Open primaries deserve consideration in South Dakota

Petitions are starting to circulate to put a measure on the general election ballot in 2024. It’s a measure to change our election process from party primaries to an open primary, in which all South Dakota voters can select the candidates who will run in each general election.

Today, Republicans and Democrats in South Dakota go to the polls in June in even-numbered years, using different ballots, with the intention of nominating a candidate for offices such as governor, the legislature and our members of Congress. Registered Independents (more than 120,000 South Dakotans) cannot vote in primaries.

And the primaries are where most legislative elections are determined. In the South Dakota Senate, 21 of 35 seats were determined in the 2022 Republican primary, so neither Independents nor Democrats were able to vote for the senator in their district. The majority of House of Representatives seats were also determined in the Republican primary.

The result of such one-sided party domination is hyper partisanship. In a more balanced situation, candidates need to get votes from all types of South Dakotans, including Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Today, candidates only need to get votes from Republicans to win, causing candidates to adhere tightly to the party platform.

The proposed constitutional amendment would allow all South Dakotans to vote in a common primary, which would have all candidates on the same ballot distributed to all voters. The top two candidates – of whatever party or affiliation – would advance to the general election. (In state House elections, the top four candidates will make it to the general election ballot, where two winners will be selected).

The point is to allow all South Dakotans to vote in the primary and cause all candidates to speak to all South Dakotans during campaigns.

About half of U.S. states offer some sort of open primary, of which there are several types. It appears to appeal equally to red and blue states. In surveys, Americans say overwhelmingly that they dislike hyper partisanship, as each party is getting more extreme in their views and leaving out those in the middle.

It’s a long way to deciding this issue in November,2024. But we like what we hear and encourage all voters to consider this measure thoughtfully.

— Madison Daily Leader, April 19, 2023

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South Dakota's social studies issue and the people

The people were the big winners of a 5-2 vote by the South Dakota Board of Education Standards (BOES) on April 17 to adopt controversial new social studies guidelines pushed by Gov. Kristi Noem …

That is, the winners were the people who helped shape this agenda that revamps the curriculum into a more single-minded, patriotic platform, which takes effect beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. These people include the governor herself, as well as members of Hillsdale College who have promoted this agenda in states across the country. It also includes some legislators who backed the proposal and criticized state educators, and it includes the five BOES members who defied calls to reject the standards. (Of the seven members of the BOES, only three are certified educators, according to South Dakota Searchlight.)

Thus, in this instance, the term “the people” does not include the following:

• It doesn’t include those who filed comments opposing this proposed curriculum. These comments reportedly outnumbered those submitted by supporters of the new standards by about a 9-to-1 margin.

• It doesn’t include the members of the many groups that came out against the new standards. That list includes the South Dakota Education Association, the South Dakota Association of Elementary School Principals, the South Dakota Association of Secondary School Principals, the South Dakota Counsel of Administrators of Special Education, the South Dakota Association of Supervision of Curriculum Development, the South Dakota School Superintendents Association and all nine South Dakota tribal nations, among many other entities.

• It doesn’t include the members of the 27 school boards around the state that passed resolutions opposing the new standards. The Yankton school board was among those in opposition.

• It doesn’t include the more than 40 members of the original task force who worked on crafting new social studies standards two years ago, only to see their final version mysteriously rewritten to conform with the Hillsdale vision that Noem advocated.

• It doesn’t include the teachers around the state whose work and judgment are, in effect, being questioned and overridden by a second 15-person work group, created after Noem, under fire, declared a do-over in the process. The second group included a retired educator from Hillsdale College who served as its facilitator. Former Huron superintendent Terry Nebelsick, who is on the BOES and was one the two “no” votes Monday, took exception to some of the criticisms lobbed at educators and administrators during this process. “We are not a bunch of union workers in a non-union state,” he said. “Your comments are mean-spirited and totally unfounded by the work that we do.”

• It doesn’t include the school districts in general, who now must figure out by 2025 how to pay for and implement these new proposals.

• And, honestly, it doesn’t include the students. They will see opportunities for critical thinking and analysis of American history de-emphasized and replaced by rote memorization and, to be frank, patriotic training that will likely shy away from closely examining the flaws and mistakes this nation has made and from which it has emerged stronger due to such introspection. According to SDNA president Loren Paul, teachers “truly believe these standards will fail our students.”

Other than ALL that, the people were apparently the winners …

Which perhaps offers some historical insight. South Dakota’s cherished motto is “Under God the People Rule.” That adage simply never makes clear which people that applies to at any given moment.

— Yankton Press & Dakotan, April 18, 2023