Political Smokeout

Daugaard endorses Rounds for Senate

“I don’t think this should be a surprise,” Gov. Dennis Daugaard tells The Daily Republic, and indeed I’m not even sure to what degree it’s new information. Daugaard has always been supportive of Rounds and consulted with him prior to Rounds’ Senate announcement. But this may be the first time Daugaard has been recorded as explicitly saying he’s backing Rounds in the 2014 Senate primary, though this has clearly been a fact for a long time.

Of course, Daugaard and primary endorsements have a history of their own. Will the governor get any significant backlash from endorsing Rounds, as he did when he dipped his toe into legislative primaries?

Another paper cut for Gant

Secretary of State Jason Gant hasn’t had a good month.

Dating back to late May, Gant’s endured a handful of minor incidents (I don’t want to use the word “scandal,” which is probably too strong), none of which are (yet, at least) terribly damaging, but each of which has chipped away a little at Gant’s reputation.

First came Gant’s endorsement in a (losing) legislative primary race, which infuriated conservative Republicans but didn’t (unlike Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s primary endorsements) stir up many defenders of Gant’s action.

Other people questioned Gant’s decision to validate Rep. Brian Gosch’s petitions despite questions about how they were notarized.

Then came concerns about Gant’s employee Pat Powers, a former blogger and entrepreneur whose entrepreneurial activities continued part-time while Powers was employed by the Secretary of State. It’s unclear if Powers broke any laws or even any best practices, but he and Gant are under investigation by Attorney General Marty Jackley at the request of Powers’ old rival, Sen. Stan Adelstein. This investigation could lead to nothing, or could lead to a bigger headache for Gant and Powers.

As regards Gant’s official duties, a new campaign finance system drew mixed reviews when he unveiled it for the primaries. The system replaces an old, antiquated model with a new, capable website. But the rollout was sort of clunky, and some lawmakers said their reports had delays in posting even though they filed them on time. Others worried candidates were gaming the system to hide donations and expenditures until after the election. Gant’s now investigating delayed filings and will presumably improve the system when all candidates convert to it for the fall election. But it definitely could have gone more smoothly.

Now today, reporter Bob Mercer writes that Gant’s own consulting corporation appears to have had fictitious information in the corporate registry at Gant’s office — information that got fixed after Mercer started poking around online. Gant says this was just a mistake involving his staff uploading dummy information, and this may just end up being a minor embarrassment for the secretary of state.

But altogether, Gant is undergoing a sort of death-by-paper-cut. Nothing has irrevocably tainted Gant’s image and reputation, but I bet he’d sure look forward to a few months of good news right about now.

The Noem endorsement

Earlier, I reported on furor over the endorsements of Rep. Val Rausch by Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Secretary of State Jason Gant. There was also a third statewide GOP bigwig who endorsed Rausch in that primary that the Speaker of the House lost to Sen. Tim Begalka: Rep. Kristi Noem.

Here’s the postcard in question, originally posted by Cory Heidelberger at Madville Times:

“Not only is Val Rausch a good friend, but he’s a serious legislator who cares deeply about his state and his district. — Congresswoman Kristi Noem”

I’ve gotten more than a few emails and comments from people angry over that, so reached out today to Noem’s office for a statement.

Her communications director, Andrea McCarthy, sent this in response:

Kristi and Val are good friends and served on the leadership team together in Pierre. He asked Kristi for a statement for a mail piece and she wanted to help him out because of their personal friendship and past work experience.

That answers one of my questions: this was a statement Noem provided directly to Rausch for this primary, not an old quote from a past election he dredged up. Noem and Rausch served together in the House Republican leadership for several years, while Noem and Begalka did not overlap in the Legislature.

McCarthy said Rausch was the only candidate Noem endorsed, and only because Rausch requested it. (That was the same story I heard from Gant — he only endorsed Rausch, an old friend, and only because Rausch asked for it.)

Begalka said he was “a little upset” over Noem’s statement at first, even removing his Kristi Noem bumper sticker from his car and replacing it with a Kristie Fiegen sticker. But he said he has since “got over it.”

Begalka said he still believes the endorsement was inappropriate, but predicted supporters who similarly got angry about Noem’s endorsement of Rausch wouldn’t hold it against her for long — especially since those conservatives would all prefer Noem to Democrat Matt Varilek.

“If she had a primary… this might hurt her,” Begalka said.

Is Begalka right that this will blow over?

