We're getting what feels like a lot of churn in the Legislature, and it's not even an election year. In the last couple months, four three* legislators have chosen not to complete the terms to which their neighbors elected them last November. Jon Hansen will trade his District 25 House seat for law school, where he will study how to better oppress women and probably cash in on state lawyer welfare payments. District 16's Patty Miler is leaving the House for family reasons. And now Mark Johnston is leaving his District 12 Senate seat to take a promotion at Sanford Health.

I understand the beranklement Mr. Ehrisman expresses:

Here they go again, playing their little games. Resigning before their term is up so the governor can appoint a FAKE incumbent. This is beginning to get a little ridiculous [Scott Ehrisman, "Another SD Republican Bails Before Finishing Their [sic] Term," South Dacola, 2013.05.02].

I will grant Johnston et al. a little more leeway for their choices to abdicate. Stuff happens. Life changes. Problems and opportunities arise. You can't always do what you were sure you wanted to do a year or a month ago.

I wonder, though: do we leave the door too wide open for members of the Governor's party to leave when they know the Governor gets to replace them? The Governor's appointment doesn't automatically go to a fellow partisan (remember, Daugaard is talking to Ann Tornberg about Miller's seat!), but knowing that they can do their boss a favor by giving him a chance to do a fellow partisan a favor has to grease the decision a little. So must the knowledge that, with succession by appointment, they can resign without imposing on their neighbors the cost of an election.

But special elections are a small price to pay for accountable legislators. Outside of our two-month session, there is little urgency in appointing a replacement. Filling the seats of resigning South Dakota legislators could easily wait a few months, giving time for interested candidates to petition and campaign, for Secretary Gant to print ballots, and for local voters to pick their new poison.

We'd need a constitutional amendment to allow special elections to fill Legislative vacancies. It looks like some folks tried and failed to amend that provision in 1974 and 1976. Anyone care to try again?

*I originally counted four, thinking Rep. Jim Bolin (R-16/Canton) was resigning to run for Commissioner of School and Public Lands. As Kal Lis notes below, Rep. Jim Bolin has not announced a resignation.

A paragraph should have a topic sentence and sentences that support it. Here's what passes for a paragraph in the Rapid City Journal as Michael Sanborn warns Brendan Johnson and Kristi Noem not to challenge their respective party front-runners in a Senate primary:

Primaries tend to weaken the winner, divide a party, and diminish its chances for success. Take a look at the 2002 Republican primary for governor between Mark Barnett, Steve Kirby and Rounds. Rounds was the big winner when Barnett and Kirby resorted to one of the dirtiest campaigns between two people of the same party in South Dakota history. The Democrats had particularly weak candidates and Rounds sailed into the governor’s office [Michael Sanborn, "Spinning the Wheel for Senate," Rapid City Journal, 2013.04.10].

Sanborn says primaries are bad for the party, then provides an example of a brutal GOP primary from which the victor "sailed" to victory in the general election. That example doesn't prove the point Sanborn was hoping to make.

Neither does recent election history. Just looking at the numbers, we can't really tell if primaries weaken either party in South Dakota gubernatorial elections, because in five of the last seven elections, either both parties had primaries or both parties didn't.

The 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial elections provide us the only chance to compare. In 2006, Governor Rounds faced no primary challenge. His Democratic challenger Jack Billion did. Rounds got 61.69% of the vote, the second-highest total for a recent GOP gubernatorial candidate. Billion got 36.13%, the second-lowest total for a recent Dem gubernatorial candidate.

In 2010, Dennis Daugaard had to fight off four challengers in the GOP primary while Dems coronated Scott Heidepriem. In the general election, Daugaard broke 60%, just like Rounds in 2006. Heidepriem topped Billion's 2006 tally by two percentage points but still underperformed the recent Dem average.

Primaries seem less indicative of party success in this chart than incumbency. Mickelson added five percentage points on his second run; Janklow, nine (technically his fourth run); Rounds, five. (Those numbers may be the best predictor of the fact that Stephanie Herseth Sandlin will either run for Senate or sit on her hands as Gov. Daugaard aims for 70%.)

