By Denise Ross

For many South Dakotans — particularly elected leaders — the ACLU of the Dakotas has been like that pesky neighbor who’s always peeking out the window to see if you’re doing anything wrong. Make no mistake, this neighbor ain’t movin’ up or out. And she has a phone tree that keeps on growing.

This week’s edition of Talkin’ Smack: The South Dakota Political Junkie’s Weekly Fix on the Inside Dope features the executive director of the ACLU of the Dakotas, who faithfully lobbies each legislative session and whose name is as familiar to the state’s elected officials as their real-life neighbors’.

Love it or hate it, the ACLU of the Dakotas has been active — most publicly via lawsuits — in South Dakota, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

Jennifer Ring

I talked to Jennifer Ring while I was in Pierre on Thursday for newspaper day.

(Sorry this is tardy. I took a three-day weekend and just got back to work today.)

By Bill Harlan

It’s coming within minutes to a TV near you. Mount Blogmore is open for state or the union critiques.

Text of the speech at the NYT.

And go to the WP for the text of Gov. Timothy Kaine’s Democratic response. (Sign-up may be necessary.)

By Bill Harlan

See my story in Tuesday’s paper about science and technology legislation Congress is considering. (The link’s not up yet, but check the RCJ homepage.) There seems to be bipartisan support for beefing up research and science education, which, in the long run, might bode well for an underground lab project somewhere. Still, Congress is a long, long way from writing the checks.

Meanwhile, I recommend two reports that, in part, inspired the legislation.

- You can download the all 150 pages of “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.” You can buy it or get if free as a big pdf. Some minor signup required.

- The findings of the National Summit on Competitiveness,”, which was held Dec. 6 in Washington.

By Bill Harlan

South Dakota’s own John Thune made Chris Cillizza’s Washington Post politics blog, “The Fix,” on Monday afternoon. Cillizza speculates on Thune’s chances to head the National Republican Senatorial Committee. You’ve heard most of it before, in RCJ and on the Mount, but he adds some wrinkles.

An excerpt:

“Thune also is likely to benefit from the fact that the other potential NRSC candidates cannot seek the post next cycle. North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), the current NRSC chairwoman, is up for reelection in 2008 and by conference rules is barred from standing for a second term at the committee. Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.), who lost the NRSC chairmanship by one vote to Dole in Dec. 2004, is also running for reelection in 2008.

“Should Thune ascend to the NRSC chairmanship next cycle, expect the talk of a potential presidential candidacy to begin in earnest. Thune is already mentioned in some circles as a serious vice presidential pick depending on who ultimately wins the GOP nomination in 2008.”

By Bill Harlan

State Senate Democratic Leader Garry Moore says he doesn’t like the way Rounds administration officials treat him. Check out his radio actuality on the state Democratic Party site.

Here’s the gist:

“Their idea of cooperation is to come upstairs, on the third floor, put their finger in your chest and say your bill needs to be done. No tact. No charisma. Probably some of the rudest people I’ve seen. The governor needs to look at his staff, get rid of some of the people that do not have any charisma or tact …”

I wonder what happened.

By Kevin Woster

Gov. Mike Rounds was in the bleachers for a string of basketball games in the Black Hills Friday and Saturday, but apparently he wasn’t in the sky coming and going.

Rounds, sitting with his wife, Jean, was introduced during at the high school gym at Sturgis during the varsity game between the Scoopers and the Pierre Governors Saturday afternoon. Rounds’s son, John, is a junior who plays JV ball and dresses with the varsity for the Governors.

After the game, the governor and his wife jumped in an SUV with the distinctive “1″ license plates and headed for Rapid City, where they watched the women of South Dakota Tech in action. Jean Rounds’ niece, Melanie Vedvei, is the star point guard for Tech. Then they drove back to Pierre.

Rounds spokesman Mark Johnston said Monday that the governor still flies to games when it fits into his work schedule. Some critics have challenge the propriety of that practice, but Rounds maintains that it’s perfectly appropriate.

