I have to admit, I have a lot of political ‘friends’ and Pammy is one of my faves. Never backs down, and holds her ground. So there has been this political discussion about what SD Dem has the most years of political experience, and guess what? It’s not Tim. Now, no disrespect, probably one of the best Senators our state has ever had besides Jim A. and McGovern. Pammy served since the 1970’s and has the longest political career of any SD Dem and probably beats out any Repugs. Pam is modest about it and doesn’t really include her time on the Sioux Falls School Board, but it was public service and should count. Now I am a little off on my timeline, but I believe Pam served the public for 38 years. Pretty Crazy.
I want to take a personal side to this, Pam is extremely political but super funny. I have been in meetings with her where she takes the entire room to the woodshed, and when they try to cut her down she takes them back to the woodshed. I have to admit, when it comes to Pam, you want her on your side. And while we mourn the loss of Mr. Johnson and his incredible service to this country, Pammy is the salt of the earth.
Pam is great. She started with the Sioux Falls School District in the mid-1970s and continued until 2020 with just one two-year break from 2002 until 2004, which was between her term on the SD PUC and becoming Minnehaha County Treasurer. So, she served for about 43 years.
Tim served continuously for 36 years. Four years in the State House, four years in the State Senate, 10 years in the US House, and 18 years in the US Senate from 1978 to 2014. In fact, he’s tied as the longest-serving South Dakotan to have ever served in the US House with Ben Reifel, I believe…. and Tim never lost a political race.
Former Senator Larry Pressler, who Johnson defeated in 1996, recently called Johnson “The heavy weight champion” of South Dakota politics because he beat everyone, but you could also claim he was at the top of the South Dakota political food change because he beat Pressler, who once stopped Denholm, who had become popular in his time, and he also beat Thune, who beat Daschle, and where Daschle then beat Abdnor, who then beat Janklow and McGovern during his political career.
But back to Pam, Pam’s only two defeats came at the hands of Sioux Falls mayors. She lost the 1991 Sioux Falls mayoral race to incumbent Jack White*, and then lost a re-election bid to the PUC to then Sioux Falls Mayor Gary Hansen.
I place an asterisk next to White’s name, because many thing that Pam won that race. Although, she only got like 44% of the vote. Because White, Pam, and Skippy were the three candidates on the ballot, but Skippy had his full long name on the ballot, which caused his name to extend past the lever to vote for Pam, so many think this caused some Pam voters to actually vote for White, who was the third name on the ballot and whose lever was beneath Pam’s name. (?)
Then, speaking of people forgetting about Pam, when Jolene ran for mayor in 2018, KELO did a piece about Anne Hajek being the first woman to have ever run for mayor of Sioux Falls in 1998, but they forgot about Pam’s 1991 run, and how many think she actually won that race. AND, when I saw that story, I immediately emailed KELO to refute their piece, the anchorwoman at the time actually responded to my email during their next commercial break. Then, they never reaired that story again and it was removed from their website…. 🙂 #FakeNews?
But all in all, Pam and Tim are and were both great!
( and Woodstock adds: “It probably helped that they had Norweigan names like Nelson and Johnson, huh?…. Just saying” ….. 🙂 …….. )
“food chain”, food change…. 🙂
Pam Nelson is more than a living legend. She is an icon of good grassroots government!