Pillar O · Government
Government Structure and Accountability
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the cheapest.”
Real open-meetings teeth. Lobbying disclosure. Public school opt-out and capital-outlay transparency. Remove the Lt. Governor from presiding over the Senate. Hold family-court judges accountable.
Where I stand
- Strengthen open-meetings and public-records enforcement.
- Real lobbying disclosure across the legislature and executive.
- Public reporting on school opt-outs and capital outlay.
- Remove the Lt. Governor from presiding over the Senate.
- Reform the initiated-measure process against out-of-state donor capture.
Pushback, answered
The hard questions, answered straight.
These are the real objections this position gets, with the same answers Zac gives in person. No talking points. No dodges.
“We already have these laws.”
We do, and if every public body followed them then stronger enforcement would cost nothing and change nothing. So it is worth asking why the idea draws pushback at all. Better yet, ask a neighbor who has filed a records request and then waited, and waited, whether the law as written is the same thing as the law as lived. Enforcement is the whole difference between a right and a brochure.
“More reporting just means more bureaucracy for schools and small towns.”
Reporting a decision is the cheap part. The district already voted the opt-out. The capital outlay numbers already sit in the budget. Putting them in front of the public is a printer, not a program. What is genuinely expensive is what grows in the dark: rumor, distrust, litigation, and the occasional real scandal. Sunlight costs less than any of those.
“Nobody in District 32 cares who presides over the Senate.”
That is fair, and nobody thinks about a foundation until the house cracks. Separation of powers is the foundation. When an executive branch officer holds the gavel in the legislature, the branch built to check the governor is presided over by the governor's own ticket. You would never notice on an ordinary day. You would notice on the day you needed the legislature to stand up to the executive and it did not. I have lived through what it feels like when the structure of government fails a family, so I am not able to shrug at it.
“You just want to make it harder for voters to pass ballot measures.”
The reverse. A ballot measure is only worth something if it belongs to the people of South Dakota. When out-of-state donors can capture the process, your signature and your vote become props in somebody else's campaign. Protecting the initiative from capture is not distrust of voters, it is loyalty to them.
“Lobbying disclosure will be used to harass ordinary citizens.”
An ordinary citizen who drives to Pierre on her own dime to testify about her property taxes is not a lobbyist, and nothing I support treats her like one. Disclosure covers paid influence. The citizen speaking for free is precisely who disclosure protects, because she is the one who gets drowned out when paid influence operates unseen.