Once again, I must pick at the nitwits in Pierre. First, Secretary of State Jason Gant's dawdling allowed Governor Dennis Daugaard's House Bill 1234 to become law for one day before validating the petitions that turned it into Referred Law 16 on the November ballot.
Now the Legislature's website is lying about the status of Referred Law 16. If you check out Title 13 on Education in our Legislature's online law book, you will find the provisions of Governor Daugaard's education plan written as if they were law:
- Chapter 13-55 has the Critical Teaching Needs scholarship program (Sections 51&ndash61).
- Chapter 13-42 has the state-mandated teacher and principal evaluations (Sections 34&ndash35), math/science teacher incentives (Sections 37&ndash42), the doomed-to-fail stack-ranked merit pay plan (Sections 43&ndash62), and the authorization for the South Dakota Education Reform Advisory Council (Sections 65&ndash66).
- Chapter 13-43 has the elimination of continuing contract due process rights for teachers (Sections 6&ndash6.6).
Call me picky, but the law is picky. You do not write that such-and-such is law or that such-and-such will become effective on some future date until that is actually the case. Referred Law 16 is not law. It is a proposal before the voters. To place the provisions of Referred Law 16 on the books, even our non-binding e-books, is deceptive. It is wrong. It should be corrected now.
The conspiracy theory part of my brain wonders if Sec. Gant's dawdling had a purpose. Then the realist portion wonders if the gang that couldn't shoot straight could think that far ahead.
If you have a gang not able to shoot straight running an organization, their incompetence in running the operation will ultimately prove government cannot operate. Those with an education, know when using their principles to run a democratic system, the system will not work. Their supporters will then say, all government instead of their processes failed.
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Once they prove a system they are in charge of cannot work, their logic (or lack thereof) says all governments are not able to function. If a SOS or county auditor's office is able to function with a highly trained staff through incompetent management changes, than in their small minds it is time to replace the staff (as Gant did).
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The incompetents in the SOS office and now the Legislative Research Council, by allowing a proposed law to be listed as a fact of law, adds to the confusion. In the ALEC world we now live in, confusion is their mainline to power. Any study of history going back thousands of years will keep showing how civilizations are destroyed by subterfuge / trickery allowing the 1% of the day to take more control.
I used to think that this must be just normal incompetence. But when you stack incompetence upon incompetence, it begins to look like there is a purpose behind the incompetence, as if there has been a well-constructed facade of incompetence that hides more nefarious attempts to put HB 1234 into play, violating the State Constitution.
Are the supporters of HR 1234 are hiding behind a well-constructed mask of multiple incompetence in order to violate the SD Constitution? Does this give them a defense against the charge that they are purposely violating the people's constitutional rights?
Welcome to Pierre good people! Nothing to see here, no corruption, no funny business going on here no matter how obvious it is.
Something wrong with the LRC? Whaaaaat? Say it isn't so!?
Stace, your issue would have appalled to man who dreamed up and made the LRC possible. Doc Farber was proud of the way the LRC worked for everyone without prejudice. It is just another part of the one party hack system we call SD State Government.
With a one party hack based system, we will never move forward with positive solutions. One party hacks systems perpetuate the status quo until a total collapse happens. You may have many views I s not share but I wish you well exposing the corruptness of the current system. Once the sun shines bright on the problems, may we work together to make the solutions work for us all. BTW, if some of the purveyors of the scum go to jail in the process, all the better.
Sort of like Iran-Contra. Plausible deniability? Hmmm.
Stace, how do you eat an elephant?
Mr. Montgomery updates, saying that the LRC has placed Referred Law 14, Governor Daugaard's corporate handouts plan, on the books with notes to indicate it faces a public vote in November. Montgomery agrees with me that HB 1234 was technically law for a day and a half before Sec. Gant validated the referral petitions. LRC probably carried out its duties Sunday, listing HB 1234 as the enacted statute that it was... but now, Montgomery speculates, "the person who usually handles these things for the LRC may be on vacation this week."
What? There's only one person on staff who can post text online?
Well, I disagree that any bill subject to a legally filed referendum petition can be enacted until the Secretary of State makes a determination on the validity of the petition. The Secretary is simply carrying out an administrative task delegated to it by the Legislature. His supposed incompetence can't be the cause of a violation of the people's and Constitutional rights, nor the Legislative power provided to the people in the Constitution, nor can it be an excuse to put any part of that law into effect prior to a vote. Whoever is advising Daugaard is trying to get him impeached.
@Testor15 I am encouraged that South Dakotans have seen some of the dishonesty and rejected it. There is 4 months to the election, good indications they are not yet satisified with the house cleaning they started.
At the same time, it is concerning to see Rep. Gosch submitting illegally notarized petitions, something he apparently knew was wrong as he did not do so under SOS Nelson, and then apparently bullying the SOS staff into accepting them after they advised him the petitions were unacceptable because of his violations of SD law.
@Jana ??
I suspect we would have better state government if we made the legislature non-partisan as is Nebraska's. It wouldn't be great; but I suspect it would be better and certainly, undoubtedly could not be worse by going non-partisan.
Mr. John, do you think unicamera means non-partisan? I thought it meant one lense.
Stace, what races do we have in November that will allow us to continue the House cleaning and Senate cleaning you desire? Now that we're out of the primary, the only way to clear out the corrupt leaders to whom you allude is to vote them out and replace them with Democrats like Charlie Johnson, right?
CAH, there are Republicans so disgusted with the voting records and corruption by Rinos that they have mentioned such things or simply telling people to bullet vote for candidates and leave others blank.
Who's next in the Powers/SDGOP cascade, Rep. Nelson?
Stace, will enough people leave the spot blank to make a difference? It's one thing to send a marginal message; it's another to make a real change. Would Dems in those spots be better than the current leaders against whom you rail? Would Dems help restore confidence in the LRC and Sec. of State's office?
@ CAH - There is an interesting race in District 22.
@ Rep. S. Nelson - is there irony in a candidate being alluded to as a RINO because they are not running as a candidate for the party but running as a candidate for the people, by the people and of the people? Sen T Hansen had an interesting article in the 4 July edition of Payday Shopper. I may be biased but I believe that the District 22 primary voter turn out and stats speaks volumes about those citizens of all three parties that still care enough to vote. Clean campaigns by all candidates unless bullet voting is an issue but then are we going to go into the voting booth with the citizen on that issue? I am certain the only instance of bullet voting was not the BK bullet (as in Beadle Kingsbury) promoted by both party chairs in Kingsbury county but it certainly produced some interesting results while I was fishing. SDGOP has shown differing echelon flavors for their poster candidates so the evolving status of new candidates will prove interesting in a battle ground district for party politics. So what if a citizen drives around with a vehicle that says "Slater/Gibson for House", that is his right and Rep Gibson or mine to question along with anyone else (I did but his response was that is what he wants, which is OK in my book) but the party will question my validity as a Republican candidate. Those that want to quantify and support candidates solely on their adherence to party platform and party leadership simply foster the downward spiral in government party division, at the cost and burden to our citizens that hire them to be our representative.