Tag Archives: South Dakota

To Prove How MAGA I Am, I’m Going to Shoot This Dog

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[Update: Because of a serious lapse by WWP’s over-paid copy desk, the original version of this screed included several unforgivable typos. We apologize. The staffer responsible has been fired, flogged and given a referral to Power Line.]

Every time I read one of those “Neighbor from hell” stories, where, you know, the guy next door demands a survey crew come in because he’s convinced your hostas are three inches over the property line, or the hoarder lady hauls in and drops an eighth garage sale Barcalounger on her front lawn, I think of what we here Minnesota have to put up with. And by that I mean … South Dakota.

I’ll spare you the tale of my long-running interaction with SoDak’s unique concept of law enforcement. (Short version: Stopped and searched on an Interstate for transporting a half-ounce sample jar of CBD-infused foot cream.) Except to relay what a former reporter for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader offered by way of explanation: “This place is really stupid.”

In case anyone ever forgot that, we now have the head-slapping story of the state’s current governor taking out a gun and killing her “playful” puppie because she didn’t want to bother training it not to chase chickens. That and because her dream job is becoming Vice-President to a flabby 77 year-old playboy who very well might keel over on a golf course some day making her — who I refer to as Governor Barbie — Queen of All She Sees.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem sees nothing wrong in Donald Trump paying hush money to pornstar

I am of course responding to the story, told by Kristi Noem herself in her new autobiography, of how in the context of making the kind of tough choices self-infatuated, gun-fetishizing right-wing politicians have to make to gain cred with their people, she gunned downed her puppy and a goat and tossed them in a gravel pit. It’s the kind of story most politicians would pay serious money to cover up, but Noem, reading the winds of MAGA … brags about it in a book she … had written for her.

This is the same South Dakota prairie princess who:

Kristi Noem-Corey Lewandowski affair shakes up Trump running mate stakes
  • Is currently banned from fully 10% of her state thanks to pissing off tribal leaders of the place’s sprawling reservations … that she proudly does little to nothing to improve and insinuates are league with drug cartels. Quite possibly the kind hooking kids and puppies on CBD-infused foot cream.

And all this while allegedly governing a state where:

*A distracted Congressman/ex-Governor traveling 75 in a 55 blew a stop sign, killed a constituent on a motorcycle (minor irony there) and in his defense claimed he was having a diabetic reaction.

*A distracted (South Dakota) Attorney General swerved off a highway and killed a guy walking on the shoulder, told (South Dakota) law enforcement he might have hit a deer, despite clear evidence the dead man’s head came through the windshield depositing his glasses on the front passenger seat.

And * A state where, as we learned from the Pandora Papers expose, banking regulations are so opaque the place could well be and probably is happily serving as safe haven for billions of dollars in highly suspicious deposits. According to the Washington Post story, South Dakota is protecting $360 billion in very murky assets while, if you’re scoring along at home, producing only $50 billion in GDP, via ranchin’ and bikin’ and shootin’ puppies.

I could on for another eight hours it’s so lunatic over there. But if there’s a bottom line to this “shoot the puppy” story (and so many others) its that, as The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer put it so succinctly, when it it comes to understanding what MAGA leaders and cult members are thinking, “Cruelty is the point.”

Cruelty is what they’re selling … and buying.

Put another way, when you’re asserting your MAGA bona fides by telling a story of how you shot your puppy, you are appealing to MAGA’s insatiable, bottomless appetite for transgression. The desire for sound and fury against the prissy, “politically correct” norms of “urban elites” and every other adversary who doesn’t respect the agrarian American freedom to … ignore pandemics, protect the assets of international criminals, play grab ass and shoot puppies.

You want to put up a wall? I got a border that needs a wall.

Will We Ever Be Delivered from the Plague of Unserious People?

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Lauren Boebert groped 'Beetlejuice' date in heavy-petting session before getting tossed out

The current betting line is that this next Republican-driven government shut down, the one likely to begin at midnight on the 30th, will last three weeks. That anyway is what I’m picking up from the smart kids in the know.

But … those kids have no idea what it will take to actually end it. The fundamental problem being that the — take your pick here — “Clown Caucus”, “idiots”, “MAGA dead-enders” leading the revolt simply don’t care what damage they wreak. Put another way, they aren’t really serious about spending, (all this cynical/moron-level grandstanding is over 1.9% of the federal budget). We all know that what it’s really about is the value to their personal fund-raising, which only increases the longer their tantrum.

The “serious” business has been lodged in my brain lately thanks to the now infamous Lauren Boebert vaping/heavy petting session at that Denver theater and a fascinating story in the UK’s Daily Mail about South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, often touted as “veep” material for a second Trump term.

Because it was both comically salacious and her hypocrisy/lying was validated by the videotape, we all know about Boebert, the epically nitwit Congressperson/former escort (or maybe not) from western Colorado. But the Noem story has received far less traction, possibly because The Daily Mail, Britain’s highest circulation paper, doesn’t exactly compare with the New York Times in terms of, you know, journalistic credibility.

Still … with your gimlet eyes at full focus, I encourage you to read what the Mail dug up on Noem, who, keep in mind, is the sitting governor of an American state, albeit “Prairie ‘Bama” as I’m obliged to call it.

The very short version is this: Noem is still carrying on a not particularly down low affair with ex-Trump “advisor” Corey Lewandowski. That’d be one thing I couldn’t give a damn about, other than the usual rich irony that she’s still selling herself — successfully — to rock-ribbed Prairie ‘Bama Republicans as a model mother and wife.

