The South Dakota Republican Party appears to have a listening problem. Over the past month, the state GOP held three forums around the state, including one on Huron, to get ideas and suggestions from all interested Republicans for the party platform. Yet from what I hear from inside the platform committee meeting, there was no formal presentation of the knowledge gathered at these meetings.
The absence of real committee discussion of the results of those platform meetings may have contributed to the fervor with which rank-and-file delegates moved platform changes from the floor on Saturday, much to the apparent consternation of party leaders. I hear Senator Larry Rhoden (R-29/Union Center) took the active floor debate as a sign delegates weren't sufficiently respecting the committee process. Senator Rhoden suggested rather disdainfully that some of the agitators might prefer to do away with the platform committee process; disgruntled delegates met his facetious suggestion with significant cheering.
I would suggest to Senator Rhoden a less radical response: some simple knowledge management. If the party is going to promote pre-convention meetings to gather ideas on the platform before convention, it should respect the participants in that process by taking good notes, sharing the results of those discussions with folks at convention, and making sure those ideas get open consideration in the platform writing process.
But hey, I'm a Democrat, so I really don't mind if the SDGOP wants to mismanage its statewide outreach. If you want to have dog-and-pony show meetings and disregard the input of your local activists, you go right ahead.
Cory, there was a formal document presented during the committee hearing. It appears to me that the purpose of the pre-meetings was to determine what issues were going to brought forward so that committee members would be prepared for them. There were a number of lobbyists on the committee who shot down proposals to support competitive free markets, remove Obamacare at the state level, and illegal immigrations reforms. The last two were brought to the floor and passed. I chose not to push the free market issue onto the floor. Perhaps I should have.
I think Senator Rhoden did a good job running the committee, and I don't know how and/or who stacked the committee with lobbyists. The process involved public input, then committee discussion. When the public tried to rebut the lobbyists, Rhoden at one time said he was not going to allow debate between the committee and the rest of us. It was on the floor that actual debate occurred, but was limited to 10 minutes.
Sibby is correct; however, the cryptic crib notes of modifications/additions was so vague, no one on the committee had a clue what they meant as they admitted that NO ONE AT THE PLATFORM HEARING ATTENDED THE PUBLIC MEETINGS! Read in to that what you may.
That being said, SD Republicans enacted numerous additions/modifications to the SDGOP Platform that strengthened and highlighted SD Republicans true CONSERVATIVE nature. As written elsewhere in the blog, I think that realization sunk fully in to some of our current legislators that were in attendence..
Lobbyists on the committee? By what criteria were platform committee members chosen? And do you have a copy of that formal report? I'd love to hear what folks said at those pre-convention hearings.