Oops, SDEA did it again.
(Click to enlarge)
A few months back, I had written about SDEA's propensity to support Democrats as related from the 2004 election:
In the 2004 election, the SDEA PAC, EPIC supported 9 Republicans and 41 Democrats. Of the Republicans, three were unopposed, and you could argue the rest were lopsided in GOP favor.Well, I'm glad to see that in the 2006 general election, they've proven me right again. In the August/September edition of the SDEA Advocate, out of 75 candidates they've issued endorsements on, they're now supporting 60 Democrats and 15 Republicans. For the ratio minded, for every Republican they support, they're endorsing 4 Democrats (or 20% R's and 80% D's).
Tom Hennies was the only Republican to earn a donation of $500 and Alice McCoy (running against Gary Loudner, so it was a shoe-in) got $200. The rest got $100 donations, while 19 of the Democrats got over the "$100 base" PAC donation.
SDEA a Democrats only club? It's possible that it's not. But when the rubber hits the road, and the support is balanced 72% to democrats and 18% for Republicans, I'd say it's not probable. (note - that's just on the people supported - not the cash.)
You can look at it as clipped up above, (otherwise you can read it here, and HT to Mt. Blogmore), but as you can see without great shock, history is repeating itself.
(And yes, I'm correcting my mistakes after the fact, but I was writing at break-neck speed at lunch.)
Comments
...and intellectual diversity bill? umm, a thinly veiled attempt at forcing unscientific propaganda in our schools under the misnomer "diversity" deserves to fail in pierre.
SD ranks 33rd in public school expenditures (excluding higher ed) and right below #32 CALIFORNIA! When you look at states 34 and higher, there are a great many that pay their teachers a higher salary. California ranks 3rd in the nation for teacher's salaries by the way.
SD is unique that we don't require local schools to spend a percentage of their state dollars on salaries. Maybe we should so that we can get rid of the stupid 51st label.
SD ranks 13th for a student/teacher ratio which means our teachers don't have a large amount of students to deal with in comparison to other states.
SD ranks 25th in disposable income which means our salaries minus our expenses puts is exactly in the middle. If you compare the average SD wage to what the average teacher makes, they are noticably higher. Going back to California, while their teachers earn 24 THOUSAND dollars more/year, they have less purchasing power than SD teachers.
SD ranks 9th in math and reading scores which means we provide a quality education for a good price.
Are teachers rich? NO!
Should we pay them more? YES!
But it's not as bad as some people make it out to be.
LIL
*Statistics provided by The Taxpayers Network
By the way, we were 35th in that catagory last year, the 2005 edition of "50 State Comparisions'
". Our Gov and legisature is helping to improve the situation.
In addition to your mistake PP, the quoted entry said the ratio was 72% to 18 % (which only equals 90%). It should have read:
41/50= 82% for Dems
9/50= 18% for GOP
And as for the intellectual diversity bill, all I can say is gimme a break. Yes there are obscenely liberal professors in colleges, but having the legislature determine the academic and intellectual atmosphere on campuses is not a good idea.
You give school districts money, like Aberdeen, all the clowns want to do is build new gyms.
If you don't like the pay get another job or pick another State.
We want our children to become teachers--and be GOOD teachers--like the teachers that taught them. (That's why we rank in the top in math and reading scores.)
Let's solve the problems not send them away!
Jake has it right from college. Give me a break as well. I can shi* in a bag and call it pasta salad, guess what Brock, it's still shi*.
Do you think that SDEA endorses mostly Dems for a reason other than the fact that Dems are better on their issues? The fact that they do endorse republicans in, at least, token races demonstrates a willingness to be open to both parties...but the proof is in the pudding. If Republicans want to gain the SDEA's endorsement, they should earn it by taking positions that are pro-education. No one who is an education professional can honestly say that R's are better than D's when it comes to prioritizing our children's education. Your comment is the real slap in the face.
You want to talk about an influential advocacy group that chooses politics over their issues? Then let's talk about Charlie Heston's National Rifle Assosiation. I don't know what the NRA's R to D percentage is, but I do know that Dems who want their endorsement have to do a LOT more to prove themselves. R's get the benefit of the doubt, automatically - just like all those assault weapons.
1) Please don't give us the "I can't feed my family because I'm a teacher" crap. Many teachers and university profs in this state are on 9 month contracts. My signifigant other had three months this summer where she made more per month at her summer job but will still return to teaching because that what she likes to do, goin on 2 years now.
