Adelstein’s first secretary of state reform bill dies
The Senate State Affairs Committee killed a proposal to bar political activity by employees of the secretary of state’s office.
Sen. Stan Adelstein, R-Rapid City, had proposed banning the secretary of state or any employees of that office who oversee elections from endorsing, supporting or advising any candidates for political office.
He said he modeled his bill on the federal Hatch Act, which prevents most federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.
But the committee voted 7-2 to kill his bill, saying they saw this as a question of ethics for those employees but not something that should be legislated.
So the ethics of the voting public should be legislated (abortion) but the ethics of state employees, specifically SOS employees should not legislated? Beisdes, I don’t think this is about ethics, it’s about doing the right thing. The person in charge of safe and fair elections should NOT be endorsing candidates, and his employees certainly should not be selling candidates campaign materials.
Young Mr. Gant is gathering his forces for his next campaign run and our new legislatures seem to be on his side. Could we see Gant for Governor?
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