Sioux Falls Chamber caves to Republican Pouting – Punishes Dems

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* FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE *

Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce won’t allow Minnehaha County Democrats to sponsor annual legislative coffees

January 15, 2018

On Thursday, January tenth the Minnehaha County Democratic Party (MCDP) was notified they won’t be allowed to sponsor the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce (SFACC) Legislative Coffees as they have for years.

The Minnehaha County Republican Party (MCRP), the Minnehaha-Lincoln Republican Women, and Americans for Prosperity all pulled their sponsorship from the SFACC Legislative Coffees for 2018. Speculation is the conservative organizations didn’t like a recent article (Argus Leader, Sept. 20, 2017) in which SFACC President and CEO, Jason Ball expressed concern over events that are “antagonistic to immigrants and new demographic groups in Sioux Falls,” and “legislation and policies that negatively target specific populations …”

“We believe the Republicans are trying to punish the Chamber for a stance that they don’t agree with. Unfortunately, that resulted in the Chamber trying to smooth things over by removing us, the opposition party, from the event,” said Heather Halverson, Minnehaha County Democratic Party Chairwoman “We see this as an effort to appease the Republicans, while removing our voice. From our perspective, this is undemocratic.”

This year’s events will be held at the Holiday Inn City Centre from 10:00 am to 11:45 am on February 3rd, 10th, and 24th. The SFACC Legislative Coffees include legislators from area districts and allow the public to ask timely questions related to the 2018 legislative session. The Republican legislators that attend the coffees outnumber the Democrats twenty-six to four.

“We have been a longtime sponsor of the Legislative Coffees. As the minority party in the state, it is very important for us to have a table at the event, and allow local residents to stop by and ask us questions about our platform, legislative matters and our upcoming events,” said Halverson. “We aren’t the party that picked up our ball and went home because we didn’t like the way the game was going.”

Heather Halverson, Chair

Minnehaha County Democratic Party
SouthDaCola Notes; While I could care less what either party is up to in our state, I think this is pretty crappy to treat the MCDP this way because the Republicans are a bunch of whiny crybabies that want to continue to push their racist and homophobic views on the rest of us. The sad part is that the Chamber should NOT have to apologize for Jason’s comments, he is right, being a racist is bad for business.

Roger McKellips Remembered (1923-2017)

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South Dakota lost a friend and leader, Roger McKellips on August 18, 2017. A simple remembrance of his South Dakota and Alcester leadership is given on August 25, 2017 at the Sioux Falls Democratic Forum.

We will also have video of Jeff Barth who spoke at Forum on Friday.

Shocker! Billie Sutton running for Governor

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Unlike Huether, this guy actually knows how to put a cowboy hat on.

I know! I know! Sutton is running for governor. I have known for months. Ever since Suzie Pranger quit the SDDP to run his campaign months ago. It was such a badly kept secret I was surprised anyone showed up to the flat bed announcement today. Many in the party questioned Pranger quitting the party’s executive branch to run a governor campaign. What confidence can Sutton have with Pranger running his campaign when she did so badly running the party?

Of course everyone blames Tornberg. Is Pranger that thin-skinned that she couldn’t stand up to Tornberg? Or was it Tornberg’s idea to move Pranger?

Who knows, who cares. The only positive thing I can say about the whole thing is that if Sutton gets the nomination, he will get more votes than Wismer. Remember her?

Speaking of the nomination, there is another candidate waiting in the wings. Due to personal obligations they are waiting to make an announcement, if they do at all. Let’s just say they are a more ‘polished’ candidate than Sutton, but like Sutton has a great amount of compassion for South Dakotans. Personally I would like to see this person run for AG. Their chances are better and on top of that, no matter who becomes governor, they would make a fantastic and fair AG, mainly because they have compassion.

Not sure what the Dems ultimate plans are if they have two candidates running for governor. At this point, not sure if they have any plans at all. They certainly can’t go back to 2016’s playbook. That’s bloody obvious.

What really happened on the Eve of McGovern Day Dinner?

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I may not have all the details, but I certainly know more then Pitty knows.

I was invited to attend the Executive Board Meeting Friday night by several members of the E-Board, that said it was open to the public. I could see the writing on the wall, and I knew what was going to happen if I showed up, a big boot in my butt. Not just because of the blog, but because I am not a registered Democrat.

I declined to go, but one of my fellow foot soldiers who IS a registered Democrat did attend. The meeting lasted over 3 hours, and according to many at the event, it was about 2-1/2 hours to long.

The first thing on the agenda was to vote to kick out ALL media and recordings and only allow Dems. My foot soldier got to stay because of his party registration.

From there on out, it was a train wreck.

The E-Board distributed packets for the meeting, but was left with strict instructions NOT to leave the room, they had details of budget and financials. I have not seen the packet or know what it contains.

There have already been 15 applications submitted for the Executive Director position, and will officially be posted on May 21. They will have a 5 member board to select the ED.

After that, I guess the fighting begin between factions, ‘old guard against the insurgents’. At one point I guess a board member said, “Is this a good time to discuss open carry?” Not sure if it got any laughs.

Then the fight begin to get Paula Hawks elected to replace current Chair Tornberg. Many agreed that McGovern Day weekend would be a poor time to replace the chair do to a coo.

Then a discussion begin to pass on the vote to change chair to this summer. So many dates were thrown around, that I would prefer not to say what I think they decided, but I think it was July 31st. I guess some self-appointed parliamentarian from the young Dems at USD was confusing everyone with the proper process, at one point he leaves once people stop listening to him (kind of reminds you of all our Washington delegation candidates over the past couple of election cycles, lose once, and leave the state).

I was told that while the discussion got pretty contentious at times, people were respectable and no F-Bombs were dropped. But a lot of people left unhappy.