Governor Kristi Noem, “God-Fearing” Family Woman, and Corey Lewandowski, Trump Creep, Reportedly Had “Yearslong” Affair | Vanity Fair

But, as the story strongly suggests, the amount of time and state money she’s spending on far flung adventures to burnish her, mmm, conservative bona fides and get regularly advised by Lewandowski, is kind of, well, scandalous, not that anyone over there seems to care all that much.

Noem of course is very much modeling her governing after the likes of Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Tim Pawlenty here in Minnesota, two dudes who thought nothing of contorting their management obligations to, first and foremost, advancing their laughable presidential ambitions. Although in Walker and Pawlenty’s defense their cynical manipulation of state government never approached ignoring a deadly pandemic that at one point in November 2020 had Noem’s Live Free or Die fiefdom #1 in the world in terms of deaths per capita. (But hey, most of those were Indians and migrant workers at slaughterhouses.)

By contrast to all this manifest unseriousness, and the Matt Gaetz-Marjorie Taylor Greene clown caucus about to grind the gears of the country to a halt … again … (by now this is a Republican tradition), it’s worth a moment to compare all of that crew’s self-serving chaos to a very little noticed event hosted by MAGA bete noir, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells climate marchers to be 'too big and too radical to ignore' – as it happened | Climate crisis | The Guardian

While Boebert was checking her date for pocket change and Noem was racking up frequent flyer perks with Lewandowski, AOC, one of the most frightening figures on the landscape to the MAGA echo chamber was leading a thousands-strong awareness/protest march in New York City against fossil fuels and for green energy. Green energy! The horror! The stuff that you don’t choke on at stoplights behind that 7000 pound Duramax diesel. Pollution-free, job-creating renewable energy being an idea that Boebert/Noem/Gaetz/Greene Unserious Subcaucus rails against nearly as much as … as … well, I don’t know, as … books in libraries.

Lauren Boebert, Far-Right Firebrand, Wins Re-election After Recount - The New York Times
Kristi Noem's on a Political Rocket Ship. But Don't Rule Out a Crash. - POLITICO

The contrast couldn’t be more stark. Yet one crew has the ability to bring government to dead stop … again … while the other, AOC, is treated like a Bond villain by the MAGA intellectuals on the set of “Fox & friends.”

I apologize for not having a solution to the existence of nitwits and charlatans like Boebert, Noem, etc. All I’ve got is the same question I — and perhaps you — have asked for years now, namely, “What do voters see in these people? What do they imagine politicians like this will or are doing for them? How are their lives better with the likes of Lauren Boebert in charge?” I mean, beyond, “sticking it to the libs?”

Personally, I return to brain science and ask what structure or gland or cluster of neurons is so excited by the sight of MAGA-speaking women in tight dresses and/or tight jeans … and can it be treated with drugs? Perhaps even via vape pen?

South Dakota’s Recession Shows Minnesota GOP Is Wrong on Economic Policy

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In hot pursuit of the 2024 GOP vice presidential nomination, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is aggressively marketing herself as the creator of a conservative Canaan.  With the help of overwhelming Republican majorities in the South Dakota State Legislature, Noem has been leading South Dakota into a race to the bottom on taxes, services, and tolerance. 

SD Governor Noem, showing off the flame-thrower she got from her staff for a Christmas gift. (Photo Credit: Sioux Falls Argus Leader)

South Dakota is one of only nine states – Wyoming, Nevada, Alaska, Washington, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming and South Dakota — that doesn’t have a state income tax.  This is a major reason why under-funded South Dakota ranks, to cite just a few examples, worst in the nation in teacher pay, 39th in internet access, and 49th in child wellness visits.

Meanwhile, Minnesota — a purple state neighboring scarlet red South Dakota — is becoming more progressive than ever. In 2011, Governor Mark Dayton raised taxes on the wealthy to put an end to chronic budget shortfalls that Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty used to cut state government services. Dayton’s successor Governor Tim Walz has used huge subsequent state budget surpluses to strengthen a broad array of popular state services.  And after the Democrats surprisingly won razor-thin majorities in the Minnesota Legislature in 2022, Walz and Minnesota Democrats have been engaged in a bold, fast-paced drive to make Minnesota a much more progressive place.

In other words, Minnesota and South Dakota are increasingly heading in opposite directions.

Best Economic Approach?

This begs the question: Which state’s direction is better for delivering economic prosperity? 

Noem has been persistently declaring her race-to-the-bottom approach to be the best path to overall economic prosperity.

“The last four years, we have made South Dakota the strongest state in America. We lead the nation in almost every single economic metric,” Noem claims. 

Governor Noem says her policies are attracting “freedom-loving people from every corner of the country to move to South Dakota, join our record-breaking economy, and pursue their American Dream.”

At the same time, Minnesota and South Dakota Republicans have long insisted that DFL policies are scaring away people and killing Minnesota’s economy.  For this reason, Walz’s Republican challenger in 2022, Dr. Scott Jensen, promised a set of very South Dakota-like policies, such as an elimination of Minnesota’s state income tax, which would have dramatically eroded Minnesota’s infrastructure and services. 

“Record-breaking Economy?”

South Dakota Standard’s reporter John Tsitrian recently did something that no other South Dakota news source seems willing to do these days. He fact-checked Noem’s “record-breaking economy” claims:

As 2022 closed out, you can see from the above graphic that South Dakota was dead-last in the country in GDP growth, with our state’s economy contracting 4.3%. Yep, that would be minus 4.3%. By comparison, the rest of the country grew by 2.6%. The BEA graphic also starkly reveals South Dakota’s dead-last standing among our contiguous surrounding states.  

This follows a steady, quarter-by-quarter contraction of South Dakota’s economy during 2022.  During Q1, we were at -3.5%.  During Q2, we were -1.7%.  During Q3, we were -0.5% — all crowned, of course by the fourth quarter’s descent to -4.3%. 

