South Dakota legislative District 19 has a general election for State Senate. District 19 is in SE South Dakota. Towns in this district include Alexandria, Armour, Bridgewater, Canistota, Corsica, Delmont, Dimock, Emery, Farmer, Freeman, Fulton, Menno, Montrose, Olivet, Parkston, Salem, Scotland, Spencer, Tabor, Tripp, and Tyndall.
The Republican incumbent Sen Bill Van Gerpen is not seeking reelection. Republicans did have a primary election for this seat, where Stace Nelson defeated Caleb Finck. Democrat Russell Graeff is taking on Nelson for the District 19 State Senate seat.
Here is a brief look at both candidates. The candidates below are listed in the order they will appear on the general election ballot. I’ve also included the links I could find to help voters learn more about each candidate. For candidates with a legislative history I look at a few pieces of legislation prime sponsored. For candidates with no legislative history I look at the issues I find for them online.
*** It should be noted this is NOT a scorecard. This post only looks at some of the legislative priorities of these candidates. These legislative priorities may or may not have any bearing on how the candidates actually vote on legislation.
Stace Nelson
Stace Nelson (R)
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Ballotpedia – VoteSmart – OpenStates – SoDakLiberty
LRC: House 2014 2013 2012 2011
SDPB Video: 2012
Since Stace Nelson was in a primary election earlier this summer I will simply copy/paste what I wrote about him at that time.
Nelson was a State Representative for District 19 until vacating his seat to run for US Senate in 2014. During that campaign I got to know Nelson pretty well. I would sum him up as a true small government advocate that cares about protecting the rights of his constituents. There are more moderate portions of the Republican party that don’t like him for various reasons; mostly because he calls out any behavior he doesn’t feel is conservative. It would be interesting to see Nelson in the SD Senate chamber.
Nelson has an issues page on his website. But since he has a legislative history I will pick out three bills from 2014 that are worth looking at to get an idea of the type of legislation he brings forth.
First up is 2014’s HB 1172 (SoDakLiberty Posts). HB 1172 was an Act to “require certain legislative meetings to be open to the public.” The bill didn’t make it past House State Affairs, but is worth looking at for anyone who cares about open government. The bill was simple and had only one sentence:
Any gathering of a simple majority of either the South Dakota House of Representatives or the South Dakota Senate, meeting to discuss introduced legislation, shall be open to the public.
What this would have done is open up the Republican caucus meetings in Pierre to the public. Currently the Republicans enjoy a super-majority in both houses of the legislature. That means any discussion done about legislation during caucus meetings is done outside of the public eye, even though there is technically a quorum present. The Democrats have caucus meetings open to the public, there is no reason the Republicans shouldn’t be able to do the same for the sake of open government. Opening the caucus meetings to the public would go a long way to get rid the impression (or reality) that things are always done behind closed doors in Pierre.
Another bill from 2014 worth a glance is HB 1176 (SoDakLiberty Posts). HB 1176 was an Act to “prohibit state participation in the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.” Unfortunately this is another bill that didn’t pass through the legislature. Due to the many scandals surrounding the EB-5 program it might have been a good idea for the legislature to make a statement and opt out of the program.
Finally I think HCR 1023 (SoDakLiberty Posts) is worth a glance, especially in an election year. HCR 1023 was a concurrent resolution that would have rejected the Common Core State Standards plan. Over the last few years more and more people are beginning to understand that the states involvement in Common Core is not good for the education of our youth. Nelson can definitely be counted on as an advocate for empowering teachers and getting bureaucrats out of the classroom.
I’ll end my look at Nelson here but it should be noted that Nelson brought forth a lot of legislation during his four years in Pierre. This was a just a small sampling from 2014.
Russell Graeff
Russell Graeff (D)
Website – Ballotpedia – VoteSmart – SoDakLiberty
Russell Graeff actually has a pretty complete campaign website. Graeff’s issues page is more of a list of links to Dakota Free Press blog posts about the Ballot Questions. But Graeff does have his legislative priorities listed in other parts of his website; so I’ll focus on those other areas of his website in this post.
Graeff lists the four following priorities on the front page of his campaign website:
Responsible rates and taxes
Graeff says this about taxes:
Let’s be reasonable about heavy tax burdens, but also give importance to education, healthcare, infrastructure management and growth for all of our futures.
Municipal level elections
I don’t think this is really a legislative priority, but it is good advice so I’ll pass on what Graeff says:
Please pay attention to your local politics … no matter how simple this seems, it is important to select the very best Aldermen and other officials. This is up to all of us to do by being involved and voting.
Improved traffic management
Infrastructure appears to be a priority for Graeff:
Infrastructure is of great importance. Lets keep our roads, rails, bridges and transportation systems safe and strong.
Green services
Graeff has this to say about the environment:
Keeping the land, environment, our water, our world safe. Lets use conserving and preserving for all of our futures sake.
Small Buisness Owner
Graeff is a small business owner. In the Meet Graeff portion of his website I find this to be of particular interest:
It is with this I concluded that small businesses are controlled by HUGE interests, that government controls way too much of the private sector and that the needs of those in need / unfortunate are not being met … since it would not be of benefit or interest to large corporations or those of “the big” money interests, nor “budget” of those currently in charge . Change is needed!
Balance
Graeff concludes his vision section with this:
So why is it that we were LAST in the national polls regarding teacher pay? And then what about “TRANSPARANCY”? Wow. And that’s just 2 of many. Think someting’s going on that might need addressing?
Let’s come together and make all things balanced again!
The post SD Dist 19 State Senate Gen Election: Nelson and Graeff appeared first on SoDakLiberty.