Campaign Finance and he rejection of the Wisdom of the Voters by U.S. Politcians

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by AlifQadr, Jan 27, 2017.

  1. AlifQadr

    AlifQadr Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    3,077
    Likes Received:
    899
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Drying Up Rivers of Money
    Full disclosure is what most of the voting public wants, right, center and left. Opinion polls show that the public favors clear rules and a level playing field. In one poll, nearly two-thirds wanted disclosure on political funding and spending – 66% of Democrats, 62% of independents, and 61% of Republicans.


    This shows why Mr. Donald J. Trump won the election, NOT President Vladimirovich Putin!
    The rejection of the WISDOM of the voters reveals exactly what I have known for years, the political class has to be expunged out of this country! This is why I have decided to stop voting years ago being that politics is a cesspool and will always be a septic tank. I hope those interested read what is taking place behind closed doors in this country and then make the decision between towing the line or bucking the system that produces such sewer lines and filthy people.

    Link: http://reclaimtheamericandream.org/progress-disclose/#southdakota
    P.S. it is time to put on your war paint and kill face to fight the real enemies.
     
  2. AlifQadr

    AlifQadr Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    3,077
    Likes Received:
    899
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Trump Says People Take Power Back; SB 59 Taking Power Away
    Posted 2017-01-20 15:38 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 13 Comments
    What?! I’ve got to argue against Venhuizen? O.K. fine….

    As President Trump declared his Presidency is about giving power back to the people, South Dakota’s Republican Legislature moved to take power away from the people. The Senate State Affairs Committee approved Senate Bill 59, which weakens South Dakotans’ constitutional right to enact legislation by initiative.

    Tony Venhuizen, chief of staff to Governor Dennis Daugaard, showed up to testify in favor of the bill; citizen activists Charlene Lund and John Fiksdal testified against this Legislative power grab. The opponents actually made progress: they convinced Senate State Affairs to strike Section 2, the constitutionally unworkable portion of SB 59 that would have subjected our initiatives to Legislative vote, gubernatorial veto, and other complications that run afoul of the people’s will as expressed in 1988’s Amendment A that removed the Legislature from the initiative process.

    But SB 59 still has Section 1, which delays enactment of voter-approved ballot measures (initiative, referendum, or constitutional amendment) from the week after the election to July 1 of the following year. Prime sponsor Senator Jim White and Venhuizen testified this provision simply allows the state time to figure out what needs to be done to implement the new laws.

    Opponent Charlene Lund said she opposes any effort to undermine initiatives but has no problem with the later implementation date. However, this delay does undermine our ability to enact ballot measures by making it easier for the Legislature to overturn the voters’ will.

    Opponent Jon Fiksdal agrees with my analysis of how this delay could have affected the 2014 minimum-wage vote. He told Senate State Affairs that it would have been easier for them to tinker with a minimum-wage hike that had not yet been implemented because they could have sold the change as a smaller increase than an actual cut in wages. If voters haven’t gotten to see the benefits of a ballot measure in action—in the case of the minimum wage increase, if they don’t see the real dollars in their pocket—it’s easier for the Legislature to take those benefits away by repealing that ballot measure. That means more power for the Legislature and less power for the people.

    Senate State Affairs approved the reduced SB 59 6–1 (Yea: Bolin, Langer, Maher, Novstrup, Netherton, and Ewing; Nay: Sutton; Excused: Curd and Heinert).

    SB 59 now heads to the Senate floor. We won half the battle today; now, fellow believers in direct democracy, finish the job. Call your Senators and tell them to respect President Trump’s wishes (!!!), leave power in the hands of the people, and vote NO on SB 59.

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)8Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)8Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: 2017 SB 59 | initiative | politics | referendum | state legislature | Tony Venhuizen

    SB 59 Delays Enactment of Ballot Measures to July 1, Snarls Constitutional Requirements
    Posted 2017-01-17 17:22 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 12 Comments
    The South Dakota Republican Party begins this year’s attack on the people’s right to legislate at the ballot with Senate Bill 59, which includes two key provisions:

