South Dakota Lawmakers Back At It

Fraud on voters? S. Dakota lawmakers repeal lobbying, financing reforms passed by residents

South Dakota State Capitol © wikipedia.org

The South Dakota Legislature has wasted little time in attacking an ethics reform package approved by state voters in November that limits lobbyist gifts, lowers campaign contribution limits and creates public funding for campaigns.

Beginning Monday, the Republican-led Legislature in Pierre has sought to pass a repeal bill that would void the ethics provisions passed via a ballot initiative two months ago. The measure, passed by more than 51 percent of voters, is known as Initiated Measure 22 (IM 22).

IM 22's provisions also include the formation of a state ethics commission, more frequent campaign contribution reporting and limits on when former lawmakers can become lobbyists.

The repeal bill was scheduled for a full state Senate vote on Thursday after passing through a Senate committee on Wednesday and a full House of Representatives vote on Tuesday. However, further debate on the legislation was postponed in the afternoon. The Senate will pick up debate next week, according to AP.

Like his fellow state Republicans, Governor Dennis Daugaard, who is supportive of the repeal effort, has argued that IM 22 was poorly written, overly broad, possibly unconstitutional and pushed by influences outside of South Dakota.

"[Voters] were hoodwinked by scam artists who grossly misrepresented these proposed measures," Daugaard said, according to the New York Times.

Republicans and others have filed a lawsuit against the state that challenges IM 22, prompting a judge to grant a preliminary injunction on the reform effort while the legal process unfolds.

Supporters of ethics reform are calling on lawmakers to heed the voters' wishes and follow IM 22's demands. On Monday, at a legislative committee hearing on the repeal bill, supporters said voiding IM 22 would set a dangerous precedent.

"The problem with repeal and replace is, what we've said from the beginning, that it repeals what the voters asked for and replaces it with something we didn't have a direct say in,"said Doug Kronaizi, spokesman for Represent South Dakota.

Speaking of the numerous scandals that have occurred within state government in recent years, the Capital Journal editorial board wrote that IM 22 came about because voters "were fed up" and chose to back IM 22, despite its flaws.

"We say South Dakotans voted for more transparency and better accountability from their elected officials when they passed IM 22 last year," the board wrote this week. "The legislature owes it to their constituents to give them what they asked for."

What, you mean real democracy? You mean legislators who are not in the pockets of big business? How utterly unAmerican!

On Monday, the same day the state House debated the repeal bill, a legislative committee met to discuss disciplinary action regarding Rep. Matthew Wollman, a Republican, who admitted last week to having consensual sex with multiple legislative interns. Wollman resigned Monday.

In its 2015 report on each state's government transparency and accountability, the Center for Public Integrity gave South Dakota the second-worst score out of all 50 states.

"Across the board, the state lacks robust laws to prevent corruption, apparently the result of a sense, at least among South Dakota’s ruling class, that burdensome controls are not needed in a rural state with a supposedly high degree of familiarity, trust and cordiality," the nonprofit said.

Right!

The Unholy Alliance that's Destroying America

Dylan Ratigan is a New York Times best-selling author and former host of MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show. The show was the highest-rated non-prime time show on the network, aimed at critiquing what Ratigan sees as an unholy alliance between big business and government.

I'm delighted to find someone credible who agrees with my observation that big business is controlling government. 

Though his solutions are God-less, they are still promising and probably very necessary. This from his website. 

"We do not have a debt crisis!

We have a crisis in our dependence on two corrupted political parties, each paid to perpetuate a mass extraction on behalf of those that finance them in unique and sordid ways.

America has a crisis in the way that our government has institutionalized extractive banking, trade, tax, energy, education, and health systems from coast-to-coast.  It is so apparent that it was the underlying premise for my book “Greedy Bastards.”

The political parties, their methods and those who finance them are the root of the problem. And our government perpetuates these systems because our political “leaders” are directly dependent on the few economic beneficiaries of these grossly misaligned systems.

What is commonly referred to as debt is, in reality, what we must pay for the extraction in health or banking or the tax code. This is merely a symptom of the extraction.

As I described in “Greedy Bastards,” we are surrounded by unprecedented new methods all made unique by an ability to provide abundance of health or learning or other core resources for relative pennies. Look no further than people like  Sal Kahn in education, or  Jeffrey Brenner in health care, or Colin Archipley and his hydroponic farming methods.

The consolidated resources of political parties was likely necessary in 1890, when broad communication was nearly impossible for any given candidate.

But today, what is to stop five or ten political aspirants from running in open primaries using transparent financing, absent any political party whatsoever? What indeed, other than blatant stonewalling and subterfuge by the men and women of our two dominant parties who have established a ruling class in a nation that certainly doesn't want one and absolutely doesn't need one?

Until reforms like transparent financing and open primaries are implemented, however, we are left with two choices. One is to wallow in the tragedy of the dysfunction, which too many of us are selecting. Two, we can choose to embrace the amazing methods blossoming around us outside of the mainstream system.

These methods hold the promise of converting buildings to become energy positive batteries in a distributed power grid. Or to supply abundant food with the absolute minimum amount of water.  Or widespread education for pennies.

I have always believed that the size of the problem equals the size of the opportunity. And considering the obvious size of the problem presented by opaque election financing and extractive core systems, massive opportunities for reform surely surround us.

For me, finding those opportunities begins with deciding what I can do each day to move the ball forward. Setting my intent to shape what is directly in front of me creates the ability to reject political parties altogether. And until I hear discussion of open primaries and transparent election finance, I will remain deaf to the siren’s call of political party-bound screeds luring our nation toward dangerous straits."