From the Black Hills to the Big Sioux, the Dakota Town Hall Podcast.
Hosted by Murdoc in the West and Jake in the East, Featuring Advocacy Manager for the ACLU Samantha Chapman as well as Nicole Uhre-Balk, The House Rep for District 32
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Read along with this week’s transcript from Dakota Town Hall
Murdoc: Back from everybody’s ham weekend and we’re down a pope, Jake.
Jake: We’re down a pope. I was thinking, you know, I’ve only lost two races so far. What if I, and you had a plan for this. Put your hand in the ring? Yeah, if I get elected, I mean, I’m not gonna give you like, I don’t think I do this show anymore. I don’t think it’ll really.
Murdoc: Shoenbeck white smoke. Let’s do it. It’d be great.
Jake: You know, I think I think. Oh, you just need to be a Catholic basically to get elected and then they make you, they make you a bishop or they make you a priest and a bishop and then your, then your pope.
Murdoc: So I put some money on a couple of candidates on the, on my pope Calcutta.
Jake: Which ones? Let’s hear them.
Murdoc: I got, I got a little cash on the one out of Guyana as a bummer bet and then. And then, and then which one do you like? The, the.
Jake: I think that’s a good bet Parolin and yeah.
Murdoc: You know, put a little good vibe money on the friendly pope.
Jake: And I was telling you before show, I think it’s time for a fat pope. I think they’d be good for the world if we had a fat pope,I think big jolly fat pope would be a great thing
Murdoc: big jolly fat pope. Yeah. When’s the last time we had a fat pope?
Murdoc: Been a while, right? They’ve been old and frail looking
Jake: John Paul was not John Paul I don’t think he might have been a little chubby, but it’s been a while. It’s been a while.
Murdoc: New show here. Know your popes. Okay. Let’s get it. Welcome to South Dakota’s most listened to political podcast with Jake in the east. I’m Murdoc in the West and it is Friday afternoon on the cowboy or whatever time it is in your ears on your favorite podcast player. Welcome back to the show. Jake its been been 19 weeks of old white Republicans. And so we’re trying to balance that out here in the last couple of weeks.
Jake: You said that last week. Yeah. I got to stop letting you book the show because every time you booked the show, it’s just a bunch of Democrats show up. I don’t know. I don’t know what that’s about.
Murdoc: Rhinos indeed. Okay. Jake, who’s with who’s joining us? We’ve got a great show.
Jake: All right. Let’s start with the good representative from district 32, Nicole Urhe-Balk. Nicole, thank you for joining us once again. Welcome back.
Urhe-Balk: Hello. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It’s been a while. I think before the election. Yeah, about a year ago. Yeah, on the campaign.
Jake: And Samantha Chapman from the ACLU. Samantha, thank you for joining us.
Chapman: Hey, how’s it going?
Jake: Good. All right, let’s get into it. So, Samantha, not Samantha. Sorry, Nicole, one, one term down or one. I just lost. I totally just lost it.
Murdoc: One down, one down, one to go.
Jake: One session down. I just lost the word entirely. One session down. How are you feeling? I mean, I was it everything you expected? Was it the was the glory of Peter in January through March? Everything you thought it would be.
Urhe-Balk: Oh, and then some and then some. Yeah. No, it was fantastic. I honestly, I loved it. I love to hate it. I love all the things about it actually. And, you know, people might be sick of hearing this and because I do write about this in my column in the journal, but just the best roller coaster of my life. Lots of highs and lots of lows and they go in between really fast.
Jake: Well, let’s go there. What was what was the highest high?
Urhe-Balk: I mean, besides it being the hundred session, you know, just some fantastic, you know, the largest amount of women in legislature largest amount of new people. So I didn’t feel alone. That was nice.
There’s a lot of camaraderie there. So that was, that was good. So those are, those are just, you know, out of the gate, really exciting. I mean, to be the first Democrat elected in 18 years to district 32 and the top vote getter I might add was pretty exciting. So.
Murdoc: You politely humble brag better than almost anyone in the house. It’s well done.
Urhe-Balk: Just can’t let it go. But so that was those were, yeah, exciting starts. I mean, education was, you know, so on. So for those of you who don’t know my background, I am education had a decade of experience teaching the classroom and then also doing professional development for teachers across the state and Wyoming and North Dakota. But so yeah, definitely focused on education and, you know, we had some wins and then lots of.
Jake: What were what were your big wins in education you would say.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, I mean, you know, we did get SB 70 past that was the last vote of the session and it was, it was 100% green. So that was, that was really fun and remind everybody.
Jake: Yes, numbers aren’t easy to track.
Urhe-Balk: So it’s the rule sparsity benefit. And so what it did is it increased benefits for districts that count as rural sparsity. And it did it in such a way that it was like the max amount that wouldn’t increase property taxes for those communities.