    Per co-sponsor Senator R. Blake Curd’s suggestion, SB 59 moves the enactment date for constitutional amendments, initiated laws, and referred laws approved by the voters back over seven months, from mid-November to July 1 of the following year.
    SB 59 subjects all initiated measures “to the same constitutional requirements that apply to any measure proposed by the Legislature.”
    Section 1 is, obviously, a power grab. The Legislature doesn’t want our laws going into effect before they have a chance to tinker with them. Recall that in 2014, we passed Initiated Measure 18, which raised the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50. That wage increase took effect on January 1, 2015, before the Legislature convened. Undoing that wage increase was a lot harder for Republicans because thousands of South Dakota were already seeing more money in their pockets. If that wage hike had been delayed to July 1, 2015, David Novstrup’s youth minimum wage would have looked like a smaller increase rather than an actual pay cut. That would have made a difference in rallying the opposition that put that measure on hold, on the ballot, and ultimately in the trash can.

    A post-Session enactment date for ballot measures makes it easier for the Legislature to overturn them, because South Dakotans will not have the chance to see those ballot measures in effect before legislators try to take them away. Section 1 thus strengthens the Legislature at the expense of the people.

    Section 2 is stranger slop. Initiated measures are already subject to the South Dakota Constitution, as made clear by the ability of 24 Republican legislators to sue for the annulment of Initiated Measure 22 on constitutional grounds. The constitution is the law of the land; we citizens understand that we can’t write initiated laws that override the constitution.

    Section 2 appears to create several problems that either weaken citizens’ initiative power or create constitutional snafus:

    Article 4 Section 4 requires that any bill receive the signature of the Governor. SB 59 thus requires that the Governor approve any initiated measure.
    Article 4 Section 4 requires that bills be subject to veto by the Governor. SB 59 thus appears to allow the Governor to veto an initiated measure.
    Article 4 Section 4 grants the Governor line-item veto power. SB 59 thus appears to grant the Governor the power to strike sections of initiatives.
    Article 4 Section 4 requires that the Legislature reconsider any vetoed bill. SB 59 thus requires the Legislature to take up any initiated measure vetoed by the Governor.
    Article 4 Section 4 requires that any vetoed bill receiving a two-third vote from each chamber of the Legislature become law. SB 59 thus makes it possible for the Governor and either 24 Representatives or 12 Senators to overturn the will of hundreds of thousands of South Dakotans.
    Article 3 Section 17 requires that every bill be read twice in the Legislature. SB 59 thus requires the Legislature to include readings of initiated measures before we can vote on them… which conceivably offers an opportunity to use procedural tricks (or deliberate forgetfulness) as a technicality by which to stop initiated measures cold.
    Article 3 Section 18 requires that every bill receive majority approval from each chamber to become law. SB 59 thus appears to render the people’s vote redundant.
    Article 3 Section 18 also requires that “the yeas and nays shall be entered” in the Legislative Journal. SB 59 thus could be read to require a roll call vote of all citizens marking ballots for initiated measures.
    Article 3 Section 22 requires that no law take effect until 90 days after adjournment of the session at which it passed. That requirement makes no sense for initiatives, which are passed by the people, unless we assume that SB 59 intends to make enactment of any initiative contingent on Legislative approval after the election.
    Article 3 Section 22 requires a two-thirds vote to pass a measure with an emergency clause. SB 59 thus raises the possibility that the state constitution would render SB 59 ‘s absolute July 1 enactment date unconstitutional.
    Article 3 Section 1 speaks exclusively of submitting measures proposed by the people “to a vote of the electors of the state.” No Governor, no Legislature, nobody else—just the people. The only way we can read our constitution consistently is to conclude that this exclusive reservation of legislative power to the people renders SB 59’s effort to subject initiatives to the Legislature’s procedural and voting requirements invalid.
    In short, we should not do Section 1 of Senate Bill 59, but the state constitution says we cannot do Section 2.

    Wow—and some of SB 59’s sponsors say IM 22 was poorly drafted?

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)6Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)6Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: 2017 SB 59 | initiative | law | politics | referendum | state legislature

    Curd Would Delay Enactment of Ballot Measures, But Cautious About Hampering Ballot Access
    Posted 2017-01-12 05:17 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 16 Comments
    The headline on Dan Peters’s interview with Senator R. Blake Curd (R-12/Sioux Falls) is that the Majority Leader wants to delay the implementation date of voter-approved ballot measures from mid-November, the week after the election, to July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year.

