![New South Dakota Landscape Challenges GOP After Political Upheaval Displaces Incumbents | Local Community New South Dakota Landscape Challenges GOP After Political Upheaval Displaces Incumbents | Local Community](https://i0.wp.com/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/yankton.net/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/52/7529903c-23ad-11ef-8691-83693514265b/666120aa1ff71.image.jpg?crop=1578%2C828%2C0%2C242&resize=1200%2C630&order=crop%2Cresize&w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1)
A literal magnitude 3.7 earthquake shook the state Capitol in Pierre last week. State Rep. Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish, said a political earthquake shook the Capitol Tuesday night.
“People are waking up,” Odenbach said.
He and others within a faction of the South Dakota Republican Party say it is run by politicians who are not as conservative as the party’s base of supporters. His efforts to change that contributed to 14 losses for incumbent Republican lawmakers in Tuesday’s primary elections. Odenbach’s political action committee spent $58,000 before the primary to support some of the winning candidates.
Current Republican House Majority Leader Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre, who is unopposed for re-election, said new lawmakers are always welcome, but losing 14 incumbents comes at a cost.
“It’s an opportunity for new ideas, but it means we lost a lot of institutional knowledge,” he said.
Those losses include Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton, who served 24 years in the Legislature, and Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Elizabeth, who served 16 years, among others.
Mortenson’s political action committee spent $48,271 to help some of the incumbents and other candidates Odenbach opposed.
Mortenson attributed the incumbent losses primarily to historically low voter turnout of 17%, which he said creates an environment in which a motivated faction can pick up enough voters to influence a primary race.
PRODUCTS AND PROPERTY TAXES
Odenbach said the rivals won thanks to quality recruiting, a good running game and the right message.
Much of that messaging, especially in eastern South Dakota, capitalized on opposition to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline project. It would collect carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants in South Dakota and other states and move it through an underground pipeline for sequestration in North Dakota, passing farms, ranches and other private properties along the way.
The project has sparked more than two years of legal and legislative disputes over property owners’ rights and eminent domain, the legal maneuver by which a company can seize property for public interest projects.
“Many candidates have said South Dakota is open for business, but not for sale, and that was demonstrated last night,” Odenbach said.
Mortenson and some other Republican leaders passed a bill during the last legislative session to preserve a regulatory path for the pipeline while ensuring that owners receive additional protections. That put them at odds with some members of their own party who sought stricter measures, such as a ban on the expropriation of carbon pipelines. Some members of that faction are gathering signatures to request that the bill passed last session be put to a public vote in November.
Odenbach said the pipeline debate is not over.
“We will come back next session to better define public use and who can use eminent domain in South Dakota, as I attempted to do during the recent session,” he said.
Incumbent Rep. Aaron Aylward, R-Harrisburg, won his primary. He is the chairman of the South Dakota Freedom Caucus, which has clashed with Republican leadership. On the issue of pipelines, he said: “The carbon stuff is not looking good, that’s for sure.”
Aylward said the incumbents lost Tuesday because “people are tired of the same kind of bureaucratic garbage they’ve been fed for the last few years.”
Meanwhile, in the Black Hills, rising property taxes emboldened many Republican voters. Former Rep. Tim Goodwin of Rapid City on Tuesday earned one of two Republican nominations for House District 30. He and incumbent Rep. Trish Ladner of Hot Springs will face a Democrat in the November two-way race. seats in the House.
“Here, property rights are not even on the radar,” Goodwin said. “It’s property taxes.”
GREASING THE OPEN PRIMARY WHEEL
Some Republicans think intraparty friction is counterproductive. Pat Powers, a writer for the Dakota War College political blog, said Tuesday’s primary results offer Democrats a chance to win some general elections by placing themselves in the middle of the political spectrum. Democrats currently hold only 11 of the 105 seats in the Legislature.
“It very well may mark a change in the fortunes of the Republican Party,” Powers said.
Powers said Republican infighting also gives an open primary ballot measure a better chance of passing during the November general election. The measure would change some primaries to include all candidates for office, rather than dividing candidates into specific party primaries.
Tuesday’s low turnout and poor incumbent showings give ammunition to supporters of open primaries, Powers said.
“They can say, ‘Look what happens when we don’t have open primaries,’ and they have the money to get the message out.”
Drey Samuelson, who worked as former Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson’s chief of staff for many years, is involved in the open primary effort. He’s already making that argument.
“The closed primary system does not work very well. Nominate people who are on the extremes of the parties,” Samuelson said. “We can look at these primary results to see that.”
Samuelson said turnout would have been better if Democrats and independents had more reasons to vote than in the Democratic presidential primary, in which President Joe Biden was already virtually guaranteed to win. There was only one Democratic legislative primary Tuesday in South Dakota and 44 Republican legislative primaries.
LOOKING FOR CHANGE ‘FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON’
Joy Hohn, an outspoken opponent of carbon dioxide pipeline condemnation, edged out former legislator Mark Willadsen for the Republican nomination for Sioux Falls’ District 9 Senate seat. There are no Democratic or independent candidates running in the general election.
Hohn received a donation from Odenbach’s political action committee.
“I think the citizens of South Dakota are seeing the need to focus more on ‘we the people,'” Hohn said. “We really don’t need this pipeline.”
Hohn said the election results move the state in the right direction, “toward true conservative values and the founding principles of our country.”
Incumbent Sen. Erin Tobin, the Republican winner, fell by 48 votes (which is within the possible recount margin) to a political newcomer from Bonesteel named Mykala Voita, who also campaigned on the primacy of property owners’ rights. land.
“The people of South Dakota drew a line and are speaking,” Voita said. “I think people are sending a clear message that we don’t want to be stepped on, and if they’re going to come to our state, they’re going to follow our rules.”
In a four-candidate House District 13 primary, incumbent Republican Tony Venhuizen of Sioux Falls advanced to the general election as one of the top two finishers. But he received fewer votes than newcomer John Hughes. There will be no Democrats or independents on the November ballot.
Hughes plans to push for change.
“The government just isn’t working for the average person in South Dakota, especially in terms of economic development,” Hughes said. “It’s helping big corporate interests that don’t pay their fair share when they come to South Dakota and take advantage of our business climate, and it’s at the expense of the taxpayer.”
DEVOTED REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS
Republican lawmakers who lost their primaries on Tuesday, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office (results are not official until the election is counted):
• Senator Erin Tobin, Republican winner
• Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton
• Rep. Byron Callies, R-Watertown
• Rep. Tyler Tordsen, R-Sioux Falls
• Rep. Tamara St. John, R-Sisseton
• Rep. James Wangsness, R-Miller
• Rep. Fred Deutsch, R-Florence
• Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Elizabeth
• Rep. Becky Drury, R-Rapid City
• Sen. Mike Walsh, R-Rapid City
• Sen. David Johnson, R-Rapid City
• Rep. Gary Cammack, R-Union Center
• Rep. Kirk Chaffee, R-Whitewood
• Sen. Julie Frye-Mueller, R-Rapid City
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact editor Seth Tupper with questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on Facebook and Twitter.
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