Each quarter’s performance significantly lagged the country overall and generally compared unfavorably with our contiguous neighbors.

To underscore our status as an economic laggard, BEA notes that South Dakota is one of only eight states that saw a decrease in its GDP for the entire year of 2022.

While the country overall prospered, albeit at a modest pace, we South Dakotans had our very own little homegrown recession.

A South Dakota recession? Worst in the region and nation? Who knew?

The emergence of the South Dakota recession ought to do at least two things. First, it should put an abrupt end to the Noem veep talk. Who wants the Governor with the worst economy in the nation on their ticket? Second, the South Dakota recession should discredit Minnesota Republicans who keep insisting that the surefire way to make Minnesota more prosperous is to imitate South Dakota’s fiscal race to the bottom.

The Gob-Smacking Stupidity of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

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Having found a real cup of coffee, I was walking back to my lavish room at the Spa Hot Springs Motel and Clinic on Main Street, White Sulphur Springs, Montana when the half-dozen biker guys poured out of their adjoining rooms and began the process of saddling up for the day’s ride. They were a riot of Harley-Davidson-branded gear. Harley vests. Harley belts. Harley t-shirts. Harley bandanas. And of course big, chromy Harley motorcycles.

Watching the elaborate packing process while sipping my latte I finally asked, “So what’s up with Sturgis this year? Have they called it off?” Four of them ignored me. The guy I picked for the alpha of the bunch shot me a look and said, “Fuck no.” The sixth guy, a bit more sociable, looked up from carefully folding his rain gear into his (Harley-branded) saddle bag said, “No way. It’s happening.” All I could say was, “Really. Well, that’ll be wild.” “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a protest.”

I was tempted to say something effete and out-of-touch big city liberal like, “A protest against what, sanity?” But I didn’t. At this point in the worst pandemic in a hundred years and with as many Americans dying every three days as died in 9/11, futility is the only product of a “discussion” with Harley-encrusted “protestors.” So ride on, dudes.

It goes without saying that the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a tribal extravaganza of face-to-face, jowl-to-jowl, belly-bumping machismo and consumer exhibitionism holds the high probability of being the single largest “super spreader” of COVID-19 held anywhere in the world since the outbreak began last November. A quarter of a million people, the vast majority middle-aged to older white men, will both ride into western South Dakota this week for the giant, mechanized bacchanal … and then turn around ride back to their homes, all across the country, spreading everything they picked up in Sturgis all along their routes, like a horde of toxic Johnny Appleseeds.

Bikerworld’s other big rally, in Daytona, Florida went on as scheduled this past March in the early days of the pandemic. But Daytona’s “Biketobefest” seems likely to be cancelled this fall, what with the virus surging worse than ever … in large part due to “protestors”, the roughly 36% of freedom-loving Americans who refuse submit to reality and continue to prolong and enhance the peril to the lives and livelihood of everyone else.

Letting Sturgis happen amid all this is of course not surprising given the culture of South Dakota. The current governor, Kristi Noem, once upon a time the South Dakota Snow Queen, is every Trumpist’s dream girl. She’s abolished the requirement to get a permit before carrying a concealed gun, opposed Obamacare and every form of abortion rigts she can find or be pointed at, is on record — during Obama’s term — as being very concerned about the national debt, so much so that as a Congresswoman she declared the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicaid, high-speed rail projects, cap-and-trade technical assistance, and subsidies for the Washington Metro rapid transit system examples of federal programs she thought needed a damn good whacking.

Then there’s the $400,000 fence she wanted built around the Governor’s Mansion … in Pierre (friggin’) South Dakota, the state government jobs (with salary increases) she gave her daughter and son-in-law, the $80,000 personal TV studio she had built and her order that the words “In God We Trust” — in 12″ high letters — be displayed prominently in every school in the state.

And all that of course was before she shrugged off any kind of science-based compliance with CDC virus guidelines.

Noem of course isn’t unique among South Dakota politicians. A few beauty queen touches here and there and she’s really just a FoxNews regular guest upgrade from the usual white male militarist-rancher anachronism. Put another way, Noem is precisely the kind of creature-from-a-different-era who blithely rationalizes away any responsibility to a world beyond that which sustains her.

I won’t bore you here with the long(est) version of my personal interaction with South Dakota’s authoritarian politics, namely it’s “Stop and Frisk” drug interdiction policy on its Interstate highway system. No more than to say getting pursued, stopped, interrogated and searched by a nervous young trooper (who kept repeating, “This is what I do and I’m good at”) under the pretense of being written a warning ticket for going 82 in an 80 has led to several revelations. Not the least being that South Dakota troopers tasked with stopping “drug smugglers” (i.e. anyone who they suspect might be running home with a gummi left over from their visit to Colorado) make no attempt whatsoever to stop, interrogate and search commercial truckers. Trucking companies have lobbies, y’know.

That and the South Dakota Superintendent of the State Patrol, replying to my complaint about the incident telling me, a 67-year old tourist, I didn’t deserve so much as an apology for the inconvenience of the stop because … wait for it … the twitchy officer, after rummaging through my wife and my underwear, eventually found an unopened jar of foot cream containg CBD oil. A jar my acupuncturist friend had given me. Foot cream you see is “an illegal narcotic” as far as South Dakota is concerned and therefore me smuggling it validated the entire stop, interrogation and search. (The Superintendent didn’t explain why I wasn’t arrested and forced to fork over the usual $2300-plus worth of fines to the state coffers.)

