FACT CHECK: Jackley Can’t Balance a Budget
AG’s Office costs taxpayers $8 million more today than when Jackley took office
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – In Marty Jackley’s latest false attack on Noem, the government lawyer claims he can balance a budget, but his record shows otherwise:
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The Attorney General’s budget has grown 44.3% during Marty Jackley’s tenure, costing taxpayers $8+ million more today than when Jackley first took office.
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While the state workforce shrunk by 3.2% from 2009 to 2019, Marty Jackley grew government and increased the number of government employees by 21.3%.
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Marty Jackley bankrupted the Law Enforcement Officers Training Fund, relying on bailouts from the state legislature and other branches of state government and still leaving a quarter-million-dollar deficit to the next Attorney General.
“Year after year, Marty Jackley has spent beyond his means as the state’s top government lawyer,” said Justin Brasell, Kristi for Governor Campaign Manager. “With taxpayers now on the hook for $8 million more today than when Marty Jackley first took office, it doesn’t take an electrical engineer to figure out these numbers don’t add up to fiscal responsibility.”
Meanwhile…
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Kristi Noem’s personal office expenditures fell 17 percent since she first took office.
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Kristi Noem supported a balanced state budget all four years that she served in the South Dakota House, as is required by the state’s constitution.
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Kristi Noem voted in favor of adding a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I watched the debate. I felt as if Kristi was fairly viscous towards Marty and is obviously willing to do or say anything to get elected.
It made me wish Marty pushed back harder.
Hopefully SD voters support a good man in Marty this June.
pushed back harder? like EB5 , gearup, Bosworth, marijuana case out of Flandreau….he is a wimp
Unless you mean push back harder like the retaliation case from Aberdeen?
Kristi’s in trouble and polling well below 50%
Her back is obviously against the wall. This was never supposed to be close. It’s bad that a 4 term congresswoman is tied. She’s in serious trouble. 100% of SD voters know her and she’s below 50%
This post isn’t about Kristi. It’s about Marty and the insights we’re getting into his past. With every little trickle of news about him making a sweetheart deal, looking the other way, or quietly expanding government, it just shows South Dakotans how sleazy he truly is. He’s a lifelong government lawyer who just wants to reward his Pierre buddies.
She’s acting very Christian to slander Jackley like that. It’s too bad but the real her has come out.
How is she slandering? I haven’t seen Marty refute any of the facts. He’s just on repeat saying “It’s negative.” “It’s negative.” “It’s negative.” I’m kind of getting tired of him wining that people are talking about his record.
I’m surprised Jackley didn’t point out that all of those votes and bills she kept talking about were just bills they might as well be BULL because either way they aren’t real. She hasn’t done anything.
This is a typical Jackley attack, but let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute.
SD elected Kristi to fight for conservative values. Most of her time in the House, she was faced with a Democrat Senate and Obama in the White House. It’s obvious that they would block any conservative bill from the House. But Kristi fought hard, regardless. She and her House colleagues have been rewarded by working closely with President Trump on a huge tax reform bill and dozens of regulatory rollbacks.
In any endeavor, you succeed sometimes and you fail sometimes. But the point is that you FIGHT. Kristi is a FIGHTER and pushes hard for what she believes in, even when the odds of success are low.
That’s the kind of governor I want.
Her list of bills she rambled off are her wish list from 2010. Her wish list gets longer. She just doesn’t deliver.
Personally negotiating the first fundamental tax reform in 30 years then literally standing with President Trump during the rollout? Yeah she doesn’t deliver at all.
*eye roll emoji*
SPOT ON. Marty on the other hand had good reason to grow the budget. He was at the forefront of Attorney Generals challenging Obama’s illegal BS in court. I some cases, Marty Jackley was first in the nation to challenge the Obama administration. That is good enough for me.
Ha! This is awesome. Marty’s folks are flailing around, trying to land a hit but Noem and her team are just outclassing them.
I watched the last half of the debate.
I thought the snark was down which is good.
I’m not averse to the candidates being hard-hitting. Politics isn’t a friendly game of gin rummy. I just think the hits need to be accurate and in context. I don’t think the needle moved by anything anyone said.
I think the both missed an opportunity as neither was intimate and engaging. Just a lot of really good recitation of talking points.
What I liked least about the debate is afterwards neither candidate looked at the other, shook hands or otherwise engaged. If boxers and UFC fighters and football players can shake hands afterwards, two politicians expected to work with others certainly can too. Don’t take yourselves that serious folks.
Good news for Billie I guess.
For a 4 term Congress person to be below 50% is a big deal. Brazil has failed Kristi.
For a 10 year Attorney General and former US Attorney to be below 50% must be a big deal then as well. To say this was a blown lead is pure political spin. This was always going to be close. Both good candidates. Both have lots of loyal supporters. Kristi is much more than a Washington insider and Marty is more than a government lawyer — they have both been good public servants for South Dakota. These are buzz words used by both camps designed to move votes. I like them both but right now not real happy with the games being played on either side.
She has spent $7 million over the past 8 years to promote herself. Jackley has probably spent less than $500k prior to running for governor.
She has 100% name ID. Voters know her and are looking for someone better.
Jackley is winning this race.
Jackley has run twice so guessing he’s spent more than $500k. Plus he’s had his AG budget of tens of millions to promote himself for 10 years. And he has. And sounds like that budget is bigger than ever.
Kristi did well last night. I’m glad she’s not letting Marty get off the hook.
