Oh Isaak says some funny things sometimes or is it always? We were looking forward to a boring SD Legislative cracker barrel to finish up when we finally got our morsel of funny. Rep Isaac Latterell didn’t disappoint us. The end is always near when a starry-eyed follower of something decides to drive home a point about non-believers.
IM22 and the ethics of South Dakota are a hot topic this year. Somehow the legislative players are always right and never hoodwinked by power players, only the majority of South Dakota voters. In 2016 an out of state ethics group with an idea decided to follow the example of other out of state no-ethics groups to bring a measure for us to vote on. South Dakota voters thought about the shenanigans of the powerful and decided IM22 was better than the nothing we had.
Isaac decided to get the crowd going home on a boisterous high by calling out the voters as uneducated? Uninformed? Stupid for using an idea from an east coast group? What about being hoodwink attempt by the Georgia high interest credit group? How about the expensive and worrisome west coast amendment set to destroy our rights called Marsy’s law?
There is a reason South Dakota ranks so low in ethics laws, because of the way Isaac was talking. Oh brother…
Absent the ending with Latterell, I found this cracker barrel to be extremely anti-climatic. I felt I was witnessing an open book oral exam, where the legislators were asked questions, then they researched the questions on their handy computers before some would answer the question or questions. Where is the spontaneity? Have we no policy wonks amongst our legislative leaders, who can discuss public policy without first boning up on it prior to answering a question?
I couldn’t stand to watch all of it. I got sick of being a test monitor. I did last long enough for Rep. Clark to finally respond to a question after an hour of questioning, however…….. Did he answer any other questions, though?
Latterell start the coffee explaining why he thinks he has the right to interfere with a woman’s right to choose within the first two trimesters of a pregnancy, then he ended the coffee by suggesting that he knew better than the voters as far as what was good for them when it comes to ethics and campaign finance reform…. Latterell is a demonstrative example of the “House of Lords” mentality that is currently playing out in Pierre these days with all of the signs of a paternalistic and peerage attitude…..
Another session of Wild West law. Next thing, they’ll allow gunfights in the state capitol. Oh, that happened today. If you’re looking for liberty and justice for all, move to Minnesota.
Tis’ the way of the left. If you don’t like what you are hearing….shout um’ down. If the facts are against you…shout um’ down.
The legislative branch deciding that a Measure is unconstitutional is now a “fact.” But where are there “facts” that prove this to be the legal responsibility and or prerogative of such a governmental branch?
A wiser one than me once said…. “You have the right to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” But with our current legislature, they have confused this logic, where they have the audacity or misunderstanding to think, that their opinion has justified weight, and thus makes it a fact of weighted value… Or better yet, our legislature has taken the words of an once wise one too literal, where they think that their opinion itself manufactures a just fact or facts…..