The value of polling

In the comments for my earlier post on what else Gov. Dennis Daugaard has provided to the candidate he’s endorsed, “Grumpy” raises a question:

So far I am not seeing the in-kind contributions these people recieved from the Governor being reflected properly on their pre-primary reports????

Is it because it was paid for by taxpayer monies or???

If it was paid for by the Daugaard Campaign, what do they have to hide? Law says they must declare the in-kind receipt of goods or services, clearly expensive polling is services they received.

The second question is easy: it was paid for by the governor’s campaign funds.

I put the other questions to Tony Venhuizen, Daugaard’s senior advisor who was also the governor’s campaign manager in 2010.

Venhuizen said providing polling data doesn’t count as an in-kind contribution to these lawmakers campaigns because “the Daugaard campaign didn’t incur any additional cost by sharing it.” The primary value of the polls, Venhuizen said, was to Daugaard himself. Value to the legislative candidates was secondary.

EDIT: Here’s a link to Daugaard for South Dakota’s campaign finance data so far this year. The new campaign finance system is having all sorts of problems, so take it with a grain of salt.

Whether that was the campaign’s true motivations or not is impossible to determine. But as a matter of law, it seems about right. Do people disagree?

What if Daugaard had endorsed the other guys?

There’s been widespread outrage in certain segments of the South Dakota Republican Party over Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s endorsements of five candidates in competitive primaries.

My story in today’s Argus Leader reported on a press conference by two of those ticked-off Republicans. It featured two types of criticisms of the endorsements, which I feel are pretty representative:

• It’s inappropriate for a governor to intervene in a primary at all
• By picking the less conservative candidates in primaries — including some candidates critics say aren’t really conservative at all — Daugaard is betraying the principles of his party

So here’s my hypothetical: if in each of these five races, Daugaard had endorsed the OTHER candidate, what would the reaction have been?

In other words, had Daugaard endorsed Lora Hubbel, Tim Begalka, Phil Jensen, George Ferebee and Bob Ewing, would conservative activists still be criticizing Daugaard on the grounds that a governor shouldn’t be endorsing?

Maybe some would. But my bet is that most would be praising the governor for supporting the right (no pun intended) side in an ideological war.

Similarly, would establishment Republicans be suggesting that maybe the Tea Party-backing Bizarro Daugaard really should stay neutral in GOP primaries? I’m betting some would.

Some people really care about process. Most people just use process as an argument, when convenient, to bolster their preferred political or policy outcomes.

Venhuizen: No quid pro quo on HB1234

I’ve seen some people speculating that Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s endorsements in primaries were part of deals made to secure support for HB 1234, the governor’s education bill that passed by one vote. So I put that question to his spokesman Tony Venhuizen last week. Venhuizen said that while Daugaard looked at a variety of factors, chiefly fiscal conservatism but also support for other parts of the governor’s agenda, there weren’t any sort of deals.

“Mike Buckingham wasn’t in the Legislature last year,” Venhuizen said. “Of the other four, they were all strong supporters of the bill from the beginning. None of them were wavering votes.”

Three of the five — Nelson, Rampelberg and Peters — were in the Senate, where HB 1234 wasn’t close. Rausch was in the House, where the bill passed narrowly, but my memory would seem to confirm Venhuizen’s statement that he was a supporter of the bill from the beginning.

Peters, specifically, was closely involved in drafting the legislation as part of the “Gang of Six.”

As a reminder, two House lawmakers initially voted against HB 1234 and then switched their votes to supporting it: Rep. Don Kopp, R-Rapid City, and Rep. Jim Schaefer, R-Kennebec. A third, Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls, said he was going to vote against it and then changed his mind. There may have been others who were wavering but were solidified as “yes” votes at the last minute, but their wavering was less public.

If anyone sees the above lawmakers getting unusual support from the governor, be sure to let me know.

When do secretaries of state endorse?

My article in this morning’s Argus Leader took a look at Secretary of State Jason Gant, who endorsed a legislative candidate this year. That candidate’s opponent said it’s inappropriate. I took a look both back in time (Gant’s two predecessors said they intentionally didn’t get involved in politics like that) and across the country, talking to secretaries of state from North Dakota and Minnesota for their thoughts.

I also checked in with the National Association of Secretaries of State for a nationwide perspective. The group’s spokeswoman said it’s not uncommon for secretaries of state to get involve in primaries, though it’s also not uncommon for them to refuse to do so.

She also sent me over, too late to make it into the article, a 2007 survey the organization did of its members about this very issue. Some of the results are out of date due to changes in the law or turnover in office — for example, South Dakota is listed as a state where the secretary voluntarily refuses to make endorsements, which was the case under then-Secretary of State Chris Nelson but not under Gant.

