Tag Archives: Dennis Daugaard

Daugaard (p)responds to NPR

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When I wrote my blog post yesterday about NPR’s series on South Dakota’s foster care system and Gov. Daugaard’s history as head of the Children’s Home Society and that agency’s state contracts, I had not seen this.
 

Gov. Daugaard's prebuttal to NPR series

 Gov. Daugaard’s office sent this out to South Dakota media in advance of Laura Sullivan’s three-part series, which concludes today. (MDR’s intrepid editor Seth Tupper emailed me this document after my blog post was published.) The prebuttal is as much required reading as the NPR series itself.

Every state official who has dealt with Sullivan, including Secretary of Social Services Kim Malsam–‐Rysdon and Governor’ Office Press Secretary Joe Kafka, has characterized Sullivan as being one‐sided and predisposed to a particular position, regardless of the facts.

Daugaard and his staff concluded correctly that NPR’s stories would not be glowing, and they (p)responded to what they anticipated the focus would be – Daugaard’s history as head of the Children’s Home Society and that nonprofit’s state contracts.

Part 2 of the series does focus on that, and as bad as it looks – and it looks bad by any objective measure – I think there are much more important aspects of NPR’s coverage, both broadcast on All Things Considered and the more extensive online content.

The much bigger, longer-standing issue is whether South Dakota complies with the federal Indian Child Welfare Act and other laws, for example when social workers enter Indian reservations with which the state has no agreement and remove tribal children from their homes. The Crow Creek tribe threatened to prosecute for kidnapping in one case, NPR reported, and the children were promplty returned to their relatives.

Back to Daugaard, CHS and state contracts. This seems to me to be an unfortunate aspect of the story, almost a distraction from the ICWA issue. All of the unflattering facts are true: Dennis Daugaard was both lieutenant governor and CEO of CHS when the agency landed some big state contracts.  

I’m guessing anyone who’s been around South Dakota politics for very long probably had a similar reaction to my own: “I knew most of that already, but, yeah, when you say it like that it doesn’t sound so good.”

I’ve watched Dennnis Daugaard since his early legislative career, and to be frank, he won me over when he spent an entire legislative session trying in vain to pass some reforms for the state’s juvenile corrections system after 14-year-old Gina Score died in the state’s boot camp. To this day, you would have to convince me that he doesn’t approach his work and his life by trying to contribute to the greater good. I’ve been disappointed by people before, but every interaction I’ve had with Daugaard reinforces those early observations.

Couple Daugaard’s earnest nature with South Dakota’s citizen Legislature and even our citizen lieutenant governors, and the intersection of his political office and his private sector job don’t seem too remarkable to Rushmore State folks. It looks different to those hailing from bigger locales – and almost every place is bigger than South Dakota.  

In his prebuttal, Daugaard et al point out the long-standing relationship between the Department of Social Services and CHS:

There is a long history of contracts between the State and Children’s Home Society to provide services for children, beginning years before Governor Daugaard’s association with Children’s Home Society.

DSS has had contracts with Children’s Home Society going back to 1978, when it was first licensed as a specialized group treatment home.

The relationship between DSS and Children’s Home existed long before Dennis Daugaard was hired there, and the bigger issues with DSS, foster care and native children existed long before he was elected governor or even lieutenant governor. The NPR series reports a financial turnaround for Children’s Home after Daugaard become its CEO and also lieutenant governor. That issue deserves more exploration, and no doubt that will come.

Overall, the tone of Daugaard prebuttal is defensive, but never moreso – and less credibly – than when it claims that, as lt gov, he had no authority over state employees.

None of the DSS officials mentioned were “subordinates” to Lt. Governor Daugaard during the Rounds Administration.

Daugaard was a part-time lieutenant governor. … Like a state legislator, a part‐time lieutenant governor serves during the two-month legislative session, but has another full‐time job. Lt. Governor Daugaard presided over the senate, offered advice to Governor Rounds, and occasionally led special projects for the Governor. He did not oversee any personnel, and had no direct influence over decisions made by DSS employees.

The Secretary of Social Services reported directly to Governor Rounds and to his Chief of Staff.

While technically true, every state employee knew who the lt gov was, and no doubt the Social Services folks who arranged those contracts knew who headed CHS. You simply cannot switch hats at the drop of one. During those years, Daugaard’s head was doubly covered at all times. Those hats were surgically attached.

Even his own prebuttal points out how widely known his two jobs were.

Here’s my hope, especially given my enduring belief in Daugaard’s character. I hope that he acknowledges that the state contracts for CHS look bad, but I hope he then vows as governor to look into South Dakota’s foster care system, our compliance with ICWA and our rate of taking children from their home – about 3 times that of other states.

I hope he works as hard at that as he worked as a young lawmaker to bring some reform to juvenile corrections. This time, he has a lot more power to affect change.

Certainly given his professional background, he is the right governor for the job. Given his personal nature, I hope, he is doubly so.  

 

Is 60% really all that high for a Republican gov in SD?

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SD Gov. Dennis Daugaard earned a solid 60% job approval rating in a recent poll, but other Republicans have outshined him. Is that really a good number for a SD Republican in his first year in office?

Dennis Daugaard is just about the nicest guy you will ever meet. South Dakota has its share of nice politicians, but this one tops them in my book. (Isn’t there a Twitter person going by Denny Do-good?)