To date, the incident has to date led to dozens of conversations with South Dakota lawyers, journalists and politicians. (“It’s just an amazingly stupid place,” bemoaned one ex-journalist.) The still-developing picture is of a state like so much of Trump-loving conservative America that wears its “love of freedom” on its sleeve while routinely, regularly abusing the spirit of the most basic Constitutional laws. All in service to an ossified 1950s-style notion of “law and order.” (Throughout the incident above, I could only imagine what would be happening if I was a 20 year-old black kid, instead of an old white guy in a bland, late-model rental car.)

Point being. No matter what science or common sense or common courtesy say, no matter what’s good for the rest of the country, South Dakota wants the money the flagrant recklessness and naked stupidity Sturgis brings in.

So yeah, it’s a righteous protest. Ride on dudes. MAGA!

The Super Spreader Event That Too Few Are Discussing

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For good reason, there was a lot of national discussion about the 6,200 Trump supporters who gathered at an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Americans were understandably concerned that Trump’s selfish rally would be a “super spreader event” that would needlessly cause a spike in COVID 19 infections and role model reckless behavior. 

While all of that national discussion was taking place, South Dakota’s ultra-conservative Governor Kristi Noem looked at that Tulsa scene and effectively said “hold my beer, Mr. President.”

In the midwest, you don’t have to be reminded when the ten-day Sturgis Bike Rally begins.  Even in my community, which is 600 miles from the Black Hills of South Dakota, and even in the two weeks before and after the ten-day August Rally, motorcycles and trailers towing motorcycles are everywhere on our roads and highways.

The Sturgis Rally is massive. Last year, 490,000 people traveled from around the nation to the Black Hills.  That’s equivalent to about 80 Tulsa Trump Rallies. Oh and by the way, unlike the Tulsa event, the Sturgis Rally lasts for weeks, not hours. 

That’s a lot of cash for a remote, sparsely populated state like South Dakota. It’s also a lot COVID-19 exposure. Make a list of major COVID-19 exposure risks, and you’ve described the Sturgis Bike Rally: Inability to distance in small indoor spaces? Check. Unwillingness to distance due to libertarian “live free or die” attitudes? Check. Too few masks? Check. Obesity and related comorbidities? Check. Advanced age and related comorbidities? Check. Binge drinking and the associated increase in risk-taking? Check. No small amount of casual sex? Check. Lengthy exposures over multiple days? Check. A merger of exposure pools from around the nation, and lengthy cross-country travel in all directions. Check and check.

Granted, bikers at the Rally are outside a fair amount, riding and camping.  But indoor bars, restaurants, hotels, stores, and tourist attractions within a several hundred mile radius of Sturgis also are traditionally packed with strangers in close proximity with each other. When it’s loud in those indoor spaces, visitors are forced to shout at, and expectorate on, each other.   

If a super villain were to design a super-spreader event to try to harm their worst enemies, they perhaps couldn’t do much better than the Sturgis Rally.

Without a doubt, Governor Noem out-Trumped Trump by refusing to cancel the Sturgis Bike Rally this August 7-16.  From the beginning of the pandemic, Noem has supported basically no public health protections for her citizens.  She wants to show corporations that South Dakota is pro-business, tax visitors so she doesn’t have to tax her conservative base, and show her conservative fan base that she is “protecting freedom.” She apparently isn’t interested in protecting the citizens of her state, a state that is disproportionately elderly and therefore particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 deaths.

So, if you’re thinking about summer travel this year, my advice would be to take a lot of masks and sanitizer, and to take an extremely wide berth around Kristi Noem’s COVID-19 mushroom cloud in South Dakota.

South Dakota: Imagine There’s No Parties

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Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace… 

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

John Lennon

Cursor_and_amendment_v_south_dakota_-_Google_SearchWhen I heard about the constitutional amendment on the South Dakota ballot to make all
state elections nonpartisan, I thought of these lyrics.

Imagine there’s no parties?

Believe it or not, that’s sort of what South Dakota is debating this fall.   At first blush, it struck me as every bit as unlikely and impractical as what John Lennon sang.  But if Amendment V gets a plurality of votes from South Dakotans of all party affiliations this fall, every state office would become nonpartisan.

That means that in every election except for presidential contests there would no longer be separate primaries for the respective political parties, party labels would not be used on ballots, and citizens would no longer have their voting restricted due to their party affiliation, or lack of a party affiliation. Instead of party primaries, a single primary contest would be held, and the top two finishers, regardless of their party affiliations, would face off in the general election.

Cursor_and_nonpartisan_nebraska_-_Google_Search

“Imagine there’s no parties. It isn’t hard to do.”

Partisanship Pros

Except that it is hard for me. Very hard. While municipal and judicial elections currently don’t use party labels, I like having party labels on ballots. They give me helpful shorthand clues when I come across an unfamiliar name towards the end of the ballot.  For instance, if I want to avoid inadvertently casting my vote for someone who wants to underfund public services or weaken environmental protections, seeing that “D” next to a candidate name on the ballot reduces the chance that I will mistakenly vote for someone who doesn’t share my  values.

To be sure, party labels don’t tell you everything, but they give a pretty solid clue about a candidate’s likely positions. I support disclosure in government and governing, and requiring party labels has disclosure benefits.

If party labels weren’t on the ballot, I’d have to do more homework to avoid making voting blunders on the more obscure portions of the ballot.  On the other hand, with online resources that are now available, homework has never been easier.  By the way, this problem could be lessened if all state and local governments allowed citizens to use smart phones or other types of computers while voting. That’s an antiquated rule that needs to be changed.  I need to be able to use my spare brain in the voting booth.

