Not sure I can recall having seen this before.
Toby “dumpster-fire” Doeden, who used a campaign finance loophole to backtrack and escape responsibility for egregiously violating campaign finance law has apparently registered his PAC lackey Brian Lewis as a lobbyist to represent his political action committee in Pierre because he doesn’t want to see his loophole go away.
This is the same political action committee that held the fundraiser that was bringing Mark Robinson to South Dakota, until Robinson was nuked in the North Carolina election for Governor, as it was brought to light that he made some fairly controversial statements. In case it has faded from your mind:
The message came from North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. CNN recently reported that Robinson made racist and sexually explicit remarks more than a decade ago on a pornographic website’s message board. The report said Robinson, who has a recent history of anti-transgender rhetoric, said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, referred to himself as a “black Nazi,” expressed support for reinstating slavery and praised Adolf Hitler.
Robinson’s video speech occurred during the Dakota First Action political action committee’s Victory Gala. Toby Doeden, an Aberdeen businessman and founder of Dakota First Action, said his fellow Republicans who are condemning Robinson are hurting the party.
“CNN has no substantive proof,” Doeden said.
Remember that here.
This was the PAC fundraiser that had the NAACP protesting outside (another first for the same SD PAC).
Getting back to Lewis, He’s not lobbying for any formal organization that happens to have a political action committee. He’s representing the Political Action Committee itself. If you look at the reason it exists, it’s sole stated purpose is to “elect bold, conservative Republicans at each SD Governmental level,” according to the documents filed with the Secretary of State.
A claim to elect “bold Republicans” might have been their purpose, but instead we ended up with this, with PAC lackey Lewis standing over Carl Perry’s shoulder:
Why would a PAC solely dedicated to electing candidates need a lobbyist? According to the lobbying documents, the subject of legislation specifically includes lobbying on “anti-corruption election laws.” Which anti-corruption election laws would they need a lobbyist on?
Senate Bill 12 would limit the amount of money that may be loaned to a candidate or a political action committee (PAC).
Sen. Michael Rohl (R) of Aberdeen hopes that the bill will close a loophole in the South Dakota campaign finance world.
“PACs shouldn’t be personal checking accounts for the ultra-wealthy to be able to buy politicians,” Rohl said.
and..
…the state allows unlimited loans, which can be forgiven as bad debt.
“We don’t have campaign finance laws in South Dakota. We just have them for people that are everyday citizens that are trying to follow the spirit of the law, but the bad actors don’t have to follow them,” Rohl said.
Read that here.
Senator Michael Rohl has brought anti-corruption legislation to close a loophole that was missed when campaign finance limits were set in legislation 15-20 years ago, because no one at the time would have envisioned that someone would loan their PAC $50,000, $100,000 or a million dollars. And unfortunately, the Dakota First Action PAC proved that they should have considered it.
As recognized by Rohl, the problem with these campaign “loans” is that they’re not traditional loans through a bank. They’re loans where there are no set terms for repayment. Kind of like a Chad Haber loan.
And because of it, Senator Michael Rohl announced his legislation, which instantly triggered a massive social media freak-out on Toby Doeden’s part:
In other words, Rohl, Otten, Wheeler and Reed brought anti-corruption legislation to fix a loophole, which triggered Doeden to start howling a steaming pile of rhetorical nonsense about campaign finance, and attacking bill sponsors because they had the audacity to say there’s a loophole that we missed, and everyone should follow the same laws.
And now we have Doeden sending his PAC lackey/lobbyist to do his master’s bidding.
With Lewis registered as a lobbyist on the subject of anti-corruption election laws, and their pronouncement on the facebook post opposing the legislation, it appears that the Doeden PAC is sending a lobbyist to Pierre to lobby against the SB 12 anti-corruption bill.
It appears they are announcing their intent to lobby in favor of corruption, if you remove the “against-anti” double negative.
You can’t make this stuff up.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of the Department of Interior Deb Haaland asking them to address the public safety crisis on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
