Go Vote!

by

Keeping track of all the noise leading up until Tuesday’s election has been overwhelming, so I am going to just concentrate on the big ones with my predictions.

Some of the issues are easy to predict;

• Slaughterhouse ordinance will pass with 60-70% of the vote (this of course doesn’t really matter since it ultimately will be decided in court).

• Medicare expansion will pass with 55-65% of the vote (I think it is a pretty big no brainer when the Feds are supplying 90% of the funding – a tax pool we pay into – that it makes sense to take them up on the offer.

The next two issues are a little sticky;

• IM 27 will pass with 58% of the STATEWIDE vote. I believe that once again the urban areas will carry the measure. (I have felt for awhile that this race would be a wider margin of victory than originally predicted. With the failure of Amendment C in June it showed me that when it comes to personal freedoms being voted on in the ballot box, South Dakotans will vote to protect them. I think the anger and frustration over Amendment C and the kangaroo court that overturned the original constitutional measure, voters are coming back in full force to show the governor, the supreme court and the legislature that yes, we are adult enough to know what recreational MJ is, and we want it).

• Kristi Noem will be re-elected to another term by at least 55% of the vote. (Trust me, I would love to be wrong, and I encourage everyone to vote for Jamie Smith, but the stars don’t align. Besides name recognition and the lack of funding, Smith needed these 3 things to happen tomorrow to win;

  1. Almost all of SD registered Indies need to vote for Smith, and ALL dems need to vote for him.
  2. Libertarian candidate Tracey Quint needs to garner at least 3-4% of the Republican vote
  3. A large percentage of Republicans need to ‘undervote’ in the governor’s race (not place a vote at all for governor.)

Those stars will probably not align.

I really cannot say much about the local races except in my very own District 10, I encourage you to vote for Erin Healy and send MAGA Sutton and her placeholder husband Tom packing. I also encourage everyone to NOT fill out the judgeship portion of the ballot. There is NO choice, just a confirmation. I left it blank to protest our very broken judicial system in South Dakota.

It is supposed to be 43 degrees tomorrow at 7 AM and 53 degrees at 7 PM with light rain after 11 AM. A perfect day to spend 10 minutes voting.

IM 27 opponents spread lies

by

The worst part about the campaign is it is being funded by the mayor of the largest city in South Dakota. The opponents know they need Sioux Falls to vote this down in order to win so they spread the lies.

Rick Steves was the guest on The Dakota Scout podcast this week. He did a marvelous job of explaining decriminalization further and how it will be up to our state legislature to fine tune the law if passed. He called it the ‘Reefer Madness’ propaganda.

Lalley brought up the sticky situation Mayor TenHaken has put himself in;

But Mayor TenHaken made an interesting point. He said that if IM27 does pass, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to buy weed in Sioux Falls, other than what’s currently allowed for medical marijuana use.

The mayor brought up Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the city doesn’t allow dispensaries even though it’s legal in that state. Ultimately, it would be up to the South Dakota Legislature to decide how marijuana is regulated, he said.

So I asked him what he would tell lawmakers should that come to pass.

“If I could tell them what to do, I would say we have what’s called home rule in Sioux Falls. I think that is a muscle that we would certainly flex on this. But I can say other vices that we limit. We limit the number of liquor licenses. We’ve limited medical (marijuana) dispensaries. It’s not going to be a cannabis free-fall in Sioux Falls if this would happen and we have to put this here. We need to be pragmatic about if it would pass.”

First off, even with Home Rule, the mayor doesn’t have the power to limit anything, that is up to the city council. I would also find the limitation of casinos, bars, liquor stores as NOT a fair comparison. You can gamble, drink or buy alcohol for home ingestion on any corner in this city. I guess I would ask what limitations he is talking about? By that comparison we could have a dispensary within a half mile of everyone’s house in Sioux Falls.

I don’t care if you are running for office or are advocating for or against a measure. Lying to constituents to get the intended result will always fail in the end. Liars will always be losers no matter what happens on election day.

The Dakota Scout plays into the Republican Party rhetoric

by

Since the Dakota Scout has launched I have had a subscription. I have also read hundreds of stories over the years of both of the journalists running the media organization. They are good reporters.

But the the resounding criticism I hear from readers (especially ones that are independents and left leaning) is they tend to lean a little right. I would argue they are more Libertarian then outright Republican Right, and if you have a conversation about their political leanings they will admit it.

What I did not expect was for them to play into the Republican Party rhetoric. As I was reading this story on District 15 candidates I noticed they called the Republican Candidates as members of the ‘Republican’ party and Democrats the members of the ‘Democrat’ party. This is the same rhetoric the Republican party members have been pushing for decades;

However, some Republican leaders have made a habit of referring to their opposition incorrectly and discourteously as the “Democrat Party.” The reason isn’t entirely clear; it may be meant to imply that the party isn’t sufficiently “democratic” in the general sense, or may just be meant as a petty insult. 

That is all it is, a petty insult, and I expected more from the team at the Dakota Scout.

I get it, it is hard to start a media organization without catering to the Republican leaning business acumen in our state. Yes, there are many fine companies in SD that are run by moderate indies and Democrats but I’m not sure the capital is out there to support a more left leaning or even moderate news organization in South Dakota. I have caught the media time and time again in this city who just blatantly ignores the bad deeds of Republican lawmakers. Just look at the city election. Not one single news organization even bothered to check the voting records of those running. Why?