    It gives the folks that have to abide by the law time to adjust and understand what it means. It also affords the Legislature the ability to potentially adjust it before they actually carry the weight and force of law [Senator R. Blake Curd, in Dan Peters, “Legislator Lobbies for More Time to Put Laws into Practice,” KSOO, 2017.01.11].

    The understory, possibly more important for those of us on alert to protect our initiative and referendum rights, is that Senator Curd, in Peters’s words, “exercises caution against the notion of raising the standard for getting items on the ballot.”

    When Senator Jim Bolin (R-16/Canton) and his fellow elitists file their bills to hamstring our ability to petition for a public vote on various laws, perhaps we can turn first to Majority Leader Curd and ask him to exercise his caution in favor of direct democracy.

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)8Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)8Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: ballot measures | initiative | R. Blake Curd | referendum | state legislature

    Weiland Promises to Refer Legislative Attack on IM 22; Krebs Reforms Could Complicate Public Vote
    Posted 2017-01-10 08:28 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 5 Comments
    Rick Weiland directs out attention to Pierre....
    Rick Weiland directs our attention to Pierre….
    The best thing I heard Rick Weiland say at yesterday’s Brown County Democratic Forum is that his ballot measure organization, TakeItBack.org, is ready to refer any legislative attempt to repeal Initiated Measure 22 to a public vote.

    In remarks to a couple dozen listeners here on the tundra, Weiland likened the battle for the Anti-Corruption Act to the battle over the minimum wage. In 2014, voters approved increasing South Dakota’s minimum wage and adjusting it upward for inflation each year. Hardly a month after that pay increase took effect, Republican legislators took action to undermine the voters’ will but cutting the minimum wage for workers under 18. We referred that Republican action to a vote, and in 2016, voters rejected the Republicans’ meddling by an even larger margin (71%–29%) than that by which they enacted the minimum wage increase in 2014 (55%–45%).

    Perhaps wanting to avoid a similar popular rout this time, Republican legislators have focused on using the courts to beat back the voters’ will. Republicans have secured a circuit court injunction against IM 22 in its entirety. Professing his non-lawyer status, Weiland did not review in detail the legal arguments against the Anti-Corruption Act. He only repeated his assertion that TakeItBack.org’s lawyers, including Scott Heidepriem, feel they can prevail in a fair hearing before the state Supreme Court. Weiland also said he expects Republican legislators will wait until the Supreme Court rules before advancing any repeal legislation.

    However, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs may not. AP reports she will propose a campaign finance reform package that would replace IM 22 with a new set of reporting requirements and an ethics commission focused on campaign finance. (These are the reforms Krebs and her task force first aired in the media back in September.)

    An impending proposal from Secretary Krebs poses a possible complication to any referral effort to preserve IM 22. Unless the Supreme Court throws out IM 22 in its entirety, writing Secretary Krebs’s reforms into campaign finance law would likely require striking any remaining IM 22 provisions. Krebs’s package would likely be an integrated repeal-and-replace measure. Referring that measure would mean asking voters to throw out an ethics commission to restore an ethics commission. That pitch differs greatly from the choice voters had in 2016 between IM 22’s ethics commission and no ethics commission.

    Tinkering with the minimum wage was clearly a tactical error. Republicans are trying to avoid facing the wrath of the voters on IM 22. Fusing the Krebs reform package with an IM 22 repeal would insulate Republicans from such ballot box backlash.

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)2Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)2Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: campaign finance | ethics commission | Initiated Measure 22 | referendum | Rick Weiland | Shantel Krebs

    Bolin, Haggar Promise Bills to Restrict Initiative and Referendum
    Posted 2016-12-15 07:33 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 32 Comments
    Rep. Don Haggar and Senator-Elect Jim Bolin repeat for that Sioux Falls paper the threat they made to AP back in November: they want to kill initiative and referendum.

    Well, they won’t say that in so many words. But under the guise of fighting big money and out-of-state influences, they propose a variety of measures to make it harder to put measures to a statewide vote, such as…

    Raising the number of votes necessary for the Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot;
    Requiring signatures from 2% of voters in every Senate district;
    Increasing the signature threshold from 5% of votes cast for Governor in the last election to 5% of voters registered.
    Tinkering with the Legislative vote requirement for constitutional amendments seems utterly gratuitous: out of three proposed amendments in 2015 and five proposed amendments in 2016, the Legislature placed only one on the 2016 ballot, Amendment R, the vo-tech governance revision that barely passed muster with the voters. Sen.-Elect Bolin seems to think that he and his fellow legislators are far more sensitive to out-of-state influence than we the rabble; surely Bolin and his colleagues can resist the machinations of outside influences without tinkering with constitutional vote thresholds.