Round also watched the Pierre-Spearfish game, and the sub-varsity contests, on Friday.

“He said he got to watch a total of seven games in two days,” Johnston said.

That’s a little bit of heaven for a roundball lover, even if he doesn’t get to slip the surly bonds of earth to get there.

By Bill Harlan

South Dakota’s own John Thune gets quoted in the NYT in a story headlined Lawmakers Urge Bush to Make Abramoff Information Public . Reporter Brian Knowlton (actually of the Intl Herald Trib) reports on Republican lawmakers urging the president to release information about his relationship with Jack Abramoff, including photos.

The relevant excerpt:

“Get it out, get it out,” Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, said of the Abramoff material. He suggested on ABC television that photos of Mr. Abramoff with Mr. Bush were likely to emerge anyway and that “disclosure is the best and most effective way to deal with all of these things.”
Senator John Thune of South Dakota and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, both Republicans, echoed that thought. “More is better, in terms of disclosure and transparency,” Mr. Thune said on Fox.

By Kevin Woster

Periodically during the last year or so, I’ve received emails or telephone calls from people who thought Jay Torgerson deserved at least part of the blame for his own death.

It seems like a bizarre notion to me. But here, decide for yourself.

Torgerson was set up in a goose-decoy spread on a public walk-in hunting area in December of 2004 when he was shot in the head by Martin area farmer Brad Johnson from about an eighth of a mile away.

Martin, whose dad owned the land and leased it to Game, Fish & Parks for public hunting, said he was trying to flush geese off a field of windrowed millet. He used a rifle. It was a horrid accident, for which Johnson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment after a prosecutor determined the incident didn’t deserve a more serious manslaughter charge.

Johnson served a few weeks in jail. He also had to do community service and meet with Torgerson family members, including Jay Torgerson’s mom, Carol.Carol thought a misdemeanor was small punishment for the life of her son, accident or not. She pushed for legislation to create a new negligent homicide crime, a felony, for instances like her son’s death.

A legislative committee rejected the bill Friday, a tough vote, since Carol Torgerson was sitting in the audience. She pledged to keep up the fight.

The Journal story on the vote brought in the latest email expounding on Jay Torgerson’s role in his own death. The reader, who came from a farm, said Torgerson could have avoided the accident simply by notifying the Johnson family that he would be hunting in the walk-in area that day.

No such notification is necessary under terms of the walk-in hunting lease that Brad Johnson’s dad signed with GF&P. In fact the idea of the leases is to provide ready access to areas for the public without having to contact the individual owners. The leased areas function like regular public-hunting land. Some landowners like the leases in large part because they don’t have to deal with hunters directly.

The area Torgerson was hunting is popular hunting area, regularly hunted.
The Johnson family knew that. Brad Johnson said he even checked with binoculars before he fired at decoys he thought were geese, to make sure there weren’t hunters there.

But both Torgerson and his hunting parter were concealed among the decoys.

Did he play a role in this horrid accident? Or was it simply a terrible decision by Johnson?

By Bill Harlan

The state Legislature is considering SB 1134, a bill to allow you and me to use deadly force to defend against serious injury or death.

Go ahead, blog my day.

By Bill Harlan

State Sen. Tom Hansen, R-Huron, offers SB156, which would prohibit protests at funerals. The idea is to prevent anti-war protests at funerals for military personnel. Here’s Hansen in the AP story (posted on the RCJ homepage):

“They were young people that gave their lives in the service of our country,” Hansen said. “Some would say they gave their lives defending our freedoms so that even the inconsiderate and disrespectful could be allowed to express themselves.” Hansen said he believes in free speech, but there is a time and place for it. It is not proper to demonstrate when people are burying their loved ones, he said.

Jennifer Ring of the ACLU didn’t object to the idea of the bill, but she did say it should make the location of the banned protests more specific — say within 500 feet or whatever. Ring says a strict interpretation of the law as written might result in banning protests anywhere in the state during a funeral.