Imagine A Nonpartisan System

Maybe the inconvenience and lack of disclosure associated with a nonpartisan election system would be worth it.  I am painfully aware of what extreme partisanship is doing to our politics. It’s making us mindlessly tribal. It’s causing legislators to substitute logic and analysis for blind loyalty to party leaders and their most powerful interest groups. It’s muting the voices of independent and moderate citizens who don’t identify with either of the major parties. It’s making compromise almost impossible.

Drey Samuelson, one of the founders of the South Dakota public interest group championing Amendment V, TakeItBack.org, feels strongly that the benefits of nonpartisan elections and offices greatly outweigh whatever disclosure-related benefits there might be associated with the status quo.

Imagine no closed door caucus scheming.  Samuelson says one of the most compelling reasons to keep party labels off the ballot is that it removes partisan control from the Legislature, as it has in Nebraska. Party caucuses don’t exist in the Nebraska Legislature, so policy isn’t made behind closed party caucus doors.

Party caucuses aren’t banned by Amendment V.  But Samuelson said that if the nonpartisan amendment passes in South Dakota this fall, there would be strong public pressure for South Dakota legislators to organize themselves in a nonpartisan way — without party caucus meetings and with party power-sharing — as Nebraska has done.

Imagine sharing power and accountability.  In Nebraska’s nonpartisan Legislature, legislators from both parties can and do become legislative committee chairs. Because they share power, they also share credit for legislative successes, and accountability for scandals. There is less time and energy wasted on blame games.

Imagine an equal voice for all.  TakeItBack.org also stresses that a nonpartisan system will give South Dakota’s 115,000 registered Independents an equal voice in the elections and government they fund, which they lack today.  This is particularly important in primary elections, where many of the most important decisions are made.

Imagine a popular Legislature.  A nonpartisan Legislature would also very likely be a more popular Legislature.

“People, by and large, don’t like the division, the bickering, the polarization, and the inefficiency of partisan government,” says Samuelson. “They find that nonpartisan government simply functions better.”

In fact, the nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature is nearly twice as popular as the partisan one to the north. A January 2016 PPP survey of South Dakotans found a 36% approval rating for the South Dakota Legislature, while a June 2015 Tarrance Group survey of Nebraskans found a 62% approval rating for the Nebraska Legislature.

A 62% approval rating should look pretty good to Minnesota legislators.  Minnesota DFL legislators have a 29% approval rating, and Republican legislators have an 18% approval rating (PPP, August 2015).

For my part, I’d be willing to give up partisan labels on the ballot if it would get us a less petty, Balkanized and recalcitrant Legislature.   If Nebraska is predictive of what Minnesota could become, the benefits of such a nonpartisan body would outweigh the costs.

Is South Dakota About To Lead An Anti-Gerrymandering Revolution?

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I adore my home state of South Dakota, but I rarely find myself calling for my adopted state of Minnesota to copy South Dakota policies. On a whole range of issues from progressive state income taxes to a higher minimum wage to LGBT rights to dedicated conservation spending to teacher pay to Medicare coverage, I wish the Rushmore state’s policies would become more like Minnesota’s, not vice versa.

But if a majority of South Dakota voters embrace Amendment T at the polls this November, I may soon be feeling some serious SoDak envy.

gerrymander_-_Google_SearchOnce every ten years, all states redraw state and congressional legislative district lines, so that the new boundaries reflect population changes that have occurred in the prior decade. In both Minnesota and South Dakota, elected state legislators draw those district map lines, and the decision-making is dominated by leaders of the party or parties in power.

South Dakota’s pending Amendment T calls for a very different approach. If a majority of South Dakota voters support Amendment T this fall, redrawing of legislative district lines would be done by a multi-partisan commission made up of three Republicans, three Democrats and three independents.  None of the nine commission members could be elected officials.

South_Dakota_Amendment_TThe basic rationale behind Amendment T is this: Elected officials have a direct stake in how those district boundaries are drawn, so giving them the power to draw the maps can easily lead to either the perception or reality of self-serving shenanigans.

As we all know, redistricting shenanigans are common. Guided by increasingly high tech tools and lowbrow ethics, elected officials regularly produce contorted district maps that draw snickers and gasps from citizens.   Often, the judicial branch needs to intervene in an attempt to restore partisan or racial fairness to the maps that the politicians’ produce.

Gerrymandering and Polarization

There are all kinds of problems created by the elected officials’ self-serving gerrymandering.  Legislators in control of the process draw lines to ensure that the gerrymanderer’s party has a majority in as many districts as possible. This leads to many “safe districts,” where one party dominates.  In safe districts, the primary election is effectively the only election that matters. General elections become meaningless, because the winner of the primary elections routinely cruises to an easy victory.

In this way, disproportionately partisan primary voters, who some times make up as little as 5 percent of the overall electorate, effectively become kingmakers who decide who serves in legislative bodies. Meanwhile, minority party and independent voters effectively have almost no say in the choice of lawmakers, even though they usually combine to make up more than 50% of the electorate.

In other words, gerrymandering has given America government of, for and by 5 percent of the people.

Because these primary election kingmakers tend to be from the far ends of the ideological spectrum, gerrymandering has contributed to the polarization of our politics. It has created an environment in which elected officials live in fear that they will be punished in primary elections if they dare to compromise with the other party. As a result, bipartisan compromise has become increasingly extinct in many legislative bodies.

Gerrymandering and Distrust

Beyond political polarization, perhaps the worst thing about politician-driven redistricting is that it makes citizens cynical about their democracy.  Whether you believe problems are real or merely perceived, the fact that elected officials are at the center of redistricting controversies creates deep citizen-leader distrust.  When citizens become convinced that elections are being rigged by elected officials so that the politicians can preserve their personal power, citizens lose faith and pride in their representative democracy. When we lose that, we lose our American heart and soul.