So when I ask if the governor’s 60% job approval rating in a recent poll is really all that high, I’m not asking if Denny is likeable. He most certainly is. So is Barack Obama, but that hasn’t helped his job approval ratings of late, either.

I remember Mike Rounds scoring an off-the-charts 75 or something, the highest approval rating in all the land. John Thune got re-elected to Congress a few times by that very comfortable margin.

And while many a politician would give a year’s worth of campaign contributions to get even close to 60%, the number struck me as low for a Republican on the Second Floor in his first year.

So I wonder aloud if anyone else had the same reaction.

Could it be the budget cuts? I know I winced when nobody blinked on cutting 10% across the board, being the mother of 2 toddlers and caring very  much about the school down the street. (I know schools didn’t suffer the entire 10%; it was still rough.)

Could it be somehow the flood? I have heard through the grapevine that some residents of the northeastern lakes territory felt a bit chagrinned that so much focus went to the Mighty Mo while they, too, faced rising waters. I have also heard grumbling about disproportionate use of National Guard resources in the tony Dakota Dunes community.

Even if these complaints are unwarranted – and I must confess I have not followed up, the perception is certainly out there. And, you know, people talk.

Could it be a lawyerly, perhaps professorial speaking style that, for all of Denny’s niceness, lacks a bit in the broad charisma that is the currency of modern-day politics?

Could it be that the stepped-up rhetoric coming from the Dems is having an impact?

Could it be that I’m simply all wet? That 60% is really quite high in the current electoral climate?

Sorry, politicians, but families do in fact spend what they don’t have

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Gov. Dennis Daugaard has regularly submitted columns to newspapers since he took office. I think it’s a great idea. One sentence in his most recent column about the state’s balanced budget stopped me in my tracks, though:

In short, our leaders led. We came to terms with the fact that, just like our families and businesses, state government cannot spend what it does not have.

That makes a good soundbite, and Daugaard is far from the first politician to use it. Trouble is, it’s not true. Families spend what they don’t have all the time. In fact, I’ll bet if you think about it, you’ll have trouble naming any family you’ve ever known that never spent beyond its means.

Columnist Kathleen Parker, who is published in The Daily Republic, put it pretty well this week:

… Families routinely spend more than they have. They borrow money to buy houses and cars. They borrow to take vacations and to send their kids to college. So, although we might agree to the principle that we shouldn’t spend more than we have, we do. So does our government.

I also get sick of a related soundbite that goes something like this: “South Dakota families have to set a budget and live by it, and so should Washington.”

How many families do you know that actually have a written budget that they follow religiously? I can think of one, and that was just because they were following a plan they bought from Dave Ramsey, the Christian-based financial adviser on the radio.

Personally, my family does not have a written budget, and I wouldn’t want one. I’ve got way too much going on in my life to be constantly consulting a budget to figure out if my kid can have a piece of candy. My “budget” just means that I automatically set aside money for retirement, my kids’ college funds and an emergency account every month. Then I pay all my bills. Whatever’s left, I spend. I think most people live the same way or in some variation of the same way. Some are more responsible and some are less.

I wish politicians would just leave families out of it and fix the government’s budget. Families don’t have to field armies or build roads or police their own streets. Even if families had to make budgets, they wouldn’t be anything like a government budget. Comparing the two is an oversimplification designed to score political points, and nothing more.

GOP party leader walks away a winner

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Why did Bob Gray walk away?

The state senator announced Monday he won’t seek another term as the chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party. Gray had an extremely successful year as the GOP leader, even for such a bright red state.

He helped guide Republicans to wins in the race for the state’s sole seat in the U.S. House. State Rep. Kristi Noem knocked off the most promising young Democrat in the state in years, possibly ending Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s career and making the future even brighter for South Dakota Republicans.

Dennis Daugaard kept the GOP streak alive in governor races. The Republicans have now won nine straight races.

They won all the constitutional office contests and most of the legislative races. Gray is like Jim Brown and Bjorn Borg, walking away as a champion.

The Democrats shook up their leadership, with Ben Nesselhuf taking the reins as both executive director and party chairman. Both field director have also decided to move on.

It makes sense for the Democrats to sweep out the old and welcome in the new.

Did Gray decide serving as both a legislator and a party chairman was too much? He twice turned down the post when it was offered to him two years ago.

Some legislators have said Gray’s position as Republican leader in the Senate caused some friction among his fellow senators. Pierre reporter Bob Mercer will have a story on the change in Tuesday’s Daily Republic.

The South Dakota GOP will pick a new party chairman on Jan. 22. Whoever takes the post will have a very hard act to follow.

Dusty becomes chief of staff: Good move?

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As you can read by clicking here, Dusty Johnson will be Gov.-elect Dennis Daugaard’s chief of staff.

It’s a surprising announcement, given that Johnson, of Mitchell, just won re-election to the Public Utilities Commission and will now leave that post. It’s also surprising given Johnson’s assumed political aspirations. Chief of staff has always been a behind-the-scenes type of position, so it’s not usually a job for people who want to someday hold higher office. A case in point is Dave Knudson, who was chief of staff for Bill Janklow and went on to get crushed in his bid for governor. Another case in point is pretty much every other chief of staff in history, because you probably can’t name any of them off the top of your head.

What do you think about this announcement? Is this a good move or bad move for Dusty?