Nothing here says primaries hurt the party. Victory is more a matter of finding the candidate with glad-handing go-get-'em and buckets of money. A good stiff primary may help us find those candidates.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Post hoc ergo propter hoc....

Monday I complained that Secretary of State Jason Gant was asleep at the switch again, this time denying the public useful information about the 2014 election schedule. One commenter felt such piffling details shouldn't be a priority for the Secretary of State and that we should just all haul our lazy keesters down to the courthouse to do our own research.

But another commenter notes that Secretary Gant's priorities appear to have realigned more toward mine. Unlike Monday, when the Upcoming Election page linked to information about the 2012 election, as of today the Upcoming Election page has been updated to reflect information about the upcoming election. Some of the updates are purely cosmetic: for example, the "How to circulate a statewide ballot question petition for 2014" link still points to the old 2012 flyer, complete with 2012 deadlines. And we still don't have 2014 election calendars with those yummy deadlines that got us thinking about this website in the first place. But at least someone's getting on the task.

How very, very nice... and how very, very coincidental that the update happens just a couple days after a concerned citizen hollers.

Thank you, Secretary Gant!

A commenter gets me wondering just what the deadlines are for submitting nominating petitions for the 2014 primary in South Dakota. Answer: March 25, 5 p.m.

I found that date by paging through South Dakota Codified Law to statute 12-6-4. I enjoy my almost daily trips through our law books (and I deeply appreciate the Legislative Research Council's accurate posting of those laws online). But it's usually a lot easier just to go to the Secretary of State's Upcoming Elections page and look at the handy-dandy election calendar...

...easier, that is, when the Secretary of State's Upcoming Elections page has been updated with information about the upcoming elections. I check the SOS website this morning and find Secretary Jason Gant asleep at the switch again:

Upcoming Elections webpage, South Dakota Secretary of State, screenshot, 2013.04.08

Five months after the 2012 general election, and you still can't get a 2014 election calendar from the Secretary of State's website.

Thinking about the 2014 election in April 2013 isn't just sport for blogospheric hullaballooists. Foresightful candidates may well be looking ahead and planning their work schedules to accommodate their public plans. Committees may be getting ready to launch petition drives to place initiatives on the 2014 ballot. Those citizens seeking to place names and laws on that ballot expect the Secretary of State to provide quick and easy access to that information.

But five months later, Secretary Gant is apparently still too tuckered out from the 2012 election to do more than post a few Tweets a month, trundle down to the country club in Yankton to speak to the Rotarians, and make plans for Lincoln Day dinners.

Do your job, Secretary Gant. People count on you for information. That information should have been up five months ago. Get it done.

Vote now in the latest Madville Times double-feature poll: Who do you think would be the strongest candidates for the Democrats and the Republicans to run for the U.S. Senate seat Tim Johnson is vacating? Click your faves for both parties here in the right sidebar!

Republicans, here are your choices:

• M. Michael Rounds
• Kristi Noem
• Stace Nelson
• Bill Napoli
• Someone else

The South Dakota blogopshere's Republican spin machine runs polls to push his preferred distracting narrative and thus avoid mentioning the possible GOP primary that his minders so fear. I run polls because I'm really curious. So tell me which Dem you think would contend best for the Senate seat:

• Bernie Hunhoff
• Brendan Johnson
• Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
• Matt Varilek
• Someone else

The four leading lights I've picked for each party reek of my own interpretations and biases: I thus welcome your someone elses here in the comment section.

This double poll runs through Tuesday, and is open to all political persuasions. Vote now and share your armchair quarterbacking below!

I've written up Senator Stanford Adelstein's case for Senate Bill 82, his proposal to put all statewide offices on the primary ballot and to change the election for secretary of state. In a nutshell, the bill recognizes that the Web and online press make more direct democracy possible.

Now let's talk about three key aspects of this bill: the money involved in primary races, the error in SB 82's signature requirements, and a neat trick played by Sen. Adelstein to put a larger spotlight on secretary of state elections.

Money in Politics: Worse at Polls or Convention?

