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Strong Breaks Law, Wastes Court’s Time; Gosch Challengers Scatter?

Pat Powers serves his GOP establishment masters by posting Rep. Brian Gosch and the Pennington County GOP's motion to string up Stephanie Strong for daring to challenge them in court. As usual, it's not enough that the GOP machine beat its challengers—they've already gotten every judge along the way to reject Strong's complaint about Gosch's misuse of his notary seal. The powers that be insist on crushing Strong, now asking a judge to rule her suit frivolous and malicious and force Strong to pay Gosch's legal bills under SDCL 15-17-51.

Not helping her cause is Strong herself. She secretly recorded her telephonic hearing with Judge Trandahl on December 28 and sent that audio file to media outlets such as the Madville Times and that Sioux Falls paper. In making that recording, Strong violated SDCL 16-20-2.

Worse, Strong predictably wasted her hearing time before Judge Trandahl. According to page 6 of the Gosch motion, Strong "made no argument regarding the statutes, administrative rules, or case law that applied in the case. Rather, Strong took the opportunity to make a candidate stump speech of sorts, speaking of a number of varied political and personal issues that had nothing to so with the legal issue at hand."

I worry that Stephanie Strong has been used. Self-proclaimed defenders of conservatism have been waging a concerted campaign against Speaker-in-waiting Gosch throughout the past year. They've gone to great pains to hide their identity with anonymous robocalls and mailings. Much as in the case with Strong's lawsuit, they've criticized Gosch and other GOP leaders, but they've never stepped forward with practical remedies or advocacy for candidates to replace Gosch and their other bêtes noires.

Strong should pay close attention to her inbox during the coming days. If the folks who have advised her and helped write her briefs against Gosch suddenly fall silent, she'll know she's been played. And we will know that the people grumbling about Gosch lack the guts, not to mention the legal competence, to mount a serious challenge to the Republican leadership.

6 Comments

  1. Dougal 2013.01.05

    Who cares about Strong? Gosch has no excuse for this violation and that blockhead Gant deserves to be impeached for his complete failure to do his job. Gosch is an attorney. He writes laws for the rest of us to obey. He has served six years writing laws for the rest of us. He is the new Speaker of the House, in charge of the process of 70 House members writing laws for the rest of us.

    I hope someone is keeping track of all of this corruption.

  2. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.01.05

    I am dismayed that the only person to challenge Gosch in court was incapable of focusing on a rational legal argument. I think Strong wanted to do the right thing, but she had little idea of how to do it... and her quiet backers haven't done any better at keeping their eyes on the ball.

  3. Dougal 2013.01.05

    Cory, I do have empathy for S. Strong. She got played, but she also wanted to be a player and got burned because she was outside her league. The "busy hidden hands" working behind her, manipulating her, are a loathesome lot. But this is the sideshow, and it draws away attention from the real villians: Brian Gosch, for his arrogance; Jason Gant, for his incompetence and arrogance; Marty Jackley, for his laziness and arrogance. All three are corrupt.

    Stephanie's backers are irrelevant to the damage done here. They are mere small bit players who are unaware of a much larger injustice. What is most sad is people in our state remain unaware of how common and how pervasive the corruption has become.

  4. Steve Sibson 2013.01.07

    "And we will know that the people grumbling about Gosch lack the guts, not to mention the legal competence, to mount a serious challenge to the Republican leadership."

    And this comes from a South Dakota Democrat. Cory, why do you support the SDGOP tyrants? Answer, because they are fellow big government liberals. Enemies of your conservative enemies are your friends, right Cory?

  5. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.01.07

    I support no "tyrants", Steve, and I run no interference for South Dakota's one-party rulers. But if you are serious about beating real tyrants, you have to find champions who can play the game and keep their eyes on the ball. And you need to figure out that real Democrats (not the figments of your World Net Daily imagination) can be your friend in this fight.

  6. Steve Sibson 2013.01.07

    "And you need to figure out that real Democrats (not the figments of your World Net Daily imagination) can be your friend in this fight."

    I have already figured that out, but you are still thinking conservatives are your enemies...as is the point of your post. History has shown that the monopoly capitalists use centralization of power to have their way. The SDGOP has grown their power base by 35% during the Obama administration. When will you liberals understand that that the solution to monopoly capitalism/tyrany is smaller government?

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