This story has some of my Keloland colleagues' beanie caps twirling. From Terry Wooster at the Argus Leader:
Gov. Mike Rounds' administration may keep secret the list of people invited to an annual pheasant hunt, a unanimous South Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
It was a sort of Supreme Court, anyway:
All five Supreme Court justices took themselves off the case. No reason is necessary for such an action. Five circuit judges ... replaced the justices to hear and decide the case. Bastian wrote the decision.
May we infer that the five justices get to bag their quota of birds, from time to time? This seems to be the basis of the decision:
The Argus Leader first took its case to Hughes County Circuit Court, seeking an order to force Hagen to open the list. Judge Max Gors, ... ruled for Hagen, saying the secretary has discretion not to release the list. State law generally says if an officer or agency is required to keep a document, the document must be open to the public. Gors said no law specifically requires Hagen to keep the invitation list, so no law requires it to be available for public inspection.
Now I am in favor of open government as a rule, and the arguments offered for keeping the Governor's hunt list secret look weak. On the other hand, there are many good reasons why the Governor should not be required to name everyone he meets with in his official capacity. Sometimes people will only speak freely or at all if it is not generally known that they are meeting with you. In this case it was the role of the courts to decide whether, in fact, South Dakota law requires that this list be turned over to the Argus Leader. It was not their role to decide whether government in South Dakota ought to be more open or not.
Professor David Newquist doesn't seem to be aware of this distinction.
[T]he Supreme Court keeps in effect the long tradition of feudalism in the state in which the serfs have no business knowing what the privileged classes are contriving for them. It is the job of no one in South Dakota to see to it that those idiot voters out there have a clue as to what transpires in the royal halls of the kingdom.
Now I am not sure what all this had to do with feudalism, a system "having as its basis the relation of lord to vassal with all land held in fee and as chief characteristics homage, the service of tenants under arms and in court, wardship, and forfeiture." And if you are going to wax poetic, maybe you should aim at more precise poetry. It's not the "royal halls" but the royal fields where the action is.
If Professor Newquist's rhetoric is, as usual, full of hyperbole, Todd Epp goes hysterical.
Fellow Democrat and KELOLAND blogger Dr. David Newquist rightly calls it feudalism. However, I think it is more akin to the combined might of Nazi Germany statism and its corporate supporters like Krups during the 1930s and 40s. Throw in a good dose of conservative "Christianity" for good measure and you have people in government and ties to that government who attempt to control the government, industry, and the social agenda of our state. Basically, they want to try and control every aspect of our lives.
Good heavens, "the combined might of Nazi Germany statism"? That must be some pheasant hunt! Can you picture the brown shirts and swastikas, collared clergymen and Supreme Court judges, all out to bag a few ring necks? Probably this crowd has to hunt at night, as some of them would burst into flame at the first rays of the morning sun.
And while I am at it, how can the Rushmore State be both Feudal and Nazi, as the one is a decentralized social and political system, and the other a highly centralized totalitarian state? I like and admire Governor Rounds, but does he have the genius to pull that off?
A good case can be made that South Dakota's laws ought to be amended in the direction of open government. If it is, I suspect that what we will find out about the Governor's pheasant hunt will be utterly boring. It will bear no resemblance to the fevered imagination of our Keloland alarmists. And maybe calling people Nazis is more fun than a barrel of winged monkeys, but isn't always the best way to persuade reasonable people.
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