South Dakota Republican Party Chair Sues Secretary of State to Prevent Her From Certifying Any Constitution Party Candidates

On August 16, a hearing was held in a South Dakota circuit court in Lederman v Krebs, civ 18-147. Lederman is the Republican Party state chair. He had sued the Secretary of State to prevent her from certifying the names of any Constitution Party candidates on the November ballot. Two factions of the Constitution Party, with different state chairs, had each held a nominating convention and chosen different nominees for public office. The basis for the lawsuit was that a party could only have one set of nominees. The judge ordered the Secretary of State not to have any nominees.

Neither faction of the party had any attorneys in court, so it was not possible for anyone associated with the Constitution Party to call witnesses and introduce any evidence about who the rightful state officers are.


Comments

South Dakota Republican Party Chair Sues Secretary of State to Prevent Her From Certifying Any Constitution Party Candidates — 13 Comments

  1. Which “faction” is recognized by the national CP? For recognized state affiliation, the national party requires a copy of bylaws, recent meeting minutes, list of officers, and depository bank account, and statement of fidelity to the national platform and principles. This should be pretty easy to resolve.

  2. The national Constitution Party recognizes the faction headed by a former state Republican legislator, rather than the faction headed by long-time party leader Lori Stacey.

  3. Former Republican legislator and 2014 GOP candidate for governor Lora Hubbel had first joined the Constitution Party in 2016. She was elected chair at that year’s state convention. Former chair Lori Stacey never gave Hubbel access to the state party’s website or financial information, but she did harshly criticize what she perceived as Hubbel’s lack of leadership. Hubbel resigned in February of 2017 and rejoined the Republican Party.

    Secretary-treasurer Stacey then attempted to leapfrog over duly elected vice-chair Joel Bergan by declaring herself chair-treasurer and leading party members to believe she’d done so in compliance with party bylaws and state statutes. After Stacey recruited Hubbel to rejoin the Constitution Party and run for governor this year, many party activists—and apparently the secretary of state’s office—came to believe that Stacey had never legally resumed her duties as chair in 2017.

    At that point in mid July, the party had only hours left to give 30 days’ notice for a last-chance state convention on August 14. Because the party’s most recent filing pursuant to SDCL 12-5-14 still listed her as chair, Hubbel agreed to submit the convention notice identifying herself as such. Party members later reached general agreement that the legitimate chair at the time was actually former vice-chair Bergan, who’d fully approved of Hubbel’s convention notice.

    The national party chair had personally recognized Hubbel as state chair, but he later disavowed any official position on the matter. I’m pretty sure the national executive committee as a whole had never taken a position (https://dakotafreepress.com/2018/08/01/national-cp-tells-sd-factions-to-settle-own-convention-duel/).

    Stacey announced her resignation from the state central committee around two weeks ago, but before she did, she declared her handpicked and unilaterally appointed “central committee” to be new chair-treasurer Micheal Gunn and state secretary James Bialota. Along with their awful candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, Stacey’s tiny faction appears to have helped Republican state chair (and notorious legal bully) Dan Lederman successfully deep-six the rest of South Dakota’s Constitution Party.

  4. NO CP internal judicial body — State or National —

    to NOT have the D/R HACK courts mess with small parties ???


    Same for factions in religion groups.

  5. SD — one more area that should still be a USA Territory ???

    IE — during/after the Civil War the Elephants created several SMALL population States

    — to rig CONTROL of the USA Senate — for decades — esp. before the 17th Amdt.

    See the gang factions in the DARK AGE old small population Italian city-states.

  6. It seems like the Constitution Party has had an awful lot of rival state factions and state parties disaffiliated from the national party over the last 10 years or so.

  7. Kurt,

    You keep telling a tale that is absolutely not true based purely on no facts, just Hubble’s lies! I don’t appreciate your continuous slanderous statements.

    The first several months Lora did not even want to resume any duties as Chairman because she did not like our nominee Daryl Castle a d was all in for Trump. At no time did I ever refuse to give her anything! She wasn’t even wanting to do anything at all until after the November election.

