It’s true that sometimes leadership and legislative wisdom can clash with the popular will – after all, we don’t hire representatives to convey our express will into the legislature, we hire them to figure out what’s best and then do it. But it’s a ticklish high wire we cross when this comes up – when is it leadership, and when is it base corruption? Several factors need to be observed, including the reasonability of the claim – does it pass the sniff test?
So the activities of the South Dakota legislature need this examination, because they seem to contravening the will of the voters who approved a referendum, as Salon reports:
Republican lawmakers in South Dakota have refused to enact a ballot measure instituting campaign finance, lobbying reforms, public financing for campaigns and creating the first independent ethics commission in the state’s history. The bill passed with 52 percent the vote.
The South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act makes it illegal for lawmakers to receive more than a total of $100 annually from lobbyists in the form of “any compensation, reward, employment, gift, honorarium, beverage, meal, food, or other thing of value made or given directly or indirectly.” Under the new law, an independent ethics commission would investigate ethics and campaign finance complaints lodged against legislative and executive branch officials.
The opposition was primarily the Koch brothers, and after the measure passed,
Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard has argued that voters were “hoodwinked by scam artists who grossly misrepresented these proposed measures.” Republican House Majority Leader Lee Qualm said, “We need to get rid of this as quickly as possible.”
Surely you’d think they’d understand how bad this behavior looks to the average voter, at least those who paid attention and gave the bill serious thought. Now, perhaps they have a point, and if so, if they have average communications skills they’ll be OK. But without seeing those arguments, I have to fall back on general observations of the GOP for the current year, and it’s not looking good. The scandalous doings of the North Carolina legislature is getting to be emblematic, although the attempt at the Federal level to gut the ethics watchdog is certainly closer to what’s going on here.
It’ll be interesting to see what comes next, since, as Salon reports, the South Dakota legislature operated under a “state of emergency,” which nullifies any direct attempts to reverse the legislature’s action, as can otherwise happen. In some ways, it’s almost as if the GOP is asking to get booted in the teeth by the citizens; however, it’d have to be a big boot, as the GOP is in overwhelming control of the South Dakota legislature.
They’d be better advised to embrace these sorts of initiatives, to proclaim they’re so pure that there’s nothing to fear from such laws for their part; only their opponents need fear those laws. But right now, it looks like a bunch of cockroaches scurrying about, frantically trying to hide from God.
Or someone’s boot.
