Remember the big story a few weeks back when the Secretary of State clearly noted that it was illegal for outside groups to use ballot measures to raise money?
The Vote Yes on V campaign took contributions from two outside groups, Open Primaries and TakeItBack.org, that raised and collected money explicitly to back the ballot measure. While outside groups are free to donate money to ballot committees like Yes on V, state law forbids those organizations from contributing money that was “raised or collected by the organization for the purpose of influencing the ballot question.”
and..
Secretary of State Shantel Krebs said state law requires organizations like Open Primaries and TakeItBack.org to register as ballot question committees if they raise or collect money for a ballot measure.
“If they solicited specifically for a ballot question, then that is against state statute,” she said.
Now, remember the e-mail I posted last night? It had a PS..
It directly and clearly states that people need to send Slick Rick money to “Win these Initiatives.”
I’m not sure how many more direct statements by the “takeitback.org” group have to be for someone to take state law seriously. They are absolutely raising money under the pretense of it going towards the ballot initiatives. And supposedly, that’s against state law.
The question is, is anyone going to do anything about it?
can’t go back to 1978 and fix it? where is that coming from…what the grand days of super inflation, gas lines and hostage crisis under President Carter….these guys are delusional…..
The “reformers” are not trying to help us, but “re-form” our state into a liberal utopia…urgh..ie we all get to pay more taxes, more government….all of what SD is not for…unless they trick us into voting for them.
NO on all these measures and Shantel has identified the problem and so there needs to be consequences for breaking the law…Marty? Shantel? Bueller? anyone
My impression is that the Yes on V people totally jumped the gun. This stuff doesn’t need to be in until the 28th.
The No on V people totally jumped the gun. Until the 28th nothing has been reported so there isn’t anything that was done to violate campaign finance as far as I can tell. We’ll see after the 28th.
Oh so you expect these guys who have 1) burned the American flag 2) used tremendous amounts of out of state money to push this measure on SD 3) been totally dishonest in running a campaign only about helping Independents while never talking about removing the party labels and limiting the choice int he general election to 2 4) continually misleading the public when saying it works well in Nebraska when they do not have this system in Nebraska or ANY STATE…no state has removed party labels –let alone wrote it into the state constitution 5) paid numerous operatives to move to SD and claim to be Independents while still registered as Democrats in Nebraska…..and you expect them to be honest in their campaign finance reporting….
i have some oceanfront property to sell you in Arizona also!
SD for Integrity, is that really their name?
It would be laughable how many of their claims have been proven incorrect if it were not so scary that they have been getting away with them.
Examples:
“SD is the only state where lobbyists can give unlimited gifts in exchange for influence.” – false because there are laws that prevent any exchange of money or gifts for votes or influence; they have since dropped the “in exchange for influence”
“We need the ethics commission to stop scandals like the EB-5 and Gear Up scandals.” – false because the state ethics commission would have no oversight over federal programs like EB-5 and Gear UP
“Corruption costs each SD $1,300 a year.” – false because the study where that figure was obtained did not include SD
“IM 22 will stop the revolving door of lobbyists and lawmakers” – false because their is already a one-year ban on lawmakers becoming lobbyists
“We have integrity” – false because they continue to cite the $1,300 figure and the EB-5 and Gear Up scandals and they have now repeatedly broken campaign finance laws in their fundraising efforts
How DARE you bring up facts to refute the balderdash of Weiland’s socialist group! Have you no SHAME!?!
How can you be against V? It is time we start voting for ideas and not Party’s! I am annoyed with both parties right now because they cannot even look at an idea if it is not from their party. We need more bi-partisan candidates, conversations, ideas, etc.
I agree that we need to vote on ideas, principles, plans, etc. That is precisely why we should vote NO on this proposal. I want to know if Joe Blow aligns himself with the ideas and principles of the socialist/progressive wing or the conservative wing. Granted, sometimes the two overlap, but with party labels at least we get an idea of how these candidates would most likely vote on issues that impact me. If I thought Weiland was a great guy because I knew his family and knew nothing else about him, and I favored conservative ideas, I could possibly vote for him without knowing his underlying political philosophy. And sadly, much of the electorate does not take the time to know where these candidates stand. This is why we need party labels. Of course a candidate will stray from these principles on either side sometimes, but the candidate’s underlying philosophy will usually shine through. If the Dems had a chance of winning anything in our state, they would not be pushing these initiatives/amendments on us. If the Dems would ditch the liberal progressive ideas of Obama et al, it would also help.
I agree V is a bad amendment to our state constitution which we should not amend lightly====it limits choice to only 2 candidates, removes party labels , will cost us more with a special legislative session (Dems even agree on that) and could end up with one party or more making the general elections and it severely undercuts minor parties and Independents from maing the general election.
NO on V!