So in terms of pay teachers can or do supplement their income during the summers, if they don't it's of their own choosing. She will have made more money this year than what the average attorney in this state does from 0-5 years. That ammount if you are interested is 35,000.00. as per Tom Barnett at the State Bar.
Becoming a laywer also takes 4 years of undergrad plus three years of graduate hence the J.D. Juris Doctorate, equivalent to a Ph.D. for those of you in the degree business. This means that teachers can make more money with less years of education than an attorney.
Some teachers want doctoral level pay for undergrad degree credentials.
2) School Boards are responsible for paying teachers. Plain and simple, they are the ones responsible for writing the checks and raising the property taxes if they want to. Oops, did I say raise taxes? That's right some local school board members don't want to piss off their neighbors or lose business, oops did I say that too, so instead of raising taxes they pull a Rounds and pass the tough stuff off to somebody else, like the legislature.
At the end of the day school boards have the ultimate authority to pay teachers more. Plus they are more reponsive to the legislature and closer to the people. Quit crying about the legislature and go after the people in power of schools.
Communities across the state have constantly turned down opt out after opt out because they lack confidence in the current system. They don't think their money is being spent correctly.
Kind of like when Beresford hired a whole bunch of assistant coaches and then had to fire them when the town turned down the first opt out. The Superintendent was actually on Kelo radio crying about having to let go of all the Assistant coaches.
That's pathetic. An opt out to keep more a-coaches? Why not an opt out to make Beresford the best math or physics team in the state? Why, again because the locals don't want that. And whether you like it or not, the people under God rule.
3) The SDEA has screwed itself by always funding Democrats and being unwilling to support Republicans. Maybe if Teacher's organizations would support Republicans at the polls they would find themselves making more money.
This is something that all of the other special interests groups in this state have figured out except for the SDEA. Most educated people realize that if something doesn't work one way, you do it another!
Randy, you have it all backwards! Republicans are not crying about being endorsed by the SDEA. The SDEA is crying about teacher pay. This means that SDEA should change it's tact not Republican legislators.
4) More laptops in school. Please, Rounds is sad on this one. At least Janklow forced the education Department at USD to teach teachers how to teach phonics. That in of itself took the legislature to make happen. Which is an interesting story, because USD wanted to keep using crappy teaching methods instead of the tride and true reading processes, so Old Bill goes and changes the law. They were pissed at him but you know what, he saw a problem and changed it.
Rounds what does he do? More laptops. Kids need to learn how to read and write and phsysicalize before learning how to type and play solitaire.
5) The intellectual diversity bill scared the hell out of the liberal establishment on the college campuses. Future Gov. Lee S. really grilled ED Perry over that one and made him walk away from the legis table eating his words.
The ID bill will open up the process and allow the state to see exactly who the they are paying to teach their kids in college. It's a fantastic idea which nobody worth their salt should oppose. I mean if you can't defend who you are to the people who are paying your salary maybe you need to go work someplace else.
I going to kiss my teacher wife now.
Also missing was a reccomendation for my district, D-11. That's Kari Weems and Mark Willadsen.
Strange that Weemsn and Willadsen running without competition would not even get token support.
Just one more example of SDEA bad politics. They could make more friends in the legislature by at least endorsing Republicans with no challengers.
But, they seem to want an issue more than a solution.
And if you compare the number of hours worked by a teacher and their pay with the number of hours worked at a typical 50-week job, teachers are doing just fine. Not getting rich, but neither are most other people in SD.
The comment that school boards won't raise taxes because they are scared of their constituents is a little off the mark though. They try thru opt outs but get turned down half the time at least, partly because the burden of supporting education is not fairly distributed now and gets even worse with opt outs. Finding an additional way of funding education rather than simply relying on property owners would be a first step in raising teacher salaries. At one of our opt out attempts a lady from town said she couldn't understand why anyone would oppose the opt out, after all it only cost her an extra $50 or so a year! Well, it costs farmers and business owners a ____ of a lot more, and they are paying her rightful share in addition to their own.
That "they make more money than lawyers" argument is crap. It's apples to oranges - lawyers 0-5 and teachers average. Look at the 10th percentile of teacher's wages - that's where you'll find something closer to 0-5 teachers. You're looking at closer to $25,500. Lawyers average is $70K. Also, lawyers have no continuing ed requirement in SD. Once you're a lawyer, you're in unless you screw up or don't pay your dues. (also picked up by most employers) Teachers have no where near the potential to make as much money as lawyers have. 90th percentile teachers shows mid 40s. 90th percentile lawyers gets you over 100K.
