Sen. Elizabeth Kraus (R-33/Rapid City) is leaving the Legislature. Kraus was the promulgator of South Dakota's anti-gay marriage amendment. Bob Mercer notes that this amendment resulted in part from Michele Bachmann's encouraging Kraus to be an even more ambitious bigot:
Kraus said her original goal was to prohibit gay people from adopting children. She happened to be at an event where she had the opportunity to meet Michele Bachmann, at the time a Minnesota legislator who was a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Kraus told Bachmann her idea. Bachmann suggested Kraus wasn't trying to reach far enough. She offered that Kraus should look at defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
That's what led to the constitutional amendment: "Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in South Dakota. The uniting of two or more persons in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other quasi-marital relationship shall not be valid or recognized in South Dakota."
Kraus, who calls Bachmann "a hero for conservative women," crafted the specific sentences of the marriage amendment with the help of South Dakota's then-attorney general, Larry Long, who would have to defend it in court if necessary, and with the aid of the then-speaker of the House, Matt Michels, R-Yankton.
"Every word had to be right," she said. "That was a fascinating process" [Bob Mercer, "From the Right, a Quiet Leader Leaves the South Dakota Political Scene," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2012.03.18].
Oh, yes, denying citizens equal rights must be a fascinating process.
We should all be relieved that any South Dakotan who considers Michele Bachmann a "hero" intends to spend future winters in Florida rather than Pierre.
Alas, Kraus's potential replacements promise little improvement. The two men on the ballot so far are both conservative Republicans. Michael Buckingham served alongside Kraus in the House, and he voted aye on the marriage amendment in 2005. He also supported, along with Kraus, the 2005 legislation that stepped between doctors and their patients and required medical professionals to recite a bunch of non-medical hogwash about abortion. (That legislation is still tied up in court.) The same year, Buckingham and Kraus also supported the abortion ban that voters rejected in the 2006 referendum.
The other District 33 Senate contender, Phil Jensen, has been wreaking his own conservatism on the House since 2009. An ALEC member like Kraus, sponsored an anti-abortion bill last year that would have justified shooting abortion doctors. In supporting an anti-Sharia resolution last year, Jensen revealed he fears both women making their own choices and Muslim men who would dare to marry them. And this year, Jensen proposed both HB 1231 and HCR 1005 to let hydraulic fracturing rush ahead of science and safety regulations. (I wonder: will Jensen and his fellow Republicans let science teachers have bonuses if they promote real science?)
Folks interested in equal rights and good policy may cheer Senator Kraus's departure, but but District 33 has lots more bad conservative politics to offer... and in a district with nearly 50% Republican voters and under 30% Democrats, no Democrat has yet filed to contend for that empty Senate seat.
A funny line from the Mitchell article: Her respect for others remained true through her final interview.
The fawning tone of the article about Kraus is bizarre, especially when it's coupled with the way she used the legislature to codify discrimination and bigotry.
Buckingham posts here sometimes doesn't he, Cory? Let's hope he does this time. Maybe we can talks some sense into him. LOL.
So glad Kraus is leaving. She just scared me. I had the misfortune to see her in action, or inaction, in a committee meeting.
She was so dense! I mean, like lower IQ dense. I'm not saying she is stupid because I don't know what her IQ is. I'm saying she did a remarkable imitation of an IQ in the 80s.
Kraus was being challenged on her abortion law, and it seemed like she couldn't really grasp the question. She kept repeating the same line, with minimal variation, rather than actually respond to what the citizen asked. It was creepy. Ick.
Very weird, D.E. I've not gotten to hear Kraus in action. But I suppose it takes a certain willful ignorance to maintain one's sanity while advocating some of what's come from this state's GOP.