I have a couple questions. First, what if the protesters are loved ones themselves but their protest upsets other loved ones? Also, could this law conflict with the intellectual diversity measure noted in a topic below? For example, what if the USD Young Republicans invite Rush Limbaugh to their protest on the day of a Planned Parenthood supporter’s funeral?

By Denise Ross

I jumped the gun a few days ago in chiding Sen. Tim Johnson for announcing on Thursday how he would vote for Alito (in favor, it turns out). I was under the misapprehension that the senators, once floor debate officially opened earlier this week, would say what they had to say and get down to business.

Turns out I’m way naive — or easily distracted by shiny objects. According to the AP, the final vote is scheduled for Tuesday — the seemingly doomed filibuster effort notwithstanding. (Hillary joined this sputtering bandwagon Friday.)

I was a little too quick to call the senator out, but (sorry, Julianne, I just can’t resist) I would note that had Johnson been a few hours quicker, he could have basked in the limelight that instead went to Ben Nelson.

In the meantime, I offer this: With Johnson voting for Alito and Mike Rounds throwing his political chips down on a minimum wage increase, I wonder did these guys wave at each other as they passed each other — in the middle of the political spectrum — following the path to ‘08?

By Denise Ross

Over the years there have been various bills introduced — and sometimes passed — in the SD Legislature requiring health insurance companies to cover various maladies, conditions or, umm, procedures — the details of which often make for uncomfortable conversation filled with awkward pauses and carefully placed glances.

Such mandates were largely blamed for the dwindling number of health insurance companies doing business in SD, and our insurance salesman in chief took action once he was elected governor and, last I knew, was having mostly success in turning the tide — marred by the side effects of the risk pool he engineered.

Now comes House Bill 1183 , which would require health insurance plans to cover contraception.

Heaven help me, I don’t have the foggiest notion what insurance companies are required to do in SD, but doesn’t Medicare and/or Medicaid require erectile dysfunction (insert awkward pause here) drugs like Viagra to be covered?

So, based on that shaky premise, I ask, if Viagra, why not the pill/ring/patch/shot?

By Kevin Woster

Want to stop the conversation in polite, generally liberal company? Try this:

“So, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh this morning, and …”

I’ve actually drawn audible gasps with that personal revelation. Once, a college-aged woman who had never previously suspected that I was an intellectual cretin, and perhaps a Nazi, actually stepped back a pace or two to get away from me.

But, yes, I listen to Rush. I listen to Hannity, too. Also Ed Schultz, the liberal imitation of Limbauch who does his screeching in the evenings. I listen most to NPR, but I also enjoy the AM yowling, both to see what each screecher considers to be the news du jour and also to get a frame of reference for the far edges of the ludicrous.

Rush - who is fully capable of making insightful and legitimate points, but prefers to scream distorted facts and mean-spirited exaggerations - resorted to the absurd today when he said: “I don’t attack people.”

He said it more than once, in response to a caller who accused him of making personal attacks, something the Rushmeister indignantly denied.

He doesn’t attack people, you see, he simply defends good-hearted American folks who are unfairly attacked by others - primarily liberals.

“I never attack people,” he said, more than once.

That might just be the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard on AM yet.

By Bill Harlan

Does HB 1222 strike anyone else as odd? See Celeste C’s story in today’s paper about Republican state Rep. Phyllis Heineman’s bill to protect “intellectual diversity” on South Dakota’s college campuses. (See also the bill itself at the LRC Web site.)

I’m all for intellectual diversity, but you have to admit it’s unusual to find Republicans offering d-word legislation. In fairness, conservatives have long complained of a liberal bias on the nation’s campuses. I’m not aware of any complaints about South Dakota’s campuses, which are not exactly breeding grounds for … well … liberals. Celeste reported Heineman saying, “We are just trying to be proactive and not wait for any incidents, such as the Iraq war veteran who was harassed at Columbia University.”