(These statistics come from the State Dept of Labor - http://www.state.sd.us/applications/ld54lmicinfo/WAGES/OWLISTPUBA.ASP will give you a customized chart - look for "elementary teachers" and "secondary teachers")
From personal experience - I started out making more than my mother (a teacher for 30 years). My law degree started me out at a little less than $40K - that was over 4 years ago. And ask her why she doesn't have a masters degree - because the pay differential is about $1000 a year. Obviously school districts differ, but very few pay enough to justify spending the money (in a purely economical cost-benefit analysis). That would of course change if a teacher gets an MS to become an administrator and leaves the classroom. According to the SD Labor Market Information Center, the average South Dakotan with a bachelor's degree makes $40,568. MS = $49,767.
Teachers are lagging behind other South Dakotans with similar education. I think their out of pocket expenses more than make up for the fact that they don't work 12 months the way other workers do. Let's not forget preparation time - most teachers don't just work from bell to bell (at least any teachers worth anything). They have tests to correct, lesson plans to make, and notes to review. And look at it this way - there is absolutely zero incentive to work a little harder - spend extra time with a student having trouble or put extra time into finding engaging new ways to stimulate young minds. They get paid the same regardless, and if they're lucky, they'll get a raise next year, along with everybody else.
And just another note - take it from a guy with a JD (and who's talked to 5 or 6 professors about a PhD ) - a JD is not "equivalent to a PhD." Not even close. You should question any institution that will give you a PhD in 3 years (provided you don't already have a non-terminal masters degree). You'd either be Doogie Howser or getting your degree from the University of Online Experiences.
Sorry for the long post. I'll quit here.
I was completely with you until this comment:
"The ID bill will open up the process and allow the state to see exactly who the they are paying to teach their kids in college. It's a fantastic idea which nobody worth their salt should oppose. I mean if you can't defend who you are to the people who are paying your salary maybe you need to go work someplace else."
First of all, and I am no quasi-socialist (aka modern liberal), but this bill gives the legislature too much power over the teaching of ideas. Who decides what is too "liberal" and what is too "conservative"? The legislature? On what side do you think they will usually side?
We had an intellectual diversity forum on campus, with four professors and four students (myself being one of the students). The debate was very boring because everyone, including a very conservative professor with a notable last name, agreed the bill was not a good solution to the problem of political bias in the classroom. Granted, we were honors students on a relatively liberal (for South Dakota) college campus, so I guess a grain of salt may be needed.
Promote getting rid of the tenure system if you are worried about accountability. Even this has its problems, however. Either way, empowering some legislative committee to ensure "intellectual diversity" will not result in anything other than playing politics with ideas. Let academes do academics, legislators have a hard enough time maintaining basic competency in critical thinking, history, and ECONOMICS much less being the authority on what ideas are "appropriate" for the classroom.
Let's see, currently the intel. atmos. on campus is controled by a hand full of people on each campus, none are elected. The legislature consists of 105 legislators, all elected. %
I would rather have the latter doing it. At least we could vote them out if we didn't like what they were allowing.
Another thing that SDEA doesn't tell us is that the average pay for teachers in SD is more money than what 80% of the rest of the population makes. Those figures were compiled from statistics found on the website for the US Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Further, re-read my argument for why having politicians determine what ideas are "too political" is a bad idea. Your argument that we could vote them out if we didn't like what we were doing is wrong for several reasons. First, why do you think it is optimal that common citizens who may or may not have ever been to college should decide what legislators are best for regulating intellectual diversity? Second, ideas would get politicized. See evolution v. creationism. Third, having centralized bodies, such as legislating committees determine the validity of abstract ideas is ridiculous. They are not even educated in ECONOMICS to a large extent, much less historical philosophy.
Finally, several legislators haven't even graduated from COLLEGE and one or two others never graduated from HIGH SCHOOL. Are these people really qualified to have any input on matters concerning intellectual diversity on a campus when they have NO point of reference?
You got me all fired up. First of all I have J.D. and a Masters. So no, I am not going to take it from you.
1) Let's address the Ph.D. thing. The following website at the National Science Foundation, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06312/ ,details the length of time it takes one in America to get a Ph.D. It's an interesting read which blows your crappy ass argument out of the water. (Those in the social sciences can earn their Doctoral degree from the time of undergraduate matriculation in 7.9 years.) Compare that to an attorney who can earn do their undergrad and lawschool in 7 years. I am good.
