Legislator who became lobbyist to co-chair group claiming lobbyists corrupting legislators in State Constitutional Amendment campaign

Pat Powers

Well, that’s Ironic.

Mitch Richter, a Republican former legislator from Sioux Falls, and Darrell Solberg, a Democratic former legislator also from Sioux Falls, are the co-chairmen for the group seeking signatures on the proposed amendment to the state constitution that its supporters say would fight corruption in South Dakota.

They need at least 27,741 valid signatures from registered South Dakota voters by Nov. 6, 2017, to qualify the proposed amendment for the 2018 general-election ballot.

Read that here.

Former State Legislator Mitch Richter, who has lined his pocketbooks as lobbyist by representing groups such as the pro-abortion group “Campaign for Healthy Families,” the Anti-ag group “Humane Society of the US,” the Anti 2nd Amendment group “Every Town for Gun Safety Action Fund,” and the pro-labor union group “South Dakota State Federation of Labor,” among others, is now going to be co-chairing the Constitutional Amendment re-write of Initiated Measure 22, which seeks to ban any number of things, including Lobbyists (like Mitch Richter) taking Legislators (like Mitch Richter used to be) out for dinner.

Since the group in the past has tried to portray that legislators have taken massive gifts from lobbyists, it’s unknown if Richter will disclose how many of these massive gifts he’s attempting to ban that he’s been offered or may have taken as Legislator, or may have offered as a Lobbyist in an attempt to influence legislation.

You see, that’s the problem. There’s lots of rhetoric, but nobody can come up with an example of it ever happening here. And somehow, I doubt that the people chairing it who have been involved in the process directly are going to be forthcoming with any themselves.

If you recall the unconstitutional chaos that Initiated Measure 22 caused before a group of legislators and their spouses took the matter to court, you have to scratch your head and wonder why they’re coming back for another bite at the apple?

And with a constitutional amendment, nonetheless?

8 thoughts on “Legislator who became lobbyist to co-chair group claiming lobbyists corrupting legislators in State Constitutional Amendment campaign”

  3. At first blush, this may seem like a noble cause. But when you have two of the most liberal and arrogant legislators in SD history in charge, it’s chance of succeeding is zero. If you’ve ever seen Solberg on fb, he’s totally obnoxious. He’s says everything the conservatives believes is OPINION, and everything he believes is FACT (since that’s what the liberal media is educating us to believe) !!

    [redacted…. okay, lets not get into that, absent clear documentation, and the rest was off topic. -pp]

  4. I said this on another blog, but it applies equally here because the subject is the same – IM 22, part Deux:

    Will the new initiative campaign be financed the same way the previous one was? Not only was it overwhelmingly out-of-state money, but the represent.us 501(c)(4) budget was funded with almost 100% of the represent.us 501(c)(3) budget. This means that charitable funds were being used to support a statewide ballot initiative election. See: Prairie Playground for Special Interests to Test Campaign Finance Initiative – https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/08/18/prairie-playground-for-special-interests-to-test-campaign-finance-initiative/

  5. Not signing anything… I think?! Sometimes it’s really confusing knowing exactly what box to check. That’s why DWC is bookmarked, information breakdown.

    It’s disheartening to know a fellow Republican gets $$ from abortion groups. What’s even worse, finding out you voted for a Republican who supports abortion.

  6. Apparently Richter has decided to give up his lobbying career…. This will certainly end it for him, if he doesn’t do it himself.

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