A Bad Smell Is Coming From The South Dakota Capitol
Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are names that cause conservative Republicans to expect something is going to stink.
South Dakota has expected her Republicans to be “above the smell”, so to speak. That may be about to change. Something is beginning to smell in South Dakota, and it is coming from the Republican party. It may be time to clean the barn.
The details are somewhat sketchy, but we keep getting more information as the days pass.
Here is some of the information to date:
1. Representative Stace Nelson has resisted a large dairy facility proposed in his district. The dairy is financed with foreign money and supported by the Republican establishment.
2. Speaker of the House Val Rausch has removed Representative Nelson from the Ag Committee. It is widely believed that this action was taken in retaliation for Nelson’s challenge to a leadership position.
3. It has been alleged that Republican House Majority Leader David Lust, Speaker Rausch and Assistant Majority Leader Justin Cronin met with Jim Fry, the director of the Legislative Research Council to complain about bills being proposed by some Legislators. The process of bill development is an area that requires strict confidentiality between each Legislator and the LRC. Obstruction of the Legislative process could be a serious legal and ethical violation.
4. It is alleged that Representative Chuck Turbiville, Chairman of the Legislative Executive Board, ordered Fry, the Legislative Research Director to withhold research information related to a bill which would disclose voting records of Legislators. If that proves true, it could have serious and far-reaching ethical and perhaps criminal implications relative to obstructing the Legislative process.
5. The House Republican leadership was made aware of these allegations of tampering and obstruction with some Legislator’s bills, as early as August of this year.
6. It is rumored that these complaints were discussed at the Republican caucus retreat in October of this year.
7. As of the time of this writing, Republican Legislators have not been notified of any action by Leadership to resolve these complaints.
8. Six Republican Legislators have delivered a letter to Jim Fry and Legislative leaders demanding an explanation of the alleged misconduct by Republican Leaders.
9. A recent report card for Legislators was published, grading them by comparing their votes to the Republican Party Platform positions.
In the spirit of fairness and complete disclosure, we invite Representatives Nelson, Lust, Cronin, Rausch, or Turbiville to offer correction or comment on any of the information in this article. I would love to discuss these issues with any of them who might like to have a conversation. My office number is (605) 716-7020, and my cell phone hasn’t changed since I served in the Legislature with most of these folks, so they could call that number as well.
The questions I hear most frequently seem to be focused around some common themes. Why does the Republican leadership, which voted against the Republican Party Platform positions 60-75% of the time, appear to be so concerned about Republicans who voted with the Republican Party Platform as much as 95% of the time? Why hasn’t there been any action taken by the Leadership to address these allegations? Should there be an investigation to determine if there were ethical or legal violations? Is the Legislature really capable of doing an unbiased investigation of its own leadership? Should someone outside the Legislature do an investigation… perhaps the Attorney General?
One would expect this kind of politics in Chicago, but we live in South Dakota. Isn’t this the home of conservative politics and Christian values? It sounds like that may no longer be the case in South Dakota politics.
Once again, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with any of the parties, but for now, the smell seems to be getting worse each day.
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