Howie in South Dakota

South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government. 

Former Republican legislator Charles Droz is listed as the chairman. Droz is an octogenarian.  He says he decided to sign on to the measure after being approached by Lee Breard. Breard had been pushing legislation on open and clean government (which may not have matched the initiative) during the legislative session.  The initiative is being branded as an effort to let the people do what the legislature would not.

The primary funder of South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government is the South Dakota Conservative Action Council (CAC). This nonprofit corporation was created in 2007. The board members are Breard, Steve Sibson and Lora Hubbel.  (From Lexis Combined Business and Corporation Information. File number NS013540.) Oddly, in the press release announcing the formation of the CAC,  lists Lee Breard as the "state director" as if CAC was part of a multistate network.  In a profile, Breard said that CAC would focus on,  "four main issues: tax and spending reforms, education reforms, including school choice and vouchers, private property rights and government reform and transparency."  They have also made term limits an issue. This is the Howard Rich cluster of issues.  Breard has said that Rich's Americans for Limited Government has provided a small amount of funding to CAC.

Each board member has a long track record of conservative activism in the state.  Breard, while working for Bruce Whalen, Stephanie Herseth's opposition in 2006, claimed that Herseth was a "home wrecker" and circulated wikipedia statements about her which were fairly obviously false (those statements alleged she and a staffer had become the parents of a new baby).  

Lora Hubbel, when she ran for mayor of Sioux Falls in 2006, advocated building radiaton shelters in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the heartland.  A quote from her 2006 mayoral run in Sioux Falls:

"Any politician who takes a ton of money from a hidden PAC worries me." she said. "What are they trying to bring in? Are they going to use the city to fund their hidden agenda?"(Argus Leader. March 28, 2006.)

A news report also identifies Stacey Wollman as a "founding member" of CAC.  Wollman is one of the sponsors of the anti-choice petition in South Dakota, and is the executive director of a Care Net facility in South Dakota. (The Associated Press. "S.D. Petition Effort Seeks to Ban Abortion as Birth Control." December 15, 2007.) She was one of the organizers of the South Dakota part of the National Day of Prayer in May 2006. (PR Newswire .  "Mt. Rushmore to be Site for Historic First Annual National Day of Prayer Event." April 26, 2006.) Wollman ran for the South Dakota House in 2006 but technical violations (not fraud) in her petitions kept her from qualifying.  (The Associated Press. "Several Republican Candidates for State Senate Face no Opposition."  April 7, 2006.)

The Aberdeen News did a four part series tracking the funders behind the "Open and Clean Initiative" movement in South Dakota.  Read those articles here:


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