So Minnesota, let’s commit to creating — either via a new state law or by referring a constitutional amendment to voters –our own multi-partisan redistricting commission that removes elected officials from the process. Let’s govern more like South Dakota!

Did I really just say that?

Dear South Dakota: Lighten Up

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5_reasons_to_still_get_excited_for_Paul_McCartney__besides_the_obvious__-_StarTribune_comSouth Dakota is feeling under-loved, again. A South Dakota state senator wrote a commentary in today’s Star Tribune complaining about the newspaper’s preview of Paul McCartney’s two Target Center concerts. The forlorn headline says it all: “Gee, did you have to slam South Dakota again?”

It seems the mulleted Beatle began his Midwest tour in Sioux Falls, which prompted the Strib’s music critic to do what music critics do for a living, get snarky. “For once, you may envy the folks who live in Sioux Falls,” wrote the Strib’s Chris Riemenschneider.  This prompted South Dakota State Senator Bernie Hunhoff to do what South Dakota politicians do for a living, get defensive.

Actually, Hunhoff’s piece was pretty light-hearted and fun, a welcome change from much of what we often hear in these tiresome “border battles.”  But along with the humor, there was hurt.  Oh yes, there was hurt.

We midwesterners as a group tend to be mighty sensitive when we feel someone has disrespected us. For instance, remember all of the rage a while back about Minnesota’s Red Lake County being named the Ugliest County in America? Judging from the heated reactions, one might have thought the Washington Post and the evil authors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Amenities Index had launched nuclear weaponry at poor little Minnesota.

But when it comes to sensitivity, South Dakota is in a league of its own.  As a South Dakota expat, and Wry Wing’s South Dakota Correspondent, I would make this observation: Among easily offended Midwesterners, South Dakotans are among the most easily aggrieved. Perhaps it’s because South Dakota is one of the most flown over portions of Flyover Country.  Perhaps it’s because former Governor South Dakota Bill Janklow long ago popularized the art of promoting himself by continually creating new platforms where he could defend South Dakota’s honor.  Whatever the reasons, many South Dakotans still spend their lives looking for ways that outsiders are not sufficiently appreciating South Dakota’s awesomeness.

To be certain, there is awesomeness to be had there. Like most states, parts of South Dakota have great natural beauty. Like most states, there are fun and interesting places to eat, drink and see. Like most states, there are friendly, diligent and kind people.  I loves me some South Dakota.

South_Dakota_low_taxes_-_Google_SearchIn fact, now that retirement is a decade or so away, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world for my South Dakota-born wife and I to take our thousandaire fortune and retire closer to our South Dakota family and friends. After all, lots of old folks retire there to shield their income from taxes, since South Dakota has no income tax.

But actually, that is precisely why I won’t be retiring in South Dakota, and will be staying in Minnesota. As a committed liberal, I realize that the seamy side of scarce taxes is scarce community services.

I don’t want to live in a place with the lowest paid teachers in the nation, and one of the region’s lower rates of health coverage. I don’t want to live in a place populated with so many taxophobes that bitter community civil wars break out every time someone proposes addressing a community need or creating a community amenity. I love South Dakota, but I don’t love the short-sighted taxophobic culture that has come to limit the place.

But back to McCartneygate. First, let me apologize for Mr. Riemenschneider’s snark. I’m sorry he showed disrespect to South Dakota. Though truthfully it didn’t strike me as much of a diss, particularly considering he is a music critic, rest assured that most Minnesotans like and respect South Dakota.  They really do.

Second, I would urge my home state to lighten up a bit. Shrug things off.  Have thicker skins.  Be confident enough in what you have to offer the world that you don’t feel the need to be constantly in grievance mode. Realize that you have enough to offer that you don’t have to engage in a fiscal race-to-the-bottom with the Mississippi’s of the world.  You also don’t have to run desperate Tokyo Rose-like ad campaigns on Minnesota conservative talk radio stations recruiting taxophobic businesses and individuals to relocate there.

South Dakota doesn’t need more civic paranoia. It doesn’t need to recruit more selfish taxophobes. It’s a terrific state populated by wonderful people who love the place deeply. As Sir Paul told South Dakotans a few days ago, “with a love like that, you know you should be glad.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Note:  This post also was published as part of MinnPost’s weekly Blog Cabin feature.

Dear DFLers: This is Minnesota, Not MinneSweden

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These are very heady times for Minnesota DFLers. Governor Mark Dayton and DFL legislators had the courage to raise taxes, increase long-term investments, and raise the minimum wage.  In the process, Minnesota Republicans were proven wrong, because the economic sky did not fall as they predicted it would.   In fact, liberally governed Minnesota, with an unemployment rate of just 3.7 percent, has one of the stronger economies in the nation.

And the subsequent coverage from the liberal echo chamber has been positively intoxicating for DFLers:

“This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage — Now, His State’s Economy Is One of the Best in the Country” (Huffington Post)

“The Unnatural: How Mark Dayton Bested Scott Walker—and Became the Most Successful Governor in the Country”  (Mother Jones)

“What happens when you tax the rich and raise the minimum wage? Meet one of USA’s best economies” (Daily Kos)

Comparative_Economic_Systems__SwedenHigh as a kite from these clippings and the vindication they represent, DFLers run the risk of over-stepping, of pushing Minnesotans further than it they are comfortable going. As much as DFL politicians fantasize about bringing the social welfare model of a Scandinavian nation to a state populated with so many Scandinavian immigrants, a recent survey in the Star Tribune provides a harsh reminder that Minnesota, politically speaking, is not MinneSweden.