Despite that change, I’ll present the results verbatim with the caveat that some of this may no longer be fully accurate:

Summary of NASS Survey on State Election Official Ethics Laws & Practices

The States & Chief State Election Officials

Apart from the incomplete nature of this survey (25 total state responses), any examination of state ethics laws and practices should take into account the jurisdictional differences that exist between secretaries of state, as well as those that exist between secretaries of state and other chief state election officials.

Thirty-six secretaries of state serve as chief state election official. Alaska and Utah, two of the three states that do not have a secretary of state position, assign elections oversight duties to their lieutenant governors. All of these officials are affiliated with a political party. However, some are elected, and others are appointed.

Of the nine secretaries of state who are appointed by their governor, three serve as chief state election official: Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. In Maine and New Hampshire, the state legislature elects the secretary of state (Tennessee uses this process as well, but while the secretary of state oversees the state elections office, the state elections director serves as the legally-designated chief state election official). Wisconsin, which does not designate any election responsibilities to the secretary of state, is the only state in the nation that requires election officials and all state board of elections staff to be nonpartisan officials.

State Ethical & Legal Guidelines for Chief State Election Officials

In addition to the official oath that each secretary of state takes to uphold his/her state laws and constitution, some are taking additional steps to publicly demonstrate a commitment to fairness and neutrality, including the following:

• Some adhere to strict ethical codes that exceed those for other state office holders, including restrictions from serving on political campaign committees (i.e. Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, and Virginia). 
• Some secretaries of state voluntarily refuse to serve on political campaign committees, or to publicly endorse candidates for office (i.e. Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota).
• North Carolina has adopted a law designed to limit local election officials from making public endorsements of candidates, as well as an oversight system for handling conflict of interest complaints.
• In Maine, the secretary of state may not form a PAC or be involved with decision-making related to a PAC.
• Some secretaries of state work with election directors who can make decisions independent of the secretary of state in the event of a contested election, often times under the protection of civil servant status (i.e. Maine and Vermont).

The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) affirmed its collective commitment to fair and impartial election administration by unanimously adopting a bipartisan statement on the subject in 2005. In February 2007, the association added similar language to the ethics section of its constitution. All materials are available online at www.nass.org.

States that responded to this survey (or submitted pertinent information as part of previous surveys):  

AZ, CO, CT, GA, ID, LA, MD*, ME, LA, MS, NC**, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, OH, OK*, PA, SD, UT, VA*, WA, WI*, WV. 

*State Board of Elections; Not a Secretary of State Office

Beyond Daugaard’s endorsements

Gov. Dennis Daugaard gave more than just public support to the five candidates he’s supported in Republican legislative primaries.

According to Daugaard’s senior advisor Tony Venhuizen, in addition to statements of support, the governor:

• Wrote a letter to the editor in support of Rep. Val Rausch, R-Big Stone City, in his battle with Sen. Tim Begalka, R-Clear Lake
• Attended a “meet and greet” event with Sen. Tom Nelson, R-Lead
• Gave Rausch and Sen. Deb Peters, R-Hartford, $500 each from his campaign fund

That’s on top of providing those candidates with polling data.

The other candidates Daugaard endorsed are Sen. Bruce Rampelberg and former Rep. Mike Buckingham, both senate candidates from Rapid City.

Daugaard endorses fifth candidate

Gov. Dennis Daugaard has now endorsed five different legislative candidates in Republican primaries.

The first three, reported a few days ago by the Rapid City Journal’s Kevin Woster, were all incumbent legislators facing challengers: Senators Bruce Rampelberg, Tom Nelson and Deb Peters.

The two latest are different ducks. One, Mike Buckingham, is running for an open Senate seat — against current Rep. Phil Jensen. The other, Val Rausch, is a current House member, termed out, who’s challenging an incumbent senator in Tim Begalka.

Read my Argus Leader story here.

Daugaard’s spokesman Tony Venhuizen said he didn’t see anything wrong with endorsing in an open seat, or with picking Rausch over Begalka. Even though Rausch is challenging Begalka, they’re both current lawmakers. They “can both be viewed as being incumbents,” Venhuizen said.

Should the governor be endorsing at all in party primaries? What about endorsing when it’s not a case of supporting an incumbent — or even going so far as to challenge an incumbent?

Perhaps more interesting is what Daugaard did before endorsing. Look for that in another post.