    Raising the signature requirements for initiative and referendum petitions will do nothing to stop outside money from hijacking our ballot. Bolin and Haggar’s proposed limitations will actually give big money more dominance over our ballot:

    …Michael Card, a political science professor and associate provost at the University of South Dakota, said requiring more signatures or signatures from a geographically broader group of South Dakotans wouldn’t solve the problem.

    “More signatures, that just favors more money,” Card said [Dana Ferguson, “Should It Be Tougher to Put Questions on S.D. Ballots?” that Sioux Falls paper, 2016.12.13].

    The answer to Ferguson’s headline question is NO. Bolin’s and Haggar’s proposals will only shut grassroots South Dakotans further out of the political process… which, of course, is the long-standing intent of the Republican Party, which hates voters’ willingness to overrule SDGOP priorities.

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)5Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)5Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: democracy | Don Haggar | initiative | Jim Bolin | politics | referendum | South Dakota | state legislature

    Lincoln County May Get Referendum on Wind Turbine Ordinances
    Posted 2016-12-12 06:34 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 24 Comments
    The Lincoln County Commission holds a public hearing on two proposed wind tower ordinances on Tuesday, December 27. The setbacks ordinance would increase the required minimum distance between a wind turbine and the nearest habitable structure from three times the tower height to three quarters of a mile. It would allow all property holders within the setback zone to waive that requirement and allow siting of a tower within 1,000 feet of habitable structures. Lincoln County’s wind tower setback is already significantly larger than the greater of 500 feet or 1.1 times tower height required by state law. The noise ordinance would drop the maximum decibels of a turbine from 65 dB (louder than restaurant conversation, quieter than a vacuum cleaner) to 50 dB during the day (living room conversation) and 45 dB overnight. The point of measurement would change from the nearest property line to the nearest wall of the nearest dwelling.

    John Hult reports that opponents and proponents would like to see the wind tower ordinances go to a public vote.

    The city of Sioux Falls south of 57th Street represents about 60 percent of Lincoln County’s population. Harrisburg and Tea are the second- and third-largest cities.

    None of those cities would see a high concentration of wind turbines under the current proposal, but they would have a say in the county-wide zoning rules and a share of any tax revenue generated.

    A referendum would require collection of at least 1,732 valid signatures within 20 days of the day the commission’s final decision is formally published [John Hult, “Sioux Falls Voters Could Decide on Lincoln County Wind,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2016.12.11].

    Local wind power opponent Winnie Peterson says project promoters Dakota Power Community Wind can’t build the project safely. Oddly, I haven’t found on record from Peterson or her anti-wind agitators any opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline that runs under their county. According to KSTP, the company that will operate Dakota Access when it comes online, Energy Transfer Partners subsidiary Sunoco Logistic, has had 274 reported hazardous material leaks in the past decade, more than any other company in the U.S. But hey, we all choose the bees under bonnets.

    Further distinguishing itself from Dakota Access, Dakota Power Community Wind also isn’t putting any landowner at risk of eminent domain. If folks don’t want wind turbines on their property, DPCW can’t force their way onto their land the way “abusive” Energy Transfer Partners did. The waiver in the proposed turbine setback ordinance is also entirely voluntary: if even one affected landowner dissents, that tower doesn’t happen.

    Voters trying to weigh economic development potential against impact on property values can read a variety of articles compiled by the National Association of Realtors. I’m not sure if I can declare a scientific consensus, but I will speculate that if Donald Trump doesn’t like wind turbines, they can’t be all bad.

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: Lincoln County | referendum | wind power

    Even at Beginning, Initiative and Referendum Didn’t Lift Pro-Democracy Candidates
    Posted 2016-11-21 10:46 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 6 Comments
    History seems to mitigate against synergy between ballot measures and partisan candidates’ fortunes. Even when we led the nation in putting initiative and referendum into our state constitution, we South Dakotans have not connected ballot measures with the candidates and parties who support them.