    Also, it is likewise a complete lie that I did not file the proper documentation in 2017 after Joel agreed for me to resume as Chairman! I am the only one that did the proper paperwork required by the SOS office and is still there on her website today. TWO reports were filed with Krebs office on 2/6/17 by me. A New Statement of Organization at the direction of a staff member I her office certifying the change in party officers AND the Campaign Finance report!!! There is nothing confusing about the hard facts!!

    Krebs is lying as payback I assume as payback for our syccessfullawsuit. The rest is hearsay lies by all the others that have now destroyed the party I worked very hard for over many years.

    I would appreciate it if you will finally stop spreading all these lies!

  8. Lori,

    In what state were you living when Lora Hubbel resigned as chair on February 2, 2017? Did you, as state party secretary, keep meeting minutes from your “teleconference” with former vice-chair Joel Bergan that evening? Did you even mention to him the possibility of appointing me to replace you as state secretary? Did he tell you on Friday, February 3, 2017, that he’d decided he’d be able to assume the duties of the chair? Did you tell him it was “too late”?

    Can you post links to the “TWO” reports you say you filed with the secretary of state’s office on Monday, February 6? Had you ever submitted any filing pursuant to SDCL 12-5-14? In the following 15 months, did Joel Bergan, I, or any other member of the central committee or party ever see a single statement from the party’s financial institution? Did we ever vote to approve your payment for the state convention venue, your $17-per-person fee to participate in that convention, or any other party financial decision?

    Did Secretary of State Krebs personally submit the bill permitting alternative parties to nominate all offices by convention to the state legislature? Did she testify to that fact in the lawsuit? Has she demonstrated anything but the utmost patience and forbearance toward alternative parties this year? Why would you suggest she now suddenly wants “payback” for a ballot-access law she actively supported and defended?

    Did you recruit Lora Hubbel to rejoin the Constitution Party and seek its nomination for governor this year? If she’d been the abomination you suggest she was during her tenure as chair in 2016-2017, why would you have done that? How can my “tale” be based on her lies when she wasn’t even a member of the party during most of the events mentioned in these questions? Had the party in fact experienced more growth and organization in the last month than it had under years of your supposed “hard work”?

    Finally, when you decided to resign, did you then allow the party to present a unified front against the Republican laswuit? Or did you unilaterally appoint a two-person “central committee” to continue a dog-in-the-manger proxy war against the rest of the party? You’re the one engaging in lies and reckless defamation, Lori, and it’s your own egomania that insisted on having either an absolute dictatorship over the party or no party at all.

  9. Wow,

    I recall when Ed replaced the open seat in AIP
    that Nancy no longer occupied in California AIP, because
    her term was long over in 2006 at a meeting in Rancho
    Cordova. At that meeting I became Vice Chairman.

    Then on September 2, 2008, Don Grundmann spent his last day on the State Central Committee and an officer
    of the AIP. Month before Grundmann was removed as an Area Director and as an officer of his County Central
    Committee.

    September 3, 2008 the AIP was free of Don Grundmann.
    It is almost Ten Years that AIP has been free of Don Grundmann. His last day as a National Committeeman
    of AIP was September 2, 2008.

    Which of the two factions support Don Grundmann in the
    Constitution Party of California?

  10. Mark S. asked:

    Which of the two factions support Don Grundmann in the
    Constitution Party of California?

    Me:

    Primitive plurality elections will get you into a bind to where factions must be exclusionary.

    Not so under pure proportional representation (PPR).

    In cases where two factions do not want to unite, the United Coalition has special traits where once the election is over, both factions can retain seats in separate areas, and each faction is able to maintain its prioritised list on the big team with the 100%

    Then as individuals request to switch from one faction to another, to even sit with a totally different party altogether while retaining the word Constitution by their name or not, and based on the marked ballots everyone is free to move their seat from group to group. Of course when they transfer to a new group then they must start at the bottom, but there new people follow the previous ones chronologically.

    This happens all the time, sometimes with two groups named the same, but the single stack of ballots determines rankings for the full four year cyle.

    We’re highly advanced over all plurality elected teams, by having these traits, and only under pure proportional representation (PPR) does the unity prevail.

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