Republican blogger Pat Powers frets that making candidates for attorney general, secretary of state, PUC, and other statewide offices will increase the influence of big money in our elections. Reread that: Pat Powers, who resigned from the secretary of state's office after violating basic ethics by selling his for-profit political campaign services while working in the state office that perhaps most requires non-partisan ethical behavior, who works for country-club Republican Dan Lederman, frets that Stan Adelstein may be jiggering state law to give his own money more sway in our elections. Wow—Powers's personal grudge against Adelstein is clearly impacting his already minimal ability to make a coherent argument.

It is true that requiring statewide candidates to run the primary gauntlet will raise the price of campaigning. At the very least, candidates will have to spend more time and money to gather petition signatures statewide than they now spend hobnobbing for votes at convention (more on petitions in a moment). But isn't it just as likely that big-money candidates can sway their fellow convention-goers as they can sway an entire electorate? The money disadvantage is not unique to SB 82.

Signatures: Twice as Hard for AG, SOS as for SHS

What is unique is the signature requirement SB 82 imposes on the statewide candidates it addresses. Right now, candidates for Governor and Congress must gather a number of signatures equal to one percent of the general election vote total of their party's last gubernatorial candidate. For Republicans right now, that number is 1,950; for Dems, 1,220.

SB 82 appears to set a different standard for candidates for attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, commissioner of school and public lands, and public utilities commissioner. Section 6 of the bill says that to make the primary ballot, these candidates must file petitions "signed by a number of registered voters not less than one percent of the total combined vote cast for Governor at the most recent certified gubernatorial election." Total combined vote. If I'm reading this right, that means that someone running for the nearly invisible school and public lands seat in 2014 will have to gather 3,170 signatures, 2.6 times as many signatures as Stephanie Herseth Sandlin will need to gather for whichever more monumental office she runs for (please, Stephanie? pretty please?). SB 82's signature requirement should be brought in line with the primary requirements for Governor and Congress.

Kroll 2016: Moving SOS Vote to Presidential Year

The fun in SB 82 lies in the changes it makes to the election of secretary of state. Remember, SB 82 as originally written was part of Senator Adelstein's response to the corruption and incompetence of Secretary of State Jason Gant. Gant accomplice Pat Powers pooped his pants over another Adelstein proposal along those lines, and Senate Stae Affairs canned that other proposal. Senator Adelstein originally wanted SB 82 to make secretary of state a non-partisan office, elected by run-off between the top two vote-getters in an open-to-all primary, regardless of political affiliation.

Senator Adelstein amended those juicy bits out of SB 82 Friday, but he kept one bit of special treatment for the secretary of state. While South Dakota elects its governor and most statewide officials in non-presidential election years, Section 1 of SB 82 throws the secretary of state's election into presidential election years, starting in 2016. That clause means that when we draft former Brookings debate coach Judy Kroll to kick Jason Gant out of office in 2014, she'll have to run again in 2016. That clause also would deprive secretary of state candidates of gubernatorial coattails. It might mean that the secretary of state's race would be able to grab a bigger chunk of local press coverage, especially if South Dakota's red-Whitopian presidential vote remains a foregone conclusion.

The Senate needs to fix SB 82's inequitable signature requirements to pass muster. We could also stand to hear more about the cost impacts it will have, not so much on the state as on the campaign finance needs of candidates seeking those second-tier state offices. Moving the secretary of state's election year and giving Pat Powers indigestion are just gravy. The aim of increasing democratic participation in selecting our statewide candidates overcomes my fear of agreeing with Russ Olson and makes me offer a qualified Aye to Senate Bill 82.

South Dakota has two tracks for nominating candidates for statewide office. Folks who want to be governor or go to Congress go through the normal primary process, circulating petitions and subjecting themselves to public vote in the spring to win their party's nomination to be on the November general election ballot. But folks who want to be secretary of state, attorney general, state auditor, state treasurer, commissioner of school and public lands, or public utilities commissioner don't face a primary. They go to their party's convention in the summer and compete for delegate votes.

