Republican candidates for District 1 House were spared the day’s most popular topics during a Saturday, May 4 primary candidate forum at K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library.
Property rights, Senate Bill 201 and a proposed carbon capture pipeline were big issues during the other three sessions of the forum.
That included those seeking office in Legislative District 23, which includes small portions of Aberdeen and Brown County and all of McPherson, Edmunds, Faulk, Hand, Campbell, Walworth and Potter counties.
MORE:Â No simple solution to sheriff, police rift, county commission candidates say
District 1 candidates, however, weren’t asked about pipeline-related topics. The district includes much of rural Brown County and all of Day, Marshall and Roberts counties.
Here are some takeaways from the district 1 and 23 Republican candidate forums.
District 1 House
Candidates Logan Manhart of Aberdeen, Chris Reder of Aberdeen and incumbent Tamara St. John of Sisseton had similar answers to many of the questions asked.
Reder, who served seven years in the Navy as a cryptologic intelligence analyst and founded the DTOM Veterans Ranch in Warner, often mentioned veteran-related issues.
St. John, who is a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and is the archivist for the tribe, shared more insight on topics involving the Native American population.
Manhart said he’s involved in construction and that he has the time and energy to represent the district. While younger than the other candidates, his experience includes working for a year in the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office.
The candidates were asked about how they would help the region’s homeless population.
- Manhart: His first steps would be visiting with health care professionals and law enforcement, those who are likely to be the first people to interact with those who are homeless. He understands the problem needs to be addressed, but said he doesn’t have a simple solution.
- Reder: Some people might not think homelessness is a problem locally, but it is. There’s not enough affordable housing and rental rates are going up, he said. It’s reaching the point where single people and single parents can’t afford to pay rent. The community is generous and groups need to work together to address the problem.
- St. John: Homelessness looks different in each community. On the reservation, there are addiction and mental health issues that have to be addressed because they are part of the problem. In Roberts County, there’s ongoing work on veterans houses and helping veterans with finances, she said.
All three candidates said they know mental health services are important.
St. John said she favors letting all Republican voters choose the party’s attorney general and secretary of state candidates, while Manhart and Reder favor the current convention process.
Top priorities for each candidate
Each was asked about their top three priorities should they be elected.
- Manhart: Family and pro-life issues, supporting law enforcement and property rights.
- Reder: Mental health, being fiscally conservative and better serving counties.
- St. John: Property taxes, finding ways to help counties and criminal justice reform.
The two top vote getters in the primary will be on the November ballot along with Democrats Michael McCleery of Sisseton and Dana Pulfrey of Claremont.
District 23
All four District 23 candidates at the forum — Mark Lapka of Leola, Scott Moore of Ipswich, Steve Roseland of Seneca and JD Wangsness of Miler — said they are against the use of eminent domain by a private company.
Lapka and Roseland meet in the Republican Senate primary, while Moore, Wangsness and Spencer Gosch of Glenham face each other in the GOP House primary.
Gosch, a former state legislator, was not at the forum.
Beyond being asked about eminent domain, the candidates were asked to elaborate on what landowner or property rights mean to them.
- Lapka: Property rights are the reason he is running for office. They are protected in the Constitution. If a private company can take land without landowner consent, where does government overreach stop, he asked. What’s happening now is a threat to freedom.
- Roseland: Some of his neighbors are negotiating better deals with Summit, and that’s their right. But landowners, not the government, should have the final say. If people start losing their rights, where does it stop, he asked.
- Moore: There’s no reason farmland should be treated differently than somebody’s living room. If people want to sign easements, that’s fine, but protections need to be in place for the name on the property deed. Eminent domain reform is needed, he said.
- Wangsness: Property rights are important and he said he has backed bills protecting them. But ordinances need to be fair, and one county shouldn’t be able to block a project that would be helpful to the entire state. Past eminent domain-related bills all died because they were designed solely to stop the pipeline, he said.
Wangsness is different from the other candidates in that he supports SB 201. He said he voted for it in Pierre and would vote against a referendum to repeal it.
He said the bill raises the bar as far as what’s required if and when eminent domain is used. It also cleans up the permitting process by giving much of that authority to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, Wangsness said.
Moore said he would vote in favor of the referendum to repeal 201. Bills that would have helped landowners were defeated in Pierre, he said, and now the referendum system is working.
In his job as general manager of FEM Electric, Moore has to deal with landowners. FEM provides electricity to Edmunds, Faulk and McPherson counties, but has never had to use eminent domain, he said.
Lapka said he has gone to Pierre to testify in favor of bills that would have helped landowners against the pipeline. He said he’s not trying to stop the Summit project, but that it needs to be done in an agreeable manner. He said he’d vote to repeal 201.
DAKOTA BROADCASTING:Â Candidate forum livestream
Roseland said he, too, would vote to repeal 201. Landowners can negotiate terms that are better than those in the bill, he said. There’s not enough benefit to property owners to support the measure, he said.
MORE:Â Life Defense Fund using new law to undercut proposed abortion ballot measure
All four men said they think a potential ballot measure that would repeal South Dakota’s strict abortion laws goes too far and would have to be reeled in, even if approved by voters.
Most important issues, pipeline notwithstanding
The candidates were asked what their top three legislative priorities would be, pipeline-related issues notwithstanding.
- Wangsness: Rural economic growth within agriculture; fair taxation and education, particularly finding more money for rural schools.
- Moore: Mental health services, especially for those who can’t take care of themselves; education, particularly for unfunded state mandates; and accountability.
- Roseland: “Money, money and money,” he jested, then added more funding for education, growing the agriculture economy and more support for counties.
- Lapka: Limited or less government, being fiscally responsible and better funding for education and counties.
The person with the most votes in the Senate primary will earn a two-year seat in Pierre that starts in 2025. The same is true for the top two vote getters in the House primary since nobody else has filed nominating petitions.
May 20 is the deadline to register to vote in the June 4 primary. Early voting has already begun.