The South Dakota Republican Party has sent out a big update out to Central Committee members this morning around 7:40. So, of course I had it in my hands around 7:45.
What’s the update regarding? The 2025 Winter Meeting where new officers will be chosen, along with the meeting agenda, as well as a report from long-time Treasurer Brett Koenecke, who with law partner Justin Bell tag-teamed the Treasurer’s office for over a decade to – as Brett put it – “to keep us off the front page of the Argus Leader with respect to our business and fundraising and spending.”
First off – here’s the Invite & agenda:
Next is the very interesting letter from Brett to the party in discharge of his duties, which sheds light on what monies the party currently has in their federal account:
“The federal account is subject to federal rules, is all our money, and has $51,762.87 in it. The federal account contains two noteworthy contributions. One is from the trust of a New Jersey man who was killed in a motorcycle accident, the other is our share of joint fundraising with the president. The first is 10,000 and the second is 42,000 and change..“
Literally, every dime that’s currently in the federal account comes from unusual sources that the party won’t see in coming months, and there’s currently a little over $35k in the state account. Likely enough to keep the lights on at a low level this year, but little more.
Here’s where the challenges start. As noted in the letter, the party is on it’s last month for it’s Aristotle fundraising software, where records are kept, so the new group will have to decide whether to keep that software. Then there’s the services of the accounting firm. Then there’s the very important services of the Minneapolis Lawyer specializing in FEC reporting (Reid LeBeau. Reid was a long time- SD TAR/CR and super good guy. I’m sure this was done partially as a labor of love for the SDGOP.)
Speaking of attorneys, the end of Koenecke/Bell as party officers will also likely mark the end of some extremely discounted legal advice from these gentlemen in Pierre which helped the Republican party #1 dominate when it came to legal challenges the party faced, and #2 helped them avoid unforced errors.
I know when I would work on mail pieces for the SDGOP, as well as candidates working through the party, there were times when there was an obligatory “blessing of the mail piece” where things you thought were proper would go into hard stop because of FEC Rules that might not normally apply on what the party can say in print at the state level, but are quite detailed at the federal level, as well as whether the disclaimer needed to be state compliant or federally compliant. It might seem nitpicky, but that immediate knowledge and attention to detail matters. That’s what has kept the party off the FEC radar.
After a decade (or 2) of that kind of on-call legal expertise being at the party’s disposal for literally no-charge, this will be a very significant institutional loss. And the SDGOP will be entering a new era where they’ll likely be doing a lot of guess work, or having to cut a check when they have to get serious about someone needing assurance on what the rules are.
There are so many challenges that the SDGOP faces in the coming months. And of even greater concern, it’s not the challenges they know about. It’s the challenges they don’t know about that will likely trip them up.
Dark times ahead. The county GOPs successfully poisoned the well by going off script and focusing on getting their preferred extremists elected. The costs of this will be felt for years. Let everyone know that this was the year that the GOP took a knife to their own throat
The loss of Brett and Justin is much bigger than the race for chairman.
It’s very concerning we’ve heard nothing about who’s running for Treasurer. These three candidates are so focused on themselves they don’t appear to even be thinking about Treasurer! There’s no mention of Secretary, and only one candidate (Jim Eschenbaum) has announced a Vice-Chair.
I suspect the Dems are sharpening their knives because they’re about to get the opportunity to take down the SDGOP in a critical election year for South Dakota. What do you think the over/under will be for fines that SDGOP has to pay because this new crop of officers doesn’t know what they’re doing and thinks being SDGOP Chair is all about stopping the pipeline and vaccines? $100,000? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s high enough to literally bankrupt the SDGOP.
Please tell me this will be live streamed.
Ps ‘joyous chore’ LOL
I’m assuming in the best of times it was a chore lately I’m assuming it was a lot more like a sentence
I would love to watch this group bumble through these decisions
The Moody County Republicans laughed when I told them that after my term as a regional director, I had decided it would be best if everybody on the state party executive board were a lawyer; “they should all be lawyers.”
They thought I was being facetious. uh… no. I wasn’t.
The party will basically be a straw house easily blown over. They won’t be able to afford staff or anything really. They will start looking more and more like the Democrat party in terms of party infrastructure. The only thing really remaining will be the convention, and we all know how that’s been going in recent years. All real Republicans have essentially given up and gone back to our own businesses and families. The crazies have all stayed, unfortunately.
If this group selects the candidates for the State constitutional offices (Lt. Governor, Attorney General, etc) for the 2026 elections I expect the Democrats to win quite a few of those races.
The House State Affairs Committee kicked HB 1163 to the 41st Day, in spite of no opponent testimony, on the grounds that the selection of a candidate for Lieutenant Governor is best left up to 500 convention delegates and not to the person who won the primary. Because the convention delegates think they are more in tune with “the people” than the person who won a statewide primary.
Never mind they are mostly sore losers who supported candidates who lost their primaries, and they want to sabotage the winner’s candidacy by choosing an LG candidate who was already rejected by the voters. They arrive at the state convention hell-bent on revenge.
It’s really too bad HB 1163 didn’t make it out of committee.
I expect a ballot measure to at least move Lt Gov out of convention, possibly move all constitutional candidates to a primary. I predict it would pass handily.
After the LG bill died we can only hope that’s true.
if not, we will organize an insurgency to draft Lee Schoenbeck to run for LG if John Hansen ever wins the gubernatorial primary, because in a four way primary with Larry, Dusty and Marty, it could actually happen. So we must BE PREPARED!
They won’t have the money to hold a convention. They’ll be meeting out in a field, sitting on bales of hay, in July, not June, because that’s when mowing happens, arguing over who is going to pay for the port-a-potties.
i predict great times ahead for the sdgop. they’re poised to make america great again.
Well, if the same people who upset the 2022 State Convention are in charge, they are the same ones who demanded the convention should be free for all attendees. The new leadership will quickly find out why you need people to pay for tickets. And if they don’t, the party will go into major debt. This upcoming leadership election does not bode well for Republican candidates at the state and local level. No money = No winning.