A South Dakota Moderate

The Argus Leader’s Randell Beck, of fake editorial fame, is patting several in our legislature on the back this morning because they are working to open our state government.
That our Legislature would seriously debate the extent to which the inner workings of government should be transparent is a victory for those who have long believed [...]

The recently re-designed Rapid City Journal has another in a growing number of no kidding headlines from an AP story yesterday:
Rounds: Pheasant hunt not hurt by controversy
Now one should probably be asking themselves how exactly would this super secret South Dakota “good ole boys get together” hosted by our governor be hurt? Yes the [...]

Cross posted on KELO political blogs
This morning’s Argus Leader is documenting Governor Rounds’ assertion that the way government records are handled needs to be changed. Did he come up with this notion all by himself? No, of course not. He now believes that we have a problem, he says, based on a recent report released [...]

After several months of back and forth between the state and the Argus Leader, Governor Rounds’ attorney is being quoted as saying that the salaries of all 14,000 state employees will soon be released to the newspaper.
The state of South Dakota, after months of debate and delays, soon will provide salary figures for its nearly [...]

Open records and South Dakota, like government intelligence, are 2 terms that get said often and rarely mean what they should and now Attorney General Larry Long thinks that we need a better definition of open records. There is no doubt that Larry Long has much more in the way of education than I do [...]

It took several emails and some name dropping but State Deputy Auditor Rik Drewes has responded to Todd Epps’ request for the salaries of all the Rounds’ in state government.

Rounds, Carrie DHS $10.45 hr
First Lady- Rounds, Jean GOV Not [...]

Anyone reading the Argus lately is surely familiar with the ongoing battle between the Governors office and the Argus over the availability of state employee salaries. Our neighboring states believe that that information should be easily accessible, after all it is our tax dollars paying them, but for some reason the powers that be in [...]

The game between the Argus and Pierre continued this weekend over the difficulty in getting state employee salaries. All along the Argus has contended that the state should release the salaries and the state has countered with “give us a name and we will give you a salary”. On Friday, the Argus gave a name, [...]

Not to beat a dead horse but the Argus continues it’s feud/fight with Pierre over the availability of the salaries of state employees this morning with another story, this time they interview several lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
As probably should be expected in any story in the Argus that is critical of Governor [...]

The Argus has not 1 but 2 editorials today on the availability of the salaries of government employees. Being able to say open government and South Dakota in the same sentence is rare and now the Argus is complaining about why getting the salaries of the 14,000 plus state employees is so difficult.
Since that [...]