For the last week, I’ve been hearing reports through sources that South Dakota State Senator Jessica Castleberry is not likely to seek re-election to her District 35 Senate seat in light of the dispute she’s having with the State of South Dakota over her business receiving over $600,000 in COVID funds.
This morning, the Dakota Scout is reporting that they are hearing reports of the same rumors as well:
And since Attorney General Marty Jackley publicly called for the Pennington County legislator to return the funds or face criminal penalty, Castleberry has told numerous colleagues she will not run for the office again in 2024, according to multiple sources of The Dakota Scout.
I think that goes without saying that Senator Castleberry would be challenged to mount a successful campaign in light of the not insignificant fiscal demands being made of her business. There’s not a lot of businesses that have $603,000 of liquidity, especially if they had to apply for pandemic relief. It would be challenging for anyone to run a campaign in that kind of environment.
What is not being speculated as much is whether the issue the Senator is facing will bring on a resignation prior to the next legislative session. It’s not being spoken of as yet, but as was the case with former Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, sometimes a person has to read the room.
Go back to January of this year, and recall the Senate hearings for disgraced State Senator Julie Frye-Mueller over her harassment of a legislative employee with lewd breast sucking advice, while her lobbyist husband stood at the Senator’s side. At the time there were those questioning if expulsion might be appropriate, with the Senate finally deciding on censure, with GOP leadership continuing to ban Frye-Mueller from committee assignments.
Those hearings were over Frye-Mueller’s conduct outside of the legislative chambers, and there remains a lot of bitterness with Frye-Mueller and her ally Senator Tom Pischke over the Senate taking action. So much so that they tried to gin up false charges against most of the Senate for kicking her out of the Senate Chamber while they investigated, going so far as Pischke & Frye-Mueller holding a press conference demanding those Senators be arrested. No one in law enforcement, whether it was the Attorney General or the local states attorney took them seriously, because let’s face it. They’re idiots. As Senate Leader Lee Schoenbeck noted at the time, “She should be embarrassed,” Schoenbeck said. “She and her bully friends need to go away and leave our workers and citizens alone.”
At the time, Senator Jessica Castleberry was one of the Senators that Frye-Mueller and Pischke were trying to demand the arrest of, according to the affidavit they were passing around, when they were shot down hard. Pischke also earned himself the boot from the Republican Legislative caucus to go along with Frye-Mueller’s dis-invitation from same.
Now think of what’s happened in the months since. The political environment has not gotten kinder and more conciliatory. Unfortunately, that’s the environment that Senator Castleberry is stuck working with.
With the Governor herself requesting an investigation citing the “ethics of the malfeasance,” even in the best case scenario, with the guidance being issued by the South Dakota State Supreme Court that legislators could not accept COVID funds (starting page 4 here), I have the feeling that the Senate will have no choice but to take up the Castleberry issue. Even as much as Senators like Senator Castleberry personally.
Under Legislative rules, the very first item in the legislative code of conduct reads as follows:
CHAPTER 1B. LEGISLATIVE CODE OF CONDUCT
1B-1. Maintenance of ethical standards. The people of South Dakota require that their legislators maintain the highest of moral and ethical standards as such standards are essential to assure the trust, respect and confidence of our citizens. Legislators have a solemn responsibility to avoid improper behavior and refrain from conduct that is unbecoming to the Legislature or that is inconsistent with the Legislature’s ability to maintain the respect and trust of the people it serves. While it is not possible to write rules to cover every circumstance, each legislator must do everything in his or her power to deal honorably with the public and with his or her colleagues and must promote an atmosphere in which ethical behavior is readily recognized as a priority and is practiced continually, without fail.
Even if the over half-a-million in funds can be repaid in full, I don’t know that legislative hearings on it are avoidable. I can think of at least two who will press it, if no one else does.
I have no doubt that Senator Castleberry put the funds into her business to keep it afloat, as many businesses did during COVID. Personally, I’ve known her to be a hard working businesswoman who lives frugally, so I don’t believe any of this took place because she had greed or avarice in mind. But the fact of the matter is that as much as she’s liked, if she is a member of the legislature in January, there will be Senate hearings, adding to the Senator’s legal troubles over accepting the funds and increasing her legal expenses in responding to the matter.
As I noted in my column in April of 2022, noting former Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg’s situation, The thing about the political life is that for 99% of people involved in it, it really isn’t forever. It will end at some point, and there will be another chapter that has nothing to do with being elected to something. I’d say “change is hard.” And people avoid change. But I’d argue that if you see that change is coming like a freight train; if you can see that the end is coming no matter what you do, you might also do some soul searching as to “why are you prolonging something that you know is going to end?” Because sometimes it’s just better for a person’s own mental and spiritual health to just begin that next chapter. You can’t control what other people think. But you can control what you do for yourself.
This is going to be challenging enough for Senator Castleberry to address, and it’s a crappy thing to have to deal with for her, especially considering that she believed she was in the right at the time. But, one way or another, this is not going to be a result that remotely resembles being good. Either it ends in more than likely repayment of $603,000, or it ends in repayment of $603,000 and a public show via a Senate trial. (Let’s not say trial, and use the term conduct or ethics hearing, since it’s confusing people.-pp)
I’d hope that she chooses the path that causes herself the least amount of anguish, and allows her to address what’s taken place and to move forward.
I’m not following why there would be a senate trial?
Isn’t this more or less a court of law thing and if she repays it then isn’t it pretty much resolved?
How many other legislators will this impact?
It wouldn’t be for a criminal violation. I suspect there are those who will try to raise issue with it based on the legislative rules/code of ethics. JFM’s violation was also a rules violation.
Jackley never said Castleberry is facing possible criminal charges, so wherever that came from, is badly misinformed. He simply asked for the money back.
And he said they will take it to court, if need be. So not criminal charges, but a willingness to get the court system involved if she doesn’t comply with their request for the money back.
Again, I think the whole matter stems from some negligent handling of the applications for COVID funding by either the DSS or the Governor’s Office. Senator Castleberry applied for her Day Care in good faith that she was eligible. She had to file several applications, over a series of months, with her name prominent on the application. All went through the process and were approved, and no one in the DSS or Governor’s Office ever raised a red flag. By their admission. denial of this application and the present legal issue only arose with a separate $4,000 application filed by Senator Castleberry at a later date which finally got SOMEONE’S attention. I think the Governor is trying to cover up the ineptness of management in her administration, by putting Senator Castleberry in jeopardy.
A lot of people got these covod monies who should not have. Another waste of taxpayer money.
Total waste of money. I bet a high percentage went right into her pocket. That’s a lot of money going straight to the day care center. This whole program was mismanaged from the start. Maybe help direct to people who need daycare would have been better. I know they were trying to build out capacity, but what’s a day care owner to do with temporary money? I will tell you — pay for things they would have normally paid for from operations. Pocket the extra profit that now result from operations. If someone wanted to really have their eyes open, they’d look at tax returns of these day care owners. Just saying — they’d be shocked at the difference after this program started.
Since it’s an LLC, it would have to go in the corporation. Lot of people were unable to work during COVID, and daycares got hit hard when people started pulling their kids home.
yes, certainly would go to the LLC. But the profit ultimately goes to the owner of the LLC. Daycares weren’t hit too hard in South Dakota. Because we didn’t shut down like many other states, there were a lot of people still looking for daycare. I know of daycares that had huge influxes of cash because of direct federal dollars, plus special state dollars for day cares, plus mostly business as usual.