That brought back a memory for me. After Vietnam, I enrolled at the University of Kentucky. In a political science class I got into an argument with the professor over how the anti-war movement affected U.S. policy. Voices were raised. Faces, if not red, took on a “pinkish hue.” Clearly, the two of us had “diverse” views. Unfortunately, he later gave me an A, foiling my class-action discrimination lawsuit.

Heineman’s bill defines “intellectual diversity” as “the foundation of a learning environment that exposes students to a variety of political, ideological, and other perspectives.” It requires universities to issue a report on steps taken to achieve that. The steps “may” include a measure to “eliminate any speech codes that restrict the freedom of speech.”

Wow. I can’t wait for the lecture by professor Howard Stern.

By Denise Ross

There has been a request to discuss the bills before the SD Legislature to crack down on sex offenders.

Here’s an AP story on them.

So the questions before the Legislature appear to be:

1) How strictly should the law limit where sex offenders can live?

2) How severe should the penalty be for failing to comply with post-prison requirements?

3) How much information should convicted sex offenders be required to give to law enforcement and how often?

4) Should the names, addresses and photographs of convicted sex offenders be published on the Internet?

By Denise Ross

We don’t have much time, apparantly. Tim Johnson is going to announce on Thursday how he will vote on Alito.

Which, excuse me folks in Johnson’s office but come on, isn’t Thursday the day the Senate is likely to vote on Alito? Way to get out ahead of the curve — not that I blame you.

So, Blogmore, bring on the predictions — and include the statements Johnson will make to support his vote.

Go.

By Denise Ross

Secret political fund-raising by executives is drawing the ire, or at least a stern tsk-tsk, from legislative bodies in South Dakota.

In Tuesday’s Arugs Leader, there’s a story about a little gathering the mayor had shortly after he had won his office in 2002. The city council thinks the mayor ought to file a campaign finance report on the money he raised there, which — as far as I can tell — no one disputes was raised as campaign cash.
The mayor says the law is ambiguous — as does the city attorney (who serves at the pleasure of the mayor, I wonder?) — but I can’t imagine a set of circumstances under which money raised for a campaign wouldn’t have to be publicly reported.

Unless Dave Munson has launched his own version of the Governor’s Club. And then it wouldn’t be campaign cash per se. Cuz it would be spent on stuff like, oh, throwing parties for your friends/political comrades/partners in politick. Or maybe it would pay for your trip to a political gathering, like a national party convention. The list of examples goes on and on, and they’re really all just examples, because the SD GOP does not file campaign finance reports on the Governor’s Club. So we don’t really know what the governor spends the money on.

Here’s the story I wrote about this back in 2002.

That’s where Senate Bill 163 comes in. It would require cf reports on said Gov’s Club.

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to revise certain provisions regarding the financial statements filed with the Office of Secretary of State by political party committees.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. That chapter 12-25 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:

For the purposes of any statement filed by a political party committee pursuant to § § 12-25- 13 and 12-25-13.1, the political party committee shall itemize all contributions to and expenditures from each fund and each subfund that the committee maintains.

Sponsored by? Democrats Nesselhuf, Hargens, Haley and Hanson AND Republican Napoli. Which to me is almost as interesting as the absence of Senate Minority Leader Garry Moore.

So even if this bill gets killed in committee — which isn’t necessarily a sure thing — it forces Republicans to vote against it, which would be primo campaign fodder for the next election.

By Kevin Woster

Oh, that Argus Leader. What the heck are we going to do with it?

Apparently John Thune’s staff has the answer: Take off the gloves and rumble.

Thune Communications Director Kyle Downey took on the state’s largest newspaper in an “open letter to the Argus Leader.” It was, of course, intended to be an open letter for everybody else.

In it, Downey gives what he considers to be a body of evidence that “shows a severe bias on the part of the Argus Leader against Senator Thune.” A primary bit of evidence, according to Downey, was the fact that the Argus editorial board didn’t contact Thune’s office prior to writing an editorial critical of Thune’s handling of the U.S. attorney nomination process.