In the wake of a $2 billion budget surplus, only one out of five (19 percent) Minnesotans wants to “spend most to improve services.” Among the Independent voters that DFLers need to persuade in order to win elections and legislative power, only one out of four (24 percent) supports spending the entire surplus.

At the same time, two times as many Minnesotans support the predictable Republican proposal to “refund most to taxpayers” (38 percent support). Their refund proposal is also the most popular option among the Independent voters that Republicans need to win over in order to have electoral success in 2016.

The Star Tribune also reported that their survey found that Minnesotans are not too wild about the gas tax increase the DFLers propose.  A slim majority (52 percent) oppose “Governor Dayton’s proposal to raise the wholesale tax on gasoline to increase spending on road and bridge projects?”  A healthier majority (62 percent) of Minnesota’s’s Independents oppose the gas tax increase.

I happen to agree with the DFL on the merits.  Minnesota has a lot of hard work to do in order to remain competitive into the future, so I personally support investing almost all of the budget surplus, with a healthy amount for the rainy day fund, and a gas tax increase. However at the same time, I’m enough of a realist to recognize that sustainable progressive change won’t happen if Daily Kos-drunk DFLers overstep and lose the confidence of swing voters in the process.

DFLers who want to win back the trust of a majority of the Minnesota electorate would be wise to enact a mix of sensibly targeted investments, a resilient rainy day fund and targeted tax relief.  That kind of pragmatic, balanced approach won’t turn into St. Paul into Stockholm, but it might just put more DFLers in power, so that the DFL can ensure Republicans don’t turn Minnesota into South Dakota or Wisconsin.

Ad Agency Self-Gratification

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South_Dakota_Yanks_‘Don_t_Jerk___Drive’_Campaign_--_NYMagA lot of us got a chuckle out of news that South Dakota public safety officials had launched, and abruptly aborted, a public education campaign about erratic driving practices. In case you missed it, the ad campaign used a double entendre– “don’t jerk and drive” — to caution South Dakota drivers to avoid jerking vehicle steering wheels too abruptly.  In the unlikely event that you don’t follow the entendre, think naughty and adolescent.

Entirely predictably, the residents of this no-nonsense midwestern state populated with plenty of senior citizens, religious people and conservatives didn’t appreciate the gag. After hearing from them, the state’s Department of Public Safety quickly jerked the campaign.

“I decided to pull the ad,” Trevor Jones, secretary of the Department of Public Safety, said in a statement. “This is an important safety message, and I don’t want this innuendo to distract from our goal to save lives on the road.”

Equally predictably, the ad industry is now indignant that their cleverness has not been sufficiently appreciated by shallow-minded outsiders. Ad Week opines:

The campaign, from Lawrence & Schiller in Sioux Falls, was apparently getting great visibility—outperforming previous public safety campaigns 25 to 1 in terms of driving traffic to the DPS’s social media channels, according to the Argus Leader.

Maybe it’s the DPS who overcorrected here.

Ah yes, the familiar rejoinder of seemingly every ad agency who has ever embarrassed their client. “But look at all the attention it got?!”

Wrong Kind of Attention Generated

If simple campaign gag awareness were the only goal of ads, advertising would be pretty easy. One would only need to slap naughty or outrageous images and/or references into ads, and watch the social media sharing spike, for all the wrong reasons.

This agency was paid to get South Dakota drivers to focus on erratic driving. Through a flurry of campaign-related discussion over the last few days, I heard no one talking about the nature of the problem of erratic driving.  I heard no one talking about the specifics about how to do better. Instead, I heard tons of tee-heeing about masturbation. I heard angry ranting about stupid, naive and wasteful government officials. I heard debates about whether this was good or bad advertising.

That’s attention, but it’s the wrong kind of attention.  All of those those topics distract and detract from the intended mission-oriented message.

Wrong Tone For This Sponsor

Beyond spotlighting the public service message, another goal of the ad agency should be to enhance, or at least maintain, the long-term credibility of their client as a messenger and recipient of public funding. After all, if a campaign causes an ad sponsor to become less credible or funded, they lose their future ability to pursue the public education parts of their mission.

In this case, the ad agency’s ads caused the DPS, and South Dakota state government in general, to be ridiculed by the taxpayers and policymakers they rely on to fund their current and future operations. So, the agency failed their client on that level too.

It’s obviously a very different situation if an agency’s client has a brand that is provocative and edgy by design, such as Abercrombie, Axe, or Armnai. But the tonality needs of the South Dakota Department of Public Safety could hardly be more different than the tonality needs of those brands.  Lawrence & Schiller probably wishes DPS was a more edgy client, but ad agencies get the clients they are handed, not the clients they wish for.

Appealed to Wrong Audiences

Sure, some loved the campaign. And if South Dakota were a state dominated by adolescents, irreverent hipsters, ad industry employees, or Europeans (because we are constantly being reminded by ad industry folks that the Europeans aren’t nearly as repressed and humorless as Americans), “don’t jerk and drive” would have been a brilliant approach.

But the population of South Dakota looks a little different than that.  Again, ad agencies get the target audience they are handed, not the target audience they wish for.  And frankly, for an ad agency to act otherwise is nothing more than, well, self-gratification.

The Three S’s Of How Democrat Weiland Could Win The SD Senate Seat This Fall

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Could a progressive Democrat really win the U.S. Senate seat in a bright red state that gave Mitt Romney 58% of the vote?

Maybe, because of an unprecedented aligning of the political stars.  Democratic South Dakota Senate candidate Rick Weiland is within 6 points of defeating  former Republican Governor Mike Rounds.  Remarkably, the extremely well-known former Governor Rounds has remained stuck for months at just 40 percent support.

