responsible for, once the conversation is over.
The SD Legislature should have moved the remaining constitutional officers (State Treasurer, State Auditor, Attorney General, etc.) and PUC Commissioners to be nominated by the same state wide primary election rules & regulations as the office of Governor when they had the chance in previous sessions.
Perhaps the next legislatures, less handicapped by insanerness, will finally see the light. This may be the death throes of letting the 300 crazies from your hometowns nominate the fellows who will be your State Secretary and General Attorney.
I agree but can you imagine adding 10 more names to a ballot then 10 more people trying to advertise and campaigning across the state.
Then maybe these offices should be abolished. If they are important then they should be on the primary for the people to vote on them. Yes, color a few more dots on your ballot. Or don’t. But if these are really meaningful positions put them for the people to vote. Or eliminate them.
Let the governor appoint them
are you serious? Are you saying you have never seen a primary ballot? There are hardly any names on our primary ballots as is. If there’s only one person running for an office, that race is not printed on the ballot
Two years ago our primary ballot featured only the names of the only two people running for State senate. The rest of the sheet of paper was blank.
Putting the candidates for constitutional office on the primary ballots would increase voter turn out. .
I think the convention is going to be a complete sh!tsh@w.
So good to see the ‘publicans disintegrate Chaos reigns . Y’all gerrymandered the Demos out so you have no one else to challenge you . Eat your young, has begun
how did we gerrymander our Congressional district??
Oh yes, South Dakota is 50% registered Republican to 25% registered Democrat so it must be that they managed to gerrymander their singular congressional district. Brilliant analysis
I was also in a contested race and won.. got the email from state but got zero .. nothing from my county about their meeting that I should have been invited too. They said they didnt know how to reach me. Im throwing the bs flag. Yikes.
Invisible at 10:38, your complaint shows you are one of those people who takes the office but doesn’t do the job. You have not been attending your county party meetings.
What that tells them:
You won’t show up to walk in any parades, participate in door to door lit drops, make phone calls, man a booth at the county fair, or poll watch.
If you were told that your county party did not know how to contact you, that means they already have you pegged as one of the many precinct committee people who has no intention of doing the job after the convention.
you can throw the BS flag, or you can prove them wrong
They’ve never been on the committee before, never got the notices of the meetings, but it’s their fault they didn’t go? And now they’re saying they want to participate but aren’t getting the information on how to participate and it’s still somehow their fault that they didn’t go to meetings when they weren’t on the committee and not getting the notices?
Wild take with some wild assumptions.
county meetings are customarily posted in local newspapers. The idea is to get more people to show up. Maybe you do not subscribe to the local newspaper?
You should have contacted your county Republican chairman prior to signing up to run for precinct committee person to ask him or her what would be expected of you.
The precinct committee people work under the supervision of the county chairman. The job description is in the state party bylaws, Section III, 5-F. It’s a short paragraph describing an exhausting (IMHO) job.
Local newspapers are obsolete. Don’t you read the news? Just like conventions are obsolete. Git yer hoss and buggy outta here.
When we first moved to our county we had to pay attention in order to find out when and where the county party meetings were.
By going to them regularly, you find out what the schedule is.
Why would someone who has never attended a county party meeting volunteer to take on the complete responsibility for the political campaign in their precinct?
You haven’t bothered to introduce yourself to other party regulars but you are going to get out the vote in your precinct?
If you lack the initiative to find out who is on your county central committee and when the meetings are, how are you planning to seek out and engage voters in your precinct?
You only get the privilege of voting at the convention as a reward for getting out the vote in your precinct.
You are not needed at the convention, it takes only one delegate from a county to deliver all of that county’s votes.
The number of votes a county gets is not based on the size of its delegation but on how many votes were cast for the Republican nominee in the previous gubernatorial election.
What that means is, your county’s clout at the next 2 conventions is entirely dependent on your success in getting out the vote for the gubernatorial nominee in November, whether you like him or not.
Nobody cares if you supported somebody else in the primary. YOUR JOB is to get out the vote for party’s nominee in November, to increase the number of votes your county will carry into the next two conventions.
Now put on your big boy pants and do your job.
Your statement perfectly explains why the South Dakota Republican Party is where it is today.
The current leadership has spent years excluding anyone who is not part of the inner circle instead of recruiting new volunteers, building grassroots support, and growing the party.
The results speak for themselves: weak fundraising, declining volunteer engagement, poor voter mobilization, and a party that often ignores its own platform and rules when convenient.
When someone steps up and wants to help, the response should be “welcome aboard,” not “who are you and why are you here?”
Successful organizations grow by bringing people in. Failing organizations focus on keeping people out.
Maybe instead of lecturing Republicans who want to get involved, party leadership should put on their big boy pants and do their job.
Prior to the current clownshow taking over the party apparatus it had a coherent organization, donors, volunteers, experience, and a successful track record in elections.
That’s not at all, what the South Dakota Republican party is today.
when Maggie Sutton was the chairwoman of the Minnehaha County party, she held candidate meetings prior to the primary for everybody who had signed up for a precinct committee person position, as well as anybody running for other offices.
And she addressed the precinct committee candidates specifically about the responsibility of conducting the political campaign in their precincts, how they were responsible for all voter contact. Looking at the faces of the people she was talking to, they did not like that.
By the next January, she was no longer the chairwoman. I don’t know how that vote went, but she was gone.
Maybe if county chairs are not contacting new precinct committee people it’s because they want to keep their jobs?
Your statement perfectly explains why the South Dakota Republican Party is where it is today.
The current leadership has spent years excluding anyone who is not part of the inner circle instead of recruiting new volunteers, building grassroots support, and growing the party.
The results speak for themselves: weak fundraising, declining volunteer engagement, poor voter mobilization, and a party that often ignores its own platform and rules when convenient.
When someone steps up and wants to help, the response should be “welcome aboard,” not “who are you and why are you here?”
Successful organizations grow by bringing people in. Failing organizations focus on keeping people out.
Maybe instead of lecturing Republicans who want to get involved, party leadership, which you think you are, should put on your big boy pants and do your job.
Prior to the current clownshow taking over the party apparatus it had a coherent organization, donors, volunteers, experience, and a successful track record in elections.
That’s not at all, what the South Dakota Republican party is today.
Precinct person here. I have received one email to register for convention. Have NOT received any other email. Whether I participate after the convention isn’t the issue. I won the seat and should be informed by the “administrators” in charge with every email.
This convention is going to make Watertown look like a day in the park.
The precinct committee people work under the supervision of the county chairman:
“Under the supervision of the county chairman, they have the complete responsibility to conduct the political campaign in their precinct…”
If you have a problem with communication, discuss it with your supervisor.
The Watertown convention brought in a whole lot pf new precinct committee people who had no idea what they had signed up for and made it clear they were not going to do the job.
They were indignant about having to cover their own expenses just to go to the convention.
Anger over having to pay for their own meals and accommodations spilled over into everything else.
I have now won my precinct race in Sioux Falls three consecutive times. The county party still fails to send me emails, I have to hear about them from others. It is ridiculous
have you checked your spam folder?
If the term of office for Precinct Committee positions didn’t begin until AFTER the Party Convention, we wouldn’t have this problem.
By allowing people to vote at the convention who simply were elected a few days before the convention, there’s absolutely no accountability for those who simply show up to vote and fail to do anything else to fulfill the role of their position.