Murdoc: And so you say that like property taxes were a topic of the session.
Jake: The golden rule. Don’t raise property taxes right now.
Urhe-Balk: Oh my gosh. Seriously. I got it. We can talk about that too. But we also got, we got stipends for student teachers. So in so many of our neighboring states, student teachers actually get can get paid, either through small stipends or just for the duties that they serve and South Dakota has been using student teachers to actually cover for classes. There was a thing that was passed that would allow them to actually, they can actually be the teacher in the classroom for some things as long as they have, you know, oversight and insert at certain times and whatnot.
So anyway, excited to be able to hopefully it could just be one little step in keeping, you know, our student teachers here in the state and then if they student teach at a local school district and more likely to stay. Okay. So that’s a big one. Also, SB six, which gave the Douglas school district a 0% interest loan for a new school. Super exciting. You know, they are growing the base is so important.
Jake: Oh, that one. Okay. That one. Okay. I was trying to figure out where Douglas was, but that makes sense.
Murdoc: Not everything’s about Watertown, Jake.
Jake: I don’t I mean, I forget there’s something other than the other side of the river is a whole other part of the state. It’s crazy.
Urhe-Balk: Oh, where were what are the lows we haven’t really been through what the lows might be.
Urhe-Balk: I mean, it was both a win and a low in that just the amount of effort that had to go towards defeating vouchers or ESAs educational savings accounts. This is a tight budget year. There’s just no room for that. And I know you all have done a whole almost episode on that talking to Sandra Altman about it. But so yeah, both both the win and just big attacks on
Jake: that fight is just totally over now right not to cup again no shot. We talked about in the next session.
Urhe-Balk: No, not at all. Yeah, no, they’ll be fascinating. Although we’re still look I mean we’re not looking at any better budget outcomes for next year. In fact, it might be even tighter. So I don’t know. So it will be an interesting conversation to
Jake: have with that pitch to you quick. I’d love to hear the ACLU’s use views on vouchers and what happened last session with vouchers.
Chapman: I mean, obviously we’re happy with the outcome of all the legislation surrounding school vouchers. In our view, I mean, we just we didn’t take an open position on any of the voucher bills. In general, I mean, my personal take is it kind of takes away money from our public education system which is already kind of struggling to get enough funding to fund to pay teachers adequately in South Dakota to have the resources that we need. And now as we’re seeing, you know, talk talk at the federal level about like dismantling the Department of Education, which would then turn into block grants to our state. I wouldn’t have a ton of faith that that system would be implemented in a fair way if the voucher system were also in place. So I was really at the ACLU was relieved to see the school voucher bills die at least for this session.
Jake: I guess I’m surprised as to as he did not take a harder stance on it. I thought they might be openly opposed to it.
Chapman: Jake, there is no shortage of attacks. I’m sorry, I tried my hardest.
Murdoc: Totally fair. I think where’s where’s that conversation head next year? Samantha, I’ll kick it back to you Yeah.
Chapman: with the vouchers? I don’t have an answer for that one. I guess I would hope that the people who are pushing for a school voucher system are doing their due diligence and having conversations with all of the stakeholders and people who would be involved in those conversations to make sure that whatever policy they’re going to put forward is at least like kind of more prepared for prime time. In that sense, as we hear often paraded by legislators. But I mean, again, at the end of the day, I think we don’t know what things are changing so rapidly on the federal level with regard to how things are structured and like I don’t know what our federal Department of Education will even look like next year. So depending on kind of what things look like at a federal level that might really change how we approach, you know, state level voucher bills and education bills.
Jake: I heard a call from your standpoint is it kind of a sit and wait and see what the I guess kind of right wing of the poking party brings forward with this.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, definitely. And, and I think it is also just what will happen federally because depending on those, you know, theoretically services won’t be cut or funding won’t be cut and so theoretically we’ll be getting the same amount, 1.3 billion dollars. And, you know, but who knows how that will be earmarked exactly or what states do they have total freedom with it with that money or can they yeah with the federal DOE being gone that will be passing. But who knows.
Murdoc: I heard they were going to turn it all into just Spencer gifts. Like that the Spencer gifts was just going to run the Department of Education.
Jake: Every once in a while you just miss on one. It sucks.
Murdoc: They’re not all funny. You got keep swinging.
Jake: Nicole, tell me so you know your Democrat. What was it like working in a largely a super majority Republican legislature? You know, how was it working across the aisle? There’s got to be some highs and lows there too.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, I like to say sometimes maybe as Dems, we have a hard time maybe bringing the bills, but we definitely swung the bills this this session. And we, you know, there was, there’s a, and we’re still kind of compiling all the ones that just looking at the data of where you could definitely see that’s that swing that Democrats voting as a block really, really helped 1052 was definitely one of those you could see the Dems and that one was the sorry the pipeline.