If Weiland can remind moderates and progressives that former GOP U.S. Senator Larry Pressler, who is currently trying to sweet talk non-conservatives, has an extremely conservative voting record, Weiland could win the seat with under 45 percent of the vote.  Because independent candidates’ support typically shrinks in the closing days of a campaign, peeling away Pressler’s non-conservative support is certainly within Weiland’s grasp.

In South Dakota?  How could that be?  There are three primary reasons:

  • Pressler_Reagan_BushSEGMENTATION.  First, there’s simple electoral math.  There are three prominent conservative GOP officeholders  on the November ballot — a former GOP state legislator with Tea Party support (Gordon Howie), former GOP Governor (Mike Rounds) and former GOP U.S. Senator (Larry Pressler).  That divides South Dakota conservatives in three, which is thrice as nice for the lone Democrat on the ballot.
  • Rick_Weiland_311_townsSHOE-LEATHER.  Second, by all accounts Weiland is running circles around his opponents.  In recent months, Rick “Everywhere Man” Weiland became the first candidate in South Dakota history to campaign in all 311 South Dakota towns, many of them multiple times.  In a state with only a few hundred thousand voters, those personal connections, and the work ethic they represent, matter.  Meanwhile the embattled Rounds has been jetting around the nation raising money from wealthy non-South Dakotans, and staying away from debates, while the long-retired Pressler has kept his nostalgia tour on a relatively leisurely schedule.
  • Rick_Weiland_EB-5_adSCANDAL.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is something called EB-5. EB-5 is a federal program that lets wealthy foreign businesspeople cut to the front of the green card line, if they fork over a half million dollars to a local business venture.    The “auctioning citizenship” aspect of EB-5 is extremely unpopular in itself, and Rounds administered South Dakota’s version of EB-5 in a way that allowed a Rounds supporter to run the program, hire himself to profit from the program that he was running, and screw up the program in ways that are incompetent at best and criminal at worst.  The result:  State and federal investigations, a steady stream of news media probing and red hot criticism from politicians of all parties, all aimed at the besieged Rounds.

For Democrats desperate for U.S. Senate electoral wins in a tough political environment, it’s quite possible that this equation could work:  Segmentation + Shoe-leather + Scandal = Senate Seat.  It could happen, if Weiland is able to raise enough money to get his message out and defend himself down the home stretch.

– Loveland

Billionaire Purchases Naming Rights To Uninsured South Dakotans

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Sioux Falls, South Dakota — South Dakota billionaire banker and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford announced today that he will fund free health coverage for 48,000 uninsured, low-income South Dakotans.  The announcement comes in the wake of Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard’s continued refusal to accept $224 million in federal funding to cover the same group of citizens.

In recent years, Sanford has been lauded for donating large amounts of money to South Dakota health facilities, sports complexes, and other popular projects.   The high interest banker often has his projects named after him, such as Sanford Health™, Sanford Children’s™, Sanford Heart™,  Sanford Medical School™, Sanford Pentagon™, Sanford Sports Complex™, and Denny Sanford Premier Center™.

Sanford’s latest donation comes in the midst of a bitter political debate that has been intensifying in South Dakota for several years.

As part of the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes called Obamacare, about 48,000 low income South Dakotans are eligible for Medicaid coverage.  By the year 2020, South Dakota was to have received a massive influx of $224 million due to this expansion of coverage.

Medicaid_ExpansionHowever Governor Daugaard has refused the $224 million to cover uninsured poor people, citing his  personal opposition to Obamacare and the cost of the expansion that would be paid by South Dakota.  The federal government is paying 100 percent of the total costs through 2016, and 90 percent after that.

The neighboring states of Iowa, North Dakota, and Minnesota are all expanding Medicaid coverage to uninsured citizens, while Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming are not.  States that are opting out of the program will leave over 5 million of the poorest Americans without basic health benefits, or shifting their health care costs to other citizens.

Under pressure from South Dakota physicians and 63% of South Dakotans who support the Medicaid expansion, Daugaard recently asked the federal government to cover a little over half of the eligible citizens, but deny coverage to the rest of eligible citizens. The federal government rejected Daugaard’s proposal, leaving all 48,000 South Dakotans without coverage.  The Legislature  refused to allow the Medicaid expansion question to be posed to South Dakota voters at the ballot box.

But Sanford stepped into the fray today, announcing that he is creating a new Medicaid-like health plan, which he is calling SanfordCare™.  Any South Dakota citizen who would have been eligible for the Obamacare expansion would be eligible for the free SandfordCare™ coverage, provided they agree to legally change their surnames to Sanford™.  Any children born while under the health coverage would also have to adopt the first name Denny™ or Denita™.

Note:  This post is, to the best of our knowledge, satire.  There is no SanfordCare proposal, but there are 48,000 South Dakotans being denied health coverage.

Why Aren’t Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Minnesotans Happier?

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The news media loves state rankings and report cards.  A constant array of news stories continually lets states know how well they’re keeping up the with the Jones’s in their national neighborhood.

This coverage often leads to the vigorous debates between political activists and leaders about which ratings matter most?  Many conservatives prefer measures such as “best business climate,” “most free,” “most religious,” and “lowest taxes.”  Many liberals covet measures such as “healthiest,” “best educated,” “best quality of life,” or “best child wellness.”

Who is right?  Nobody and everybody, of course.  It depends on what each individual values most in life.

That’s why the ultimate state ranking is Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index, which measures the proportion of a state’s citizens that self-report that they are “thriving.” I like this measure, because it focuses on happiness bottom lines, not the variables that research designers speculate are the ingredients for happiness. Continue reading →