Anyway I said a J.D. is equivalent to a Ph.D. and I stand by that. Read the link above and you will find that be the case. For a lawyer you have pretty bad reading skills. Although you are generalizing in order to make a more effective argument and I credit you for that. However, your glossing over the details is the fatal flaw in your point and that's why you lose this round.
2) Starting pay for attorneys and teachers is similar. 35k for a lawyer from 0-5 years. See Tom Barnett at SD Bar for this cite. Teachers average 30k for starting pay in SD. Go to the State labor Dpt. for that cite.
And because you are an attorney you will also factor in how the average lawyer in SD doesn't get paid on time, has to hound clients for money who don't pay, has to go to court and waste more time to get paid, has to take CJA appointments to fill in the gaps and works considerably more hours than what a teacher has to. At the same time the teacher always get paid in a regular manner by the school district all the time and does not have to make phone calls or go to court to get paid.
Let’s break this down by the numbers:
Let's take that 35k and divide by the average number of hours worked. Conservatively the average lawyer with 0-5 years experience in SD is working 6 days a week and working at least 10 hours a day. That's 60 hours for 35k. That breaks down to 673/week or 112/day or 11/hour at 60 hours a week.
Teachers on the other hand on average in SD start out at 30k on a nine month contract working 5 days a week. (This doesn't include any supplemental pay for summer jobs or coaching which many do engage in on average). That breaks down to 833/week or 166/day or 16/hour with a 10 hour day.
The 70K figure you cite, first of all has no cite and second it appears that this figure would apply to Sioux Falls or maybe Rapid City but definitely not the entire state of SD in regards to average lawyer pay.
3) Lets talk about earning potential. You are exactly right when you say that lawyers have better earning potential than teachers, as they should. In fact it's only right and proper that lawyers do have greater earning potential than teachers for several reasons, a) they provide a private service which the market dictates a price, and b) they have had a greater amount of education, similar to a Ph.D.
4) Quit crying about how many papers you have to grade and spending money on the classroom decorations for Halloween, and the lessons plans. You and I both know that those lessons plans are merely dusted off after the first couple years. Also, lesson plans are already created in many instances and it’s not as if, “here teacher start teaching,” and if that is the case that’s the school’s leadership’s fault not the legislature.
Ands it’s not as if teachers are suddenly surprised on the first day of work when their boss says "Oh and by the way do up some lesson plans for the next year." Its part of the job, just like working hard hours and missing meals and getting lower pay than teachers is part of being a farmer. And getting your body beat up and shot as a cop or firefighter or getting blown up by a roadside bomb as a soldier. God bless those people.
So stop crying about putting in extra hours. When you are on salary that's an expectation that comes with the job. And lawyers don’t have people beating their doors down to use them. Lawyers have to go build personal relationships and essentially recruit a clientele. Teachers show up at the door with lessons plans in hand.
5) Your statement about out of pocket costs more than makes up for not working 12 months is a great one. Let’s examine that one: At 30k/year you would make 6923 dollars in 12 weeks. If you are saying that the average teacher is forking over almost 7k in out of pocket costs, well then maybe those teachers should expect to not get paid more. Does anyone out there think teachers fork over 7k a year in out of pocket costs for classroom expenses? No, how much do lawyers fork over in costs, well a west law subscription is at the minimum 100 dollars a month = 1200, and paying for supplies and office crap is another 1k, and what about everything else. I don’t believe teachers are even paying 2k a year out of pocket.
Here’s a good one I almost forgot teachers can deduct those expenses in an above the line deduction from their taxes. Can lawyer? No because it’s a business expense not an education related expense. So there is more income we have to factor in.
Bottom line is that you should go be a lawyer with Giebink if you going to make crappy arguments that can be blown out of the water in about 20 minutes of my time. The other bottom line is that teachers, while they are not getting rich in this state is true, are doing well enough when compared to lawyers with 0-5 years experience.
If you want more money for teachers don’t try to play the class/job warfare card, I know, I live with one. Use the performance based measures proposal that will bring the majority party in the legislature on board with your ideas and maybe some Democrats. There is nothing wrong with having to work a little harder to make more money. That’s the way it should be. Unless of course you want to put the election of Democrats ahead of teacher pay, then you should continue to carp about stingy Republicans and the block-headed school boards that won’t cough up the dough.
the legislature with the ID bill was not trying to control what happens in the classroom. Read the bill again. There is no mention of taking away academic freedom from academics.
What the ID bill would do is compel the Board of Regents to shed light on exactly what is going on in SD funded classrooms. Just like studying what race people on campus are or any of the other myriad of studies the BOR loves to take part in.
