District 33 State House Republican Primary: Howard, Johnson and Buckingham

Updated 6/3/16 Accidentally had wrong title for a bill in Buckingham section.

South Dakota legislative District 33 has  a Republican Primary for State House. There is also a Republican Primary on the Senate side. District 33 appears to go west from the west side of the Rapid City metro and includes Ashland Heights, Blackhawk, Box Elder, Colonial Pine Hills, Johnson Siding and Summerset.

Term-limited Rep Jacqueline Sly (R, Dist 33) is trying for the Senate seat and Rep Scott Craig (R, Dist 33) is not seeking reelection. That leaves three other Republicans trying for these two house seats: Taffy Howard (R), David Johnson (R) and Mike Buckingham (R). Stephen Eckrich (R) had a petition in for this race, but withdrew his name.  The winner of this primary will face Democrats Jim Hadd and Ethan Marsland in the General Election.

Here is a brief look at all three candidates.  The candidates below are listed in the order they will appear on the primary ballot. I’ve also included the links I could find to help voters learn more about each candidate.

Taffy Howard

Taffy Howard (R)
Website – Facebook – Ballotpedia – VoteSmart – SoDakLiberty

Howard has an issues page on her website. It is split into Gun Rights, Family Values, Open Government, Limited Government, Taxes and Medicaid Expansion.

Howard’s open government section has a section that has many parents upset:

 Will Rogers said, “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”  We should not live in fear that every time our legislators meet they are going to raise our taxes.  The hard working people of South Dakota deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money and enjoy the freedom that entails.

Until now, the state of South Dakota has chosen not to participate in the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.  The pressure to expand has not let up though and it is an issue still being debated.  I am going to focus this article on the three main reasons why I am opposed to the current proposal to expand Medicaid in the state of South Dakota.  Two of the reasons are the same ones that Gov. Daugaard gave when he opposed it in 2012.  First, the expansion will be entirely of able-bodied adults.  Second, the federal government is notoriously untrustworthy when it comes to paying its bills.  The third reason is that since I, like everyone else, am a federal taxpayer as well as a state taxpayer, the shifting of financial responsibility from the state to the federal government benefits me in no way.

David Johnson

David Johnson (R)
Website – Facebook – Ballotpedia – VoteSmart – SoDakLiberty

Johnson was a candidate for State Senate in the 2014 election. He just barely lost the primary election against Sen Phil Jensen (R, Dist 33). Now he is seeking the House seat. Johnson does have an issues page on his website. They are just a series of one-line stances and he doesn’t expand upon them. Here is the stances listed:

• Responsible, Reduced Taxation
• Limited, Accountable Government
• 100 % Pro-Life and Traditional Family Values
• Defend Gun Rights and Preserve the 2nd Amendment
• Protection and Defense of our Constitution
• Locally-Controlled, Quality Education
• 100% Support of our State and National Military

On the same page he calls himself a Reagan Conservative Republican. On a different part of his website Johnson does expand a little bit:

I feel my history in the military and my experiences and education in our great South Dakota college institutions gives me some very specific insight on what it means to be a leader and the importance of high-quality, locally-controlled education at the K-12 levels.

Johnson seems to be running on pretty standard Republican stances to win the primary.

Mike Buckingham

Mike Buckingham (R)
Ballotpedia – VoteSmart – SoDakLiberty
LRC: 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

Buckingham also ran against Sen Phil Jensen (R, Dist 33) for State Senate. That was back in 2012 and Buckingham was not near as close as Johnson was in 2014.

Buckingham doesn’t have much an online presence. But that is OK, as a former Representative there is a legislative record to look at for Buckingham. This post will finish by looking a few pieces of legislation prime sponsored by Buckingham.

In 2008 Buckingham was the prime sponsor of:

HB 1262 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Establish a classification system, an evaluation system, and minimum annual salaries for certified teachers and school service specialists, and to repeal certain provisions relating to teacher tenure.

This is a bill that shows Buckingham was working on teacher pay eight years ago. HB 1262 would have created different tiers of teachers and minimum pay for each. The bill didn’t pass, but it does show this has been an issue in SD for some time.

Since I follow election law it is worth looking at this bill from 2007 prime sponsored by Buckingham:

HB 1156 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Revise certain requirements concerning the pay and qualifications of petition circulators.

This is where the law came from that doesn’t allow circulators for a initiated measure, referred law, or proposed amendment to the South Dakota Constitution to be paid by signature. It also changed the definition of petition circulator to include the requirement of being a resident of the state of South Dakota. The law change really didn’t do anything. Paid circulators still exist, they just get paid using different methods. It would be good if Buckingham returns if he looks at ways to improve the election system, instead of passing legislation that really didn’t open up the election system or really impact anything.

The final bill to look at from 2006 is a socially conservative one:

HB 1153 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – An Act to revise the definition of a prohibited sexual act

This is a bill that must have been aimed at curtailing certain behavior at Sturgis. It added “bare feminine breasts in a lewd or lascivious manner” to the definition of Prohibited sexual act. This seems an odd bill. Especially since the last few years there have been battles to try getting public breast-feeding accepted. Yes, these are two different issues, but in reality both issue are about the same part of the body.

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