Senator Stan Adelstein (R-32/Rapid City) wants to erase that second track and make every statewide candidate go through the primary process. Senator Adelstein presented Senate Bill 82 to Senate State Affairs on Friday to make this change. He noted that the convention system served politics better in the 1960s, when he first got involved in politics, when we had no Internet, limited TV, expensive long-distance phone service, no conference calls, and cumbersome document copying technology. The party apparati performed vital services in organizing and informing voters.

But even then, even when the party bosses selected him for party offices, Senator Adelstein testified he didn't like that concentration of power. He spoke of the 1962 convention when he and other young Republicans favored 31-year-old Frank Farrar for Attorney General. The GOP old guard wanted the much older Sterling Clark from Butte County, whom Sen. Adelstein in his Friday testimony called a "bigot" and an "SOB". (Well, you don't hear that in committee every day.) Adelstein and his young Republicans had to work hard to swing delegates away from the party leadership to favor their man Frank.

Now, says Senator Adelstein, the convention selection system for statewide candidates is obsolete. We can get our information from all-pervasive information technology (including robocalls, which Adelstein mentioned in a hilariously parenthetical mutter in front of terrorized State Affairs Vice-Chair Russell Olson). He thus prefers that we allow all party members, not just convention delegates, select all of our statewide candidates.

And Senate State Affairs said o.k. Senator Corey Brown (R-23/Gettysburg) expressed concerns about the added cost of certifying more nominating petitions and placing more names on the primary ballot but said he's "intrigued by the idea" and wants to keep it alive for more discussion. Senator Craig Tieszen (R-34/Rapid City) said he thinks the costs will be "minimal" and that changing times warrant changing the political process. Even robocalled Senators Olson (R-8/Wentworth) and Tim Rave (R-25/Baltic) voted for SB 82. The only nay came from Senator Larry Rhoden (R-29/Union Center), who cited his fondness for tradition and said maybe the parties should turn first to increasing turnout at convention before overhauling the statewide election system.

I'll have some analysis of the changes and commentary coming up today. But expect fast action on SB 82 and a bunch of other bills: Wednesday is "crossover day," when all male senators raid Shantel Krebs's closet and wear high heels to the Capitol all bills must clear their chamber of origin to stay alive.

Secretary of State Jason Gant has finally done some good. Through his boundless incompetence in office, he has inspired two bills to reform the Secretary of State's office.

First, Senator Stan Adelstein offers Senate Bill 81 to prohibit the kind of politicking that Secretary Gant and his minions have happily performed while bearing the sacred duty of keeping our elections clean. SB 81 says that the Secretary of State and any of his employees involved in running elections may not...

1. Endorse any candidate for election to congressional, state, or legislative office; or
2. Work for, volunteer for, or otherwise assist any candidate for election to congressional, state, or legislative office; or
3. Advise or consult with any candidate for election to congressional, state, or legislative office.

All of the above have happened under Secretary of State Jason Gant, casting doubt on the Secretary of State's ability to run a fair election. Senator Adelstein, a vociferous critic of Sec. Gant's stubborn and stupid malfeasance, wants to restore the public trust with a bill that a better Secretary of State would not have inspired.

Secretary Gant also inspires Senator Adelstein to advocate an interesting electoral reform. His Senate Bill 82 calls for non-partisan election of the Secretary of State. SB 82 would put the Secretary of State candidates on a separate ballot and prohibit any party from nominating or endorsing a candidate. But the most interesting provision of SB 82 is the last line, Section 9:

The nominees for the office of secretary of state are the two persons receiving the highest number of votes in the primary election.

Ooooo! Automatic run-off voting! That could be fun!

That could also be Senator Adelstein's way of keeping an inferior, unqualified Republican who manages to finagle his party's nomination from winning the Secretary of State's office in November just because he has an R next to his name. The non-partisan election allows a qualified heavy-hitter from the GOP bench to have a shot at protecting the Secretary of State's office from someone like Gant in November. (Teresa Bray, got your campaign buttons handy?)

Both of Senator Adelstein's reforms are worth discussing. Senate Bill 81 deserves immediate passage to address Secretary Gant's demonstrated abuses of the public trust. Senate Bill 82 would not directly change the daily operation of the Secretary of State's office, but it would be an interesting electoral experiment.