Few surprises in Nov. 4 election

Chronicle Staff

Published: Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

South Dakotans unanimously voted to return their U.S. Senator and House of Representatives member to Congress for another term on Nov. 4. There wasn’t much of a doubt that Democrats Sen. Tim Johnson and Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin would win reelection, but their margin of victory was impressive. Sandlin garnered 67.6 percent of the statewide vote to challenger Chris Lein’s 32.4 percent, more than a two to one margin. Johnson, despite his obvious speech and mobility impediments, won 62.5 percent of the votes to challenger Joel Dykstra’s 37.5 percent. The majority of South Dakotans obviously think Johnson can still serve them well. Sen. John McCain may have lost the national election to Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency, but in South Dakota McCain won by a 53.2 percent margin to Obama’s 44.7 percent. That is no surprise. There was a surprise, however, in the outcome of the state’s Initiated Measure 11, the abortion ban, which lost by 55.2 percent to 44.8 percent. After changing the language in the measure to include instances of rape and incest, the ban still lost by more than 10 percent this time around. Measure 10, which would have restricted lobbying in the state, lost by 64.7 percent to 35.3 percent. This is the issue that was opposed by nearly every organization in the state. Measure 9, which would have made certain securities practices and transactions unlawful, was rejected by the voters by a 56.6 to 43.4 percent margin. There were a few surprises, at least to us, on the Constitutional Amendments. For instance, with Amendment G voters rejected a mileage reimbursement increase from five cents per mile to legislators traveling to and from Pierre from their homes and to other meetings with constituents. This change went down to defeat by 58.9 percent to 41.1 percent. Five cents per mile! That’s ridiculous when you consider the current IRS mileage reimbursement allowance is 58.5 cents per mile. On the other hand, state voters gave their approval to 40-day annual Legislative sessions under Amendment I which will increase the cost of government considerably more than a higher mileage allowance. The Legislature was in session for 35 days on even numbered years and for 40 days on odd numbered years. Our thinking was the fewer days the Legislature is in session, the better off are the taxpayers of the state because fewer laws will be passed. Voters approved this change by 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent. State voters turned down the repeal of certain provisions relating to corporations in South Dakota. Citizens voted down Amendment H by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin. I expect a lot of people, including us, didn’t really understand the purpose of this amendment so we voted no. Those who wanted to do away with term limits in the Legislature got the message that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Voters soundly rejected Amendment J by 75.7 percent to 24.3 percent. Legislators will not be able to serve in the State House of Representatives or State Senate for more than four consecutive terms, or a total of eight consecutive years. Proponents of the change said there was a lack of continuity and “history” with so many new legislators coming on board every two years. Opponents said the system seemed to be working fine and that many legislators being term-limited out merely switched from one legislative body to another in order to keep serving their constituents in Pierre. On the local level, we congratulate our new Custer County Commissioners. Republicans Mark Hartman had 2,540 votes and David Hazeltine had 2,376 votes to win over Democrat Barbara Hanson who had 1,567 votes. Republicans Mike Verchio and Lance Russell came out on top in the District 30 race with 2,490 and 2,317 votes respectively. Democrats Kathleen Ann and Jacqueline Gerenz got 1,267 and 1,297 votes, respectively. Former Republican House member Gordon Howie was elected to the District 30 state senate over Democrat David Melmer 8,061 to 4,420 votes.  Nationally, Democrats were swept into office, but locally and in District 30 it was business as usual with Republicans overwhelmingly being elected. It will be interesting to see how our newly-elected national and local officials govern in the months and weeks ahead.