    In the 1890s, South Dakota’s Populist Party pushed Father Robert Haire’s proposal to write initiative and referendum into our constitution. In 1896, the Populists linked up with Democrats and Free Silver Republicans to form the Fusion Party, which won a majority in the Legislature. That majority put initiative and referendum on the 1898 ballot.

    In the election that fall, voters rejected all [statewide] Populist candidates except Governor Lee (who won by only 370 votes) but approved the direct legislation amendment by a vote of 23,816 to 16,483. The amendment carried in all parts of the state—in the corn and wheat belts, and in the mining and ranching areas. Of the fifty-nine counties listed as registering votes, only nine—Aurora, Bon Homme, Campbell, Faulk, Gregory, Hutchinson, Marshall, Turner, and Yankton—had majorities against the amendment. The largest bloc in opposition came from four counties (Bon Homme, Hutchinson, Turner, and Yankton) clustered in the southeast comer of the state. The “city” vote in South Dakota also seemed to support the amendment. Yankton County (Yankton) voted 58 percent against the amendment, but Brown County (Aberdeen) and Minnehaha County (Sioux Falls) voted 57 percent and 66 percent respectively for approval [Steven L. Lott, “The Origins of the Initiative and Referendum in South Dakota: The Political Context,” Great Plains Quarterly, 1992, paper 674, p. 190].

    Republicans, who refused to endorse initiative and referendum in 1898, took back majorities in both the Senate and the House in Pierre. Populists, who pushed a direct democracy measure that won 59% approval, lost two seats in the Senate and fifteen seats in the House.

    It seems baked into the historical South Dakota DNA of initiative and referendum that candidates who back direct democracy will boost their own electoral fortunes.

    Share:
    Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)More

    Tags: democracy | history | initiative | politics | referendum | South Dakota

    Hypocrite Legislators Don’t Mind ALEC, Other Outsider Influence on SD Legislation
    Posted 2016-11-14 13:53 by Cory Allen Heidelberger 2 Comments
    …but IM 22 will make ballot question finance more quickly transparent!

    If Reps. Don Haggar and Jim Bolin were really worried about the influence of out-of-state money on our initiative and referendum process (they’re not, but let’s pursue the notion to its logical conclusion)…

    …they would ban South Dakota legislators (including Don’s own daughter Jenna) from traveling to ALEC meetings to be indoctrinated by corporate raiders and peddle their Putin-oligarch deregulatory model legislation in Pierre;
    …they would reject the big-money interference of the restaurant, hotel, alcohol, and tobacco lobby that sends DC lobbyist Michael Saltsman to testify in favor of overturning the will of South Dakota voters;
    …they will ignore the pleas of the Arizona-based Alliance for Defending Freedom when they come around trying to trick them again into passing bigoted anti-transgender legislation that will land us in an expensive heap of court trouble. (And yes, Reps. Haggar and Bolin voted to do the Arizona culure-warriors’ bidding in committee, in the first House vote, and in the unsuccessful veto override for Fred Deutsch’s paranoid potty bill.)
    If Reps. Haggar and Bolin are really concerned about out-of-state big money in our politics, they should not only embrace but augment the requirements of Initiated Measure 22, the Anti-Corruption Act that their party fought with Koch Brothers’ money but which the people of South Dakota saw fit to enact. The Anti-Corruption Act doesn’t lay much new law on ballot question committees—no new caps on contributions to ballot question committees as are imposed on statewide, legislative, and county candidates. It does, however, require (see Section 23) that ballot question committees (along with candidate committees, party committees, and PACs) file “timely contribution disclosure statements” within five days of receiving $500 or more from any one donor. Each TCDS must include an individual donor’s name, residence address, occupation, and name of employer or, in the case of party or PAC donors, name and registered street address. That won’t stop money from coming in from out of state (and constitutionally, can you, Don? Jim?), but it will allow us to track that money as it comes in from the high rollers more immediately, in time for all the ad-donorem attacks that Don and Jim and the rest of us may want to use when arguing the merits of the ballot measures just isn’t enough.

    Assuming, of course, that Don and Jim the rest of their caucus really care about protecting the integrity of South Dakota’s initiative and referendum and aren’t just getting ready to attack to the people’s check on the Legislature’s arrogant one-party rule.

    source: http://dakotafreepress.com/tag/referendum/
     

Share This Page