The most important thing going on in our universities is how students are being taught and who is teaching them. Customers and taxpayers should know what product they are getting. Academics and liberals especially should cheer on this type of transperancy in government. Oh that's right transperancy is only good when it exposes what those Republican critters in other state govt. departments are doing.
Again, there should be no fear of having to defend your ideas if you really beleive in them. The ones who fear this are those that know they are doing the wrong thing in the classroom for students.
You must be one of those lawyers that thinks people ought to call you "Dr." Since you're all about averages how about this (from your source) For 2003 doctorate recipients, the median total time to doctorate was 10.1 years. If you look at the top of the page, Mr Smart Lawyer who is a far better reader than me, you'll see it says "total time" is defined as "total elapsed time from completion of the baccalaureate to the doctorate." Also note the "registered time" is defined as "time in graduate school less reported periods of nonenrollment" How many of your lawyer friends spent anywhere near 10 (or 7 - whatever # you'd like to use) years working on their law degree after their bachelor's? There is a law degree roughly equivalent to the PhD - it's called the SJD. You really blew me out of the water with that one.... I think you just must be mad because Giebink fired you.
Go check my cites on the SD Dept of Labor website. It will show you all those figures I cited. You do have to make the chart yourself, but it's really as simple as clicking on "Lawyers" and "All" and "press here." (or any other jobs/professions you might be interested in) It will give you all the info I put in that post. Why don't you give me the direct cite to the DOL website that will show me that teachers starting pay averages $30K. I can't seem to find that with my poor reading skills. Here's the BS/MS figure cite - it's a different part of the webpage than the charts: http://www.state.sd.us/dol/lmic/wagesbyhiringpreference.htm I don't want you to strain yourself looking for it.
As for out of pocket expenses, I actually meant out of pocket expenses, extra time, etc. makes up for not working the same 12 months other workers do. Not up to your exacting standards, I know, but all I can do is apologize. I'm not going to touch your lawyers work harder comment - ask your wife about how hard it is to deal with a student that doesn't understand a concept. It's really apples to oranges when you get past a starting salary. I'm not going to deny that a lot of lawyers work a lot of extra hours and have a very different work environment. But I'm sticking by my $25K figure as a starting salary until you can show me the citation for your $30K figure.
I'm not math whiz, and I never was very good at story problems, but your little analysis makes about no sense to me. Teachers fork over $7K? Did I say that somewhere? Where did you get that number, and what does it mean?
I'm not a tax lawyer, so I can't really comment on deductions for educational expenses being above or below the line. But how many lawyers start out as solos? Most start w/ a firm or state/county employment. They aren't paying their expenses, their employer is. Teachers don't have that luxury.
I try to respond more later...
1) In South Dakota average teacher pay is currently $34,040.
http://doe.sd.gov/ofm/statdigest/05digest/Docs/05StatewideLongitudinalData.pdf and;
http://www.state.sd.us/factpage.htm
Those numbers are from the South Dakota Department of Education. I am sure you will have a reason why those numbers are wrong and we look forward to a good laugh.
2) Average lawyer pay as per the South Dakota State Bar is 35k and they work all 12 months. My cite is Tom Barnett speaking at the state bar. Call him up if you want hear it from his lips. Because you care about this I am sure you will. Or maybe you won't because the truth will hurt your argument.
We won't bore the readers with why the DOL cross industry study tends to skew the median average upward. Furthermore the DOL study is based on interviews with a small sample size. How many lawyers were interviewed to determine the average pay? How many were salaried v. working on contingency? What method of compilation was used.
Do we use the State Bar and its credible figure or the DOL survey method which interviewed ten lawywers to arrive at a nice round figure?
3) Your attempt to backdoor your way out of the incredible and outlandish out out of pocket expense comment you made was silly.
Here's what you wrote: "I think their out of pocket expenses more than make up for the fact that they don't work 12 months the way other workers do."
What the hell does that mean other than that you think their out of pocket expenses take away what a teacher's salary would if extrapolated for 12 months. Or stated differently your position is that, but for all those damn out of pocket expenses teacher pay over the course of 9 months would equal a 12 month job. You are essentially arguing that those out of pocket expenses are taking away 3 months of extrapolated income.
Lawyers work all 12 months and more hours per day. Teachers work for 9 months and most likely less hours per day than an attorney. Yet you refuse to yield to the facts. You are a good liberal.