So, so yeah, but you know, people ask, you know, is it like national and like, no, I mean, in the bill drama in the middle of the bill drama right like it can get heated and there can be some back and forth. But as soon as the gavel drops, you know, like, we’re pretty nice to each other at least like to each other’s face I don’t know I had a I had a good time. We had some good, you know, one of my highlights from the session that dealing with bills was got to go to the Republican women’s like shooting event at the police Academy. It was, it was really fun. I turned it like I’m not really great at loading.
Murdoc: Not as John Carly
Jake: You beat John Carly in a shootoff. We know that.
Urhe-Balk: That was actually really difficult. I did good at target practice though. Like I actually hit the target.
Jake: So was that your first time shooting a gun?
Urhe-Balk: I shot a rifle and stuff like that, but definitely the first time shooting a handgun. But we had a really good time. People, you know, we were joking. Yeah, they were like trying to help me load and but so that was that was funny.
Jake: But just hammer against stereotypes as hard as you could on that one. Right. Yeah.
Murdoc: So let’s go to while we have time here in this first break. Let’s talk about the future of District 32 a little bit. Senator Halene Dooham will posted some news last week that’s in all seriousness. We are all of our thoughts and pairs are with lean and Steve Duffy is there, you know, she announced that their cancer is back.
And for those of you don’t know, by the way, like a lot of us out in West River and and when I say this, I mean an entire generation or two of people watch to lean. Dooham will survive cancer in the 90s and 2000s like on network television, pre Internet like mash numbers, right. And so like it’s how almost everybody knows her story and her journey to have to buckle up and do that again. I dont know man, there’s not a lot of people I think are cooler than Helene Duhamel on.
Jake: And that being said, of all the people that you you hear that get a diagnosis like this, you think, OK, they’re probably going to step back. I don’t know if Helene will. I just the way she operates. She’s done this before. I think she’s going to do it again. So, you know, definitely got prayers up Helene, but I think this will be another other victory for her.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, she’s seemed so strong and but yeah, just her goes out to to their family and that is not a fun or just awful. But it sounds like she’s going to, you know, much like the first diagnosis kind of keep people part of the journey and that adds even the next layer level of strongness for sure.
Jake: Well, it’s cool. I mean, she’s definitely advocating for like cancer survivors in a lot of ways. I mean, it’s not easy to go through. Anybody has a family that’s gone through this. It’s a terribly difficult thing to go through. And to be like, yeah, I’m going through it. I’m going to show you how I’m doing it is you’re right. It’s another layer that adds.
Murdoc: Leave it to Helene Duhamel to use her own illness to get just some basic civility back into the. I’m going to drag us through it. I don’t at all meet it insensitively being a political podcast, but you know, there’s more broken pinball machines in peer than elected Democrats in pierce. So like it’s an opening for District 32 to widen the Democrats.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, but again, Halene strong. Who knows.
Murdoc: And open it. Let me rephrase that a little. An opening is a year and a half. Take her thing out of it a little just like. Let me rephrase it to say this is like District 32 is wide open for the Democrats as we had Dan Ailers on last week. You know, he all but didn’t want us to talk about it. It’s such a. It’s such an open secret in the South Dakota Dems.
Jake: And yeah, that’s outside of Helene’s. It is. Everyone said this last time when you were in a call, it was an opportunity for Democrats to win an area. And I still think it is.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, I mean, Christine laid a great foundation, the race before before me, you know, hopefully. We’ve had some good organizing. I’ve had such a great group of people come around me and help with with all the things that takes a team effort. Right. And I think that that team has just been energized even more with with my rent when and then everything that’s going on nationally.
I think if we can just continue to stay organized and continue that momentum we’ll and continue to just try to find those those good candidates then we’ll do do great.
Murdoc: Samantha, I have a question for the I don’t I don’t mean to sound this probably sounds so insulting. Is there an office West River for the ACLU. I figured we’d run you guys out.
Chapman: You wish. No, we don’t have an office, but I’m actually headed out to Rapid City this weekend for a couple of events. I’m the only advocacy staff in our state.
So I kind of run around all over the place meeting with the different communities where they’re at when when I’m needed. So no official office. I wish we sure wish we had one. It would be super convenient, but nope. I just make the trek.
Murdoc: It’s a lot of miles. Do you have a favorite gas station stop along I 90 a new bit here on Dakota town home?
Chapman: I mean, I know it’s kind of sick because I have to stop there all the time during legislative session, but I always stop at the coffee cup at the Vivian exit.
Jake: Very good one. Very popular answer. My favorite is the Oklahoma stop with the Arby’s. I think the Senate’s Arby’s because they sell fruities, you know, to throw fruities, the flavor, the foodie flavored ones by small bags, which you can