Downey also takes great offense that an Argus editorial said Thune hadn’t been making public comments about his efforts to nominate a U.S. attorney. In fact, Downey said, Thune had comments in an Argus Leader story on that very subject prior to the editorial.

Downey concludes by calling the Argus coverage of Thune “hostile,” and charging that the paper’s editorial was “filled with information that you knew to be inaccurate and it left our relevant facts that you knew existed.”

Now, we make plenty of errors in this business. And we aren’t always as fair and balanced as we could be. The Argus fails there like the rest of us from time to time. But there seems to be little evidence here to back up Downey’s charges of bias and calculated truth manipulation.

And I’m puzzled that he - and, presumably, Thune - would pick this issue for a street fight.

I mean, I wouldn’t expect most editorial writers to contact the staff of a politician to discuss an upcoming editorial before it was published. And while Thune has made a few public comments about the U.S. attorney issue, they didn’t say much - mostly something like “we’re working on it, but I can’t talk about it.”

Downey also was upset that the Argus editorial took Thune to task for “inaction” on filling the U.S. attorney spot that was left open when Jim McMahon left a year ago. I’ll agree with Downey that “inaction” is probably inaccurate. There’s been plenty of action, just no results.

It’s been a year, after all. And we’ve had a couple of acting U.S. attorneys, the current one a very qualified prosecutor from Oklahoma, and a spat between Democratic federal judges, the Justice Department and Thune over who should appoint the acting attorney. But we still haven’t heard from the senator on when and whether he will make a recommendation to the president.

If they’re looking to hammer the Argus, this seems like a pretty weak club to swing.

By Kevin Woster

OK, help me here with a question that came to mind as I read some of the discussion below about Samuel Alito.

Am I wrong in presuming that a president gets to nominate a Supreme Court justice who shares his views? Shouldn’t we expect a conservative like George W. Bush to nominate someone with the same philosophy?

Isn’t that one of the perks of winning the presidential election? The winner gets to pick, and help shape the near future of the high court? Isn’t that sort of what the voters authorize and expect when they make their mark at the polls?

Or are presidents supposed to nominate centrists, regardless of their own philosophical positions and an apparent public mandate?

By Denise Ross

This was to have been a podcast with a bonus file of audio from Saturday’s crackerbarrel. But I did something way wrong, because both files are nothing but silence. I hope it as simple (and as embarrassing) as me plugging the microphone into the wrong jack — a little in-through-the-out-door action. Otherwise, it will take more diagnostic work.

I had been trying to adjust the settings to make for smaller files, so it’s possible I hit a wrong button during that operation.

Anyway, I’m left with nothing and I interviewed the campaign operative who will head up the effort to defeat the gay marriage amendment for the better part of an hour to no avail.

It was bound to happen sometime, I suppose.

Anyway, in lieu of a podcast, I pose this — what is to me a conundrum: Rep. Elizabeth Kraus, quoting from a study from USD, said that for ever $1 increase in the minimum wage, there is a corresponding $1.21 (or close to that) loss to society.

Here are my questions (again, my thoughts turn to you, Frankenfeld): 1 - This seems like an apples and oranges comparison to me, since a $1 hike in the minimum wage is not equal to a $1 expenditure by someone - it is lots and lots of additional $1’s being paid for every hour worked by each and every minimum wage worker. So, is that $1.21 for each of those extra $1’s?

2 - What is the correlation here? What are the components of that $1.21? Where do they come from? How reliable are the measurements? Is that the high end of a range?

3 - What, exactly, is a “loss to society”? What are we counting in that, and are we also counting when children can come off the CHIPs program or pay a bit more for their school lunches or the parents circulate a little more money locally?

I meant to read the report issued by the gov’s office on Friday and haven’t had the time yet, so as I go through that, I might find some answers, and I’ll post those here. But I wanted to get this discussion started. When I first heard that equation, it struck as something ripe for picking apart.