As for the comment about working with students who don't get it. Professionals stick it out and perform their best. They don't throw kids down the drain and pass them on. They don't cry about how tough the situation is. Even more all the reason why we need a performance based pay system which will reward those teachers who do kick kids in the butt and make them do great things.
In conclusion you make a false claim regarding teacher pay, lowballing the amount by almost 10k with no cite, you fail to give any credit to the State Bar and what other readers have reported as average lawyer pay, you make the most outlandish claim regarding out of pocket expenses and then try to weasel your way out of it and you don't let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
Obviously, it doesn't say its going to do that, it is implied. If it wasn't going to have an effect on the classroom, then what is the purpose of the bill? Just so the legislature is "aware" and after that they aren't going to do anything? Right.
And don't paint this as liberals v. conservatives. It is more government control over the process of higher education v. less government control of higher education.
The bottom line is that the legislature should have NO role in determining or overseeing the intellectual atmosphere on college campuses. Centralized direction of abstract ideas is historically not a good idea. I have a feeling South Dakota legislators are not going to break the mold on this one.
And anonymous 12:05,
Congrats on having the guts to put your name behind your childish insult. Very mature. Instead, maybe you'd like to take a shot at convincing me why my ideas are wrong using logical arguments? I guess I'm not holding my breath. You seem to be better at "stoner bashing" and generalizing people's philosophical positions than composing coherent argument.
"... you don't let the facts get in the way of a good argument." You are the one playing fast and loose with the stats and my argument. Did I ever say "average teacher pay" is not $35K? I asked you for your proof of this claim, in your 9:47 post: "Teachers on the other hand on average in SD start out at 30k on a nine month contract working 5 days a week." You make references to the Dept of Labor website, and I never found it there. Just looking for a url.
Also thanks for not boring me with DOL facts instead of just questions of their figures. Seems to me you cite the DOL (if only vaguely) yourself. What's the difference?
Please point out where I took any issue with Tom Barnett's figure. You said in your first post the following: "She will have made more money this year than what the average attorney in this state does from 0-5 years. That ammount if you are interested is 35,000.00. as per Tom Barnett at the State Bar." Did I ever quarrel with that being the average 0-5 lawyer pay? And how do you suddenly morph that into "average lawyer pay" in your last post?
I have no idea how you twist my out of pocket expenses to somehow mean they spend the difference between avg teacher pay and avg lawyer pay (or whatever numbers your using). As I said in my last post, that paragraph was an inartful statement that I think your 9 months argument is bogus. They have to work extra hours and they have to pay for things out of their pocket, including continuing ed. Your reading that as what you did is on par with your reading of your little PhD source.
You should maybe take a breath. Sorry to get you all pissed off, but I'm just making my argument.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/09/07/news/local/news02.txt
The city outlaws "smoking" at the civic center - sounds a little suspicious to me...
The SDEA's failure to endorse more republicans wouldn't have anything to do with their disagreement with how those particular republicans stand on certain issues, now would it? Since many S.D. republicans tend to have similar thought processes, support similar issues and feel the need to spend exorbitant amounts of time discussing how to legislate morality, rather than getting serious about funding education, those stats shouldn't be such a shock. They support more democrats, I imagine, because those democrats are more in line with what they stand for.
You speak of bipartisanship and in the same breath rail on democrats. Hmmm... I'm not doubting that many democrats do the same, but they certainly don't seem to do it with as much vigor and determination. It seems to me that a line has been drawn in the sand. Those on one side paint a big 'D' on their chests, while those on the other side paint a big 'R' on their chests. How in the hell can anyone at any level of government get anything done when they confine themselves to separate sides of the line? I used to have a romantic notion about S.D politicians avoiding the line-drawing (believing that South Dakotan politicians in general tend to be good people first, politicians second), but it seems that day is gone. We've become just another part of the national trend: divided as Democrats and Republicans. And all the while what we should be doing is working together. And those officials we elect, no matter what side of the line they're on should be able to work together because their job is to labor for the good of ALL PEOPLE OF SOUTH DAKOTA. Just like the Federal Government must do its best to work for the good of ALL AMERICANS. I think at the state level and national level they've lost sight of their purpose in the midst of blathering about moral issues and partisan bullshit.
Why is it that those who fear the legislation of morality are uusually the first to speak of the need for more bi-partisianship?
Last anon cut the crap or whatever your smoking and be honest with yourself and the rest of us: you disagree with the majority party and hence the majority of voters so you call for majority to cave in and give up on their beleifs.
If South Dakota wanted Democrats in control they would vote for them. It's obvious that this state doesn't want you and your ilk making our laws.