I wonder if Gant can serve either position if he is not re-elected?
KELO – South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant has been named treasurer to The National Association of Secretaries of State.
As treasurer of NASS, Gant will be a member of the executive committee and serve as President of the organization in 2015.
The organization is the oldest nonpartisan organization of public officials in the United States. The association focuses on elections and voting, state business services and digital archiving, and international relations and state securities regulation.
That last paragraph should worry us the most. Remember, Gant is a prestigious member of ALEC, and part of ALEC’s agenda is voter suppression. As treasurer and then possibly chair, he will have the opportunity to spread the ALEC agenda nationally.
Hopefully State Republicans, who are sick of Jason’s bungling, will put up other candidates. I know of at least three now that are considering a run against Jason in the convention. Will Jason use these positions to convince convention delegates that they can’t replace him?
I actually think these appointments will hurt him. Jason will be pulled away from his duties as our SOS performing his national duties (propaganda). That guy has trouble running his own office, let alone handling a national piggy bank. As a high ranking State government employee told me recently,
 “There’s always some kind of problem or mess going on in that office. I just try to avoid hearing about it as much as possible.â€
Besides the fact that Jason has no ethics, is an ALEC defender and will pretty much take money from the devil to help state candidates, he does a crappy job as a SOS. He had to hire Sue Roust to bail his ass out, and she didn’t come cheap, after him and Whopper Jr. got caught playing internet games. Unfortunately, AG Jackboots investigated them for something he knew they would be innocent of, stealing (financially) from the state. Everyone knows the only thing Jason is good at stealing is our voter freedoms. But who cares about ethics in Pierre?
Unfortunately, any Republican incumbent constitutional officer in South Dakota is unbeatable…. Well, accept for Homer and the GOP Commissioner of School and Pubic Lands back in the 1970s who locked himself in his office so that the newly elected Democratic candidate could not have a smooth transition to power….
Winston, the official who locked himself in his office was Harvey Schram, the recently defeated GOP Public Utilities commissioner. Democrat PK Ecker defeated him in the November 1972 general election. PK Ecker was a retire Western Union employee and the GOP Schram was convinced PK’s taking of the job was an ‘ethics’ problem. How dare someone be elected to a statewide office who was once employed by a regulated industry?
So this Republican locked himself into his office and had to be removed by a judge ruling and threats of sending in the highway patrol.
PK spent the first few weeks of his term office sharing with Jack Weiland of Madison who was elected in 1970. I spent a great deal of time with them in their office back then. Two great public servants for the people of South Dakota.
After the attempts to tax and regulate the rural electric co-ops by the Farrar administration rural South Dakota went into major rebellion against all things Republican and especially the PUC. Someone had to protect the working people and farmers of South Dakota. Harvey Schram was part of the attempt to run the REA and rural telephone companies out of business here and the people gave him his walking papers.
As a side note, we now have a PUC bought and paid for by ALEC and the utilities they are suppose to regulate on our behalf. We now have members who ran for the office promising, in their ads and speeches, to protect the utilities from us the people. How screwed up is this?
“, any Republican incumbent constitutional officer in South Dakota is unbeatable”
True, but first they have to survive the convention.
I keep coming back to the idea that he hired former first lady Pat Miller as his deputy for a reason. It’s either to help him get reelected and she can help work her delegate connections over or he knew there was a possibility that he wouldn’t win again and he was setting her up to run.
Is it possible that Pat Miller runs against him or if he chooses not to run?
No way Gant makes it out of the convention against anyone decent.