Dusty Johnson’s Weekly Column – Level Up! By Rep. Dusty Johnson – The Big Three for November 3, 2023

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Level Up!
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
November 3, 2023

BIG Update

On Monday, I hosted my first Level Up Youth Conference in Rapid City. Over 350 students from more than a dozen West River schools attended to hear from a variety of speakers about how they can become more engaged citizens – and even learned some tips on how to better chat with Uncle Bob about politics during Thanksgiving dinner.

Divisive political discourse, 24/7 news and media consumption, and low civic engagement among youth paint a bleak picture for our nation’s future, but it’s not too late to get us back on the right track. These students are our future leaders and there’s no doubt they will be part of the solution.

Want to learn more about what we discussed? Check out this video or this story.

BIG Idea

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to testify before the House Committee on the Judiciary about my Constitutional amendment to limit the size of the U.S. Supreme Court to nine Justices. Recent years have brought more calls from the Left to pack or expand the Court, and I think that is a terrible idea.

Any efforts to turn the Supreme Court into a political football will further erode public trust in our institutions. 140 members of Congress agree with me and have co-sponsored this amendment. I encouraged the Judiciary Committee to consider Keep the Nine soon.

View my remarks here or click the image below.

BIG News

House Republicans have now passed appropriations bills funding more than 80% of the dollars needed to fund the government in Fiscal Year 2024. There’s no doubt we still have a lot of work to do but we will be back in D.C. next week to continue our progress.

I was proud to co-sponsor the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act which provides $14.3 billion to provide military assistance to Israel and funding for the protection of U.S. personnel and emergency evacuations of American citizens. This bill passed the House on Thursday afternoon. I will continue to support Israel in its fight against Hamas and this is one step in the right direction.

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Thune, Rounds in top 10 of most popular US Senators in nation.

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We’re South Dakota nice, and especially so when it comes to come of our highest ranking politicians, as Senators John Thune & Mike Rounds remain in the top 10 of the most popular US Senators in the country:

With Thune coming in at #5 and Rounds coming in at #7, don’t find yourself discouraged when the haters start throwing rocks… because we find they’re an incredible minority and it just doesn’t matter.

The Senators are overwhelmingly liked by a majority of South Dakotans with a 62% and 61% approval ratings. The Senators should just keep on keeping on – because they’re doing something right, just as they always have.

Governor Kristi Noem in Top 10 of most popular Governors in America

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From Twitter, the Morning Consult website is back at it noting the elected officials we love, and among our nation’s Governors, South Dakota’s Kristi Noem is in the top 10, coming in at #9 with 61% net approval rating:

Course on Taylor Swift being taught at USD Law School

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From Facebook, USD Law School Dean Neil Fulton mentions the upcoming course at the USD Law School that’s making the news:

After attending a Swift concert in Minneapolis in June, Kammer said he was inspired to develop the writing-intensive class, available to second- and third-year law students. The course will look at the musician’s interactions with the law, such as her rerecording of six albums and related copyright issue, Kammer said. It will also examine how individuals’ own experiences and beliefs shape how they interpret the law — much like how they interpret her song lyrics.

Pop culture-focused law classes are not uncommon, and they can create a public relations buzz for the schools that offer them.

Read the entire story here.

I asked my daughter who is attending USD law about whether she was going to take it and got a thumbs down, as she isn’t Taylor Swift fan.  I even offered her the use of my concert T-shirt, but it was still a hard pass.

Rounds Delivers Opening Remarks at Banking Hearing on Protecting Financial Well-Being of Service Members and Veterans

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Rounds Delivers Opening Remarks at Banking Hearing on Protecting Financial Well-Being of Service Members and Veterans

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, today delivered opening remarks at a committee hearing on securing financial protections for service members, veterans and their families. Click HERE to listen to Rounds’ opening remarks.

“Protecting the financial well-being of our men and women in uniform is incredibly important – not only while they are serving, but also after their service ends and they transition into civilian life,” said Rounds in his opening remarks.

“Improving financial literacy among our service members empowers them to take advantage of available benefits throughout the entirety of their careers, improve early financial decision-making and better identify and avoid scams and fraudulent activity,” continued Rounds. “And for our veterans, financial literacy paves a continued pathway toward success.”

Rounds closed with, “I look forward to hearing from each of our witnesses today about the financial issues confronting our service members, veterans and their families, with the hope to learn from your experiences and better protect the American dream of our heroes.”

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Governor Kristi Noem asks Supreme Court for opinion on conflicts prior to naming Castleberry replacement appointment

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With the support of the Attorney General, as well as House & Senate Leadership, Governor Kristi Noem has requested a Supreme Court opinion clarifying the conflicts between serving in the legislature and constitutional prohibitions against being directly or indirectly engagced in contracts with the State of South Dakota. According to the Governor, it’s necessary prior to naming a replacement to Senator Jessica Castleberry, a legislator whose term of office fell victim to the prohibitions after Castleberry’s business accepted money from the state, after an attorney informed her she could legally take those funds:

The governor has formally asked the Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion regarding what constitutes a conflict of interest for a legislator.

The governor wants further clarification before appointing someone to replace Jessica Castleberry, who resigned from the state Senate after her business was found to be receiving COVID-19 aid.

and..

Schoenbeck, the Senate’s president pro tempore, in his letter suggested the court would be aided by a hearing. The former state’s attorney wrote, “Prior Courts, and their liberal interpretation of a very specific constitutional provision, have created an unfortunate situation this Court needs to address. It is not a pleasant task to have to clean up the work of predecessors, but it is a very important task for our state.”

Read the entire story here.

This is actually one of the more substantial decisions the court has to review, as it has the potential to overturn decades of Attorney General interpretations and blanket prohibitions that have driven more than one legislator from office, besides the most recent instance involving Senator Castleberry.

Any thoughts on how far you’d like to see the court go?

Family Heritage Alliance now Family Voice. Kind of thinking the rebranding could have been less.. evil looking.

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Apparently, the Family Heritage Alliance is attempting to take the organization in a new direction by changing their name and rebranding with a logo.

A somewhat sinister looking logo..

Am I the only one who thinks their new logo looks like something out of Man in the High Castle?

Someone else had an alternate take on it…

That group has not been the same since they pushed out Dale Bartscher for actually being effective and building bridges.

*Update*

Just saw this one…

Not quite evil, but definitely looks like where the designer got their idea..

KELOland: Pipeline opponents may cost South Dakota jet fuel plant said to be largest economic investment in the state’s history

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The head of proposed billion dollar sustainable jet fuel plant near Lake Preston noted in a KELOland interview today that they may have to pick up and go elsewhere unless attitudes change for carbon sequestration in South Dakota:

South Dakota could lose its largest proposed economic development project if the carbon dioxide sequestration landscape doesn’t change, Gevo’s chief executive officer said this week.

“If we don’t have resolution, say, in six months, I think I better move to another state. That’s what I think. I need to have a line of sight that it’s gonna happen for real,” Dr. Patrick Gruber, the CEO of Gevo, said Monday in KELOLAND News interview.

and..

But it’s unlikely that investment will happen without a carbon dioxide pipeline that will transport captured CO2 for sequestration, Gruber said.

Producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from carbohydrates, via ethanol, is the most cost effective way and it also has the lowest carbon footprint, Gruber said.

and..

CO2 pipelines and sequestration have met resistance in South Dakota, but it’s part of the future of carbon abatement and renewable and sustainable fuel, he said.

Read the entire interview here at KELOland.com

The question is less about pipelines, and whether people – and elected officials – actually support ethanol and other agriculture derived fuel products.

More and more fuel and ethanol markets are demanding a carbon neutral footprint.

Either South Dakota wants to compete on a world market, or we can fail our local ag producers.

South Dakota Democrats spamming phones as they try to make 2024 the “Year of the rando”

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I’ve had multiple reports over the last week that South Dakota Democrats have taken to sending SMS Spam messages as a recruitment tool to get people to run for office.

The curious messages started popping up last week when one correspondent sent me a snapshot of the text that his daughter received:

The note accompanying it, indicated his “daughter just received this text message.  She is not politically active in any way she gets this text out of the blue. They must be really desperate.”

This was followed up a couple days later with another message, with a similar take on candidate recruitment:

You can see the disdainful reply they received.

With state and local races quickly coming into the forefront over the next 60 days, I suppose for the Democrats who have long been in dire straits, they have little to lose by sending text messages out to random people to try to get them to run for office.

God knows the traditional methods of recruiting candidates have largely failed them over the years.

South Dakota Democrats. Making 2024 “The Year of the Rando.”