Public-relations-challenged Bill Clayton gets to continue promoting his racist, birther, theocrat ideas from the dais of the Rapid City City Council. Former councilman Gary Brown wanted to oust Clayton via recall. He hired activist Emmett Reistroffer to gather signatures on the recall petition. But apparently he didn't pay Reistroffer enough to study South Dakota petition law and learn that petition circulators must be residents of South Dakota. Reistroffer hired a couple friends from Montana, who gathered signatures on 166 of the 467 petition pages submitted. The city attorney says no can do, and Clayton foes end up with 4,466 usable signatures, about 1,700 short of the 6,200 needed. Thus, no recall justice in Rapid City.
What do you have to say for yourself, Emmett?
"I will be happy to take full accountability for violating the law, as will [the two Montana workers] who came in from Billings to assist our efforts," Reistroffer wrote in an email. "We were not aware of the law, and I believe it is a far greater injustice to dismiss the will of nearly 7,000 Rapid City voters because of a technical violation of two signature gatherers."
"I am exploring my options with an attorney to challenge the decision of the city should they throw out that portion of signatures," he added [Joe O'Sullivan, "Glitch Causes Clayton Recall to Fall Short," Rapid City Journal, 2013.06.04].
Good grief. Reistroffer is right that dismissing the will of 7,000 voters to remove a divisive and embarrassingly dumb councilman from office is an injustice, but Reistroffer caused that injustice with his ignorance. Reistroffer told Brown he could do a job, a job Mr. Powers notes he's done before. He took money to do that job. And then, in his ignorance, he failed to do that job. (Brown is no longer thinking recall; he should be thinking refund.)
Sigh. If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. If you see an issue worth bringing to a public vote, grab a petition and some friends and start knocking on doors and working the streets. If the issue is important enough, you'll find enough friend to help circulate and enough people to sign. Needing money to put your issue on the ballot is a hint that maybe there isn't as much support as you think for your issue.
Clayton apparently is claiming vindication and divine assistance in avoiding a recall election. Rejection of signatures on a legal violation vindicates no one, Bill. And if there were a God, he'd have fixed your racism and pomposity long before bothering to sabotage an exercise in democracy. Your seat was saved by simple human ignorance, something with which you seem familiar... and which Rapid City voters will have to tolerate for the remainder of you term.
Ahhh....haaaahaaa! All these guys in Rapid City deserve each other. They're all from the "gang that couldn't shoot straight."
Really, Bill Clayton is an idiot, but so is Gary Brown. Brown and his gang of Chamber-friendly fools have never been a fan of citizen petitioning, so I was somewhat surprised that Brown was heading up this effort. Except, it turned out, he wasn't. In true, RC business community fashion, he hires out the job to some flunky, who doesn't know basic petition law. Gotta love it.
Cory,
This brings up an interesting question. What does it take to qualify as a resident of South Dakota. These two guys from Montana could register to vote here if they simply have the intent of eventually making their permanent home here. Thousands of RV voters, as they are called, sit on our voting rolls right now and most have not spent more than a day or two in South Dakota.
Since these two Montana guys were just as qualified to register and vote in South Dakota the instant they set foot here as any one of the 1000's of RV voters who currently sit on our voter rolls, wouldn't they also become residents in that same instant? Don't you have to be a resident to register to vote here?
Judy, that is a very interesting question, and perhaps Reistroffer's lawyer's only route for an appeal. Your RV example is excellent. Madison's RV-residency mill, MyDakotaAddress.com, says that you establish residency by having a mailing address here. That address qualifies you to register your vehicle, get your driver's license, and register to vote in South Dakota. That would fit with what you're saying: show that you have a "place to hang your hat," as one lawyer tells me, and you're a resident.
The Legislature eased residency rules for the Board of Regents this winter. Marry a South Dakotan, and you're a resident.
To get residential preference in state contracts, SDCL 5-18A-1 says you have to have "maintained a substantial and bona fide place of business and [have] conducted business from within this state for at least one year prior to the date on which a contract was awarded."
Perhaps most relevantly here, Chapter 9-13 on municipal elections defines residency thus: "For the purposes of this section, a person resides in the municipality if the person actually lives in the municipality for at least thirty days each year, is a full-time postsecondary education student who resided in the municipality immediately prior to leaving for the postsecondary education, or is on active duty as a member of the armed forces whose home of record is within the municipality."
Thirty days. How long were your friends in town, Emmett?
I'm not sure what all the armchair lawyering gets you. It's just Community Organizing 101--don't hire out the work that members of the community should do.
Very true, Don: do it right the first time, and you don't have to lawyer up and dig for excuses. And from a community organizing perspective, you do yourself and your community more good by creating a network of petition volunteers who talk with their neighbors, make connections, and build skills that they can use for other local issues instead of letting that added value diffuse away with hired hands.
Seems to me that this kind of legislation regulating hiring of petition circulators could be challenged on the basis of Citizens United cases, etc.