If you have an ounce of objectivity, at best, these debates are a tie.
To say X candidate won is a bet on your win bonus. But, that’s about it.
Everyone seems to be off subject talking about the debate instead of the release. How does Marty Jackley call himself a conservative, when his office’s spending is up by 44% and his staff has grown by 21% while the state’s workforce is down 3%. This is troubling even if he isn’t running for Governor, let alone comparing it to Kristi Noem’s example of reducing her office by 17% during the same timeframe. This isn’t just campaign rhetoric, Jackley needs to explain himself on this issue. If it isn’t true, he should point out why it isn’t. If it is true, voters may want to re-think his claim of being a fiscal conservative.
How much more proof does anyone need on this topic? Kristi : Proven Conservative Jackley: Spender
He ‘talks’ as if he’s conservative while Kristi ‘proves’ by these numbers what is true. ‘Increasing’ HIS budget, while Kristi ‘Decreases’ hers. Simple. If Jackley would happen to win the primary, we get Sutton as our next governor. Simple.
Cinder: “This isn’t just campaign rhetoric, Jackley needs to explain himself on this issue.” I agree it is a legitimate question of why his office has grown and we should have an answer. However, we or Noem could have asked that question for years as his budget was approved to by the Legislature. We are acting like this is a secret. Its not.
Cinder: “If it is true, voters may want to re-think his claim of being a fiscal conservative.” Maybe or maybe not. If the legislature expanded his number of lawyers to prosecute and investigate more crime, isn’t that a pro-crime fighting position and a good thing? Or, maybe the legislature added the number of people in DCI to fight drug crime, isn’t that a good thing?
My point is the questions being asked of him are legitimate. I’m just questioning why they are being asked at the last minute and not when an answer can get the same press and attention as the question. And frankly, my suspicion is the questions serve the purpose of the Noem campaign and they know the answers would not.
It might be if crime numbers weren’t through the roof under Jackley’s watch!
12:41 pm:
I suppose if one thinks it appropriate to blame Jackley for the increase in crime, it is appropriate to blame Noem for all the things that haven’t been done in DC.
Personally, I reject both those arguments. I think Noem has been a very good Member of Congress for our state and Jackley has been a very good Attorney General.
Personally, I think all the energy they have exhausted criticizing the other for what has been a great job has been a missed opportunity. I’d rather had them spend time telling us what they will do as Governor and, where appropriate, draw contrast with the other’s vision. But that is just me.
Troy, when you run as a law and order candidate and tout the endorsement of law enforcement the increase in crime and meth usage are valid points. Meth supply is at all time highs, no pun intended. Related social problems including an over loaded foster parent system are exploding. This has occurred on Jackley’s watch. If he is unable to prevent this as AG how can we possibly expect him to do so as governor?
They’d be valid if they didn’t ignore the primary contributions to these problems are well-beyond law enforcement (parenting, schools, illegal immigration, courts, etc.) and running in the face of your own candidate’s solution being more government spending on mental health intervention.
In short, your argument is as nonsensical as the Jackley troll argument because Booker’s debt has gone up she is responsible for all the things Congress didn’t get done.
But, anonymous trolls on both sides will be anonymous trolls. I’m just signing my name and calling BS on both your houses.
When crime goes up you need more resources to fight back. The legislature appropriated more funds to the AG’s office. This is literally the dumbest attack ever. You can’t say that it’s his fault that crime went up and then admonish him and the state for trying to fix the problem. It’s intellectually dishonest.
yeah he fought SB 70 so hard….
yeah and crime has gone down how much with all these extra resources…..or did Government just grow and the problem was not aided by all the extra growth in government
But Marty argues crime actually didn’t go up that much, right? He argues it’s going down, relative to where it was. So will he commit to giving his expanded budget back to the state of South Dakota? I bet not!
A couple observations. First, nothing surprising this is close, both have a history in the state, and an experienced team.
Second, this is a contest between a traditional strategy and an augmented South Dakota strategy. I see the ghost of Rounds’ first gubenitorial election when the SD political class was shell shocked by the negative ads backfiring. Case in point, Jackley tried to go soft-negative with a cute ad about riding, shooting, and balancing. Problem with cute ads is they’re easily shot down by fact based pieces, which is exactly what happened. Frankly, it feels like Jackley’s team was baited.
If a team goes negative, they need to commit to it, because if you pull back it looks like a cheap shot, if you press on it looks more like fact. I expect this recent exchange to swing things Noem’s way.
Third, GOTV is huge in a close race, and until I see otherwise the edge here still leans Jackley. I don’t expect the election will be called early, great news for political junkies like me.
A couple observations. First, not at all surprised this is close.
Second, team battle between a traditional strategy and an augmented South Dakota strategy. I see the ghost of Rounds’ first gubenitorial election coming through, where the SD political class was shell shocked by the negative ads backlash. Case in point, Jackley’s team tried to go soft negative with a cute ad about shooting, riding, and balancing. Problem is these ads are easily countered with fact based pieces, which is exactly what happened. Frankly, feels like Jackley’s team was baited and they took it, “big league” as Trump would say.
Fully expect this recent exchange to swing things Noem’s way.
Third, still think GOTV favors Jackley, which is a big deal in close races, but Jackley needs to avoid these kinds of mistakes in the future.
Once you go negative, you really need to commit to it. Back off and it looks a cheap shot, stick with it and looks more like fact. Great for for us political junkies.
Pat, you can take on of these down, computer wasn’t working or recognizing the post when I first put it up. Thanks.