Opponents spar over ballot measure 10.

By Kevin Woster, Journal staff | Tuesday, October 07, 2008

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The emotional side of the Initiated Measure 10 campaign surfaced Monday night in Rapid City during an often-testy debate between former state Rep. Tom Hennies and former U.S. Senate candidate Sam Kephart.

Kephart, a Spearfish businessman who lost the Republican U.S. Senate primary to Joel Dykstra in June, offered a fiery defense of the proposed law. In a voice that sometimes rose almost to a shout, he said the measure’s restrictions on the awarding of government contracts and use of taxpayer money for lobbying would help citizens wrest power from “the hands of the business and political elite” in South Dakota.

Well-connected business owners trade political contributions and the promise of high-paying jobs in the private sector for no-bid state government contracts, sometimes amounting to many millions of dollars, Kephart said. It’s an arrangement where insiders win and most taxpayers lose, he said.

“You better believe there is a cabal of influential business people who are pulling the strings behind the scenes,” Kephart said.

Hennies, a former Rapid City police chief who served eight years as a Republican member of the South Dakota House of Representatives, was no less spirited in his response. He rejected the notion of widespread corruption and wasteful sweetheart deals between business and state government in Pierre.

“I’ve been there. I know it doesn’t happen,” he said. “And especially it doesn’t happen in the way is intimated in this measure.”

Hennies said the initiative is a copycat measure tried in other states and developed by shadowy interests based outside of South Dakota who won’t identify themselves. Under the guise of making government more open and accountable, provisions in the measure would stifle speech and disenfranchise people who hold legitimate government contracts, as well as their families, he said. They also would eliminate lobbying options vital to many state and local government officials, Hennies said.

“What this measure really is, ladies and gentlemen, is a gag law,” he said.

The debate was held at the St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and sponsored by the local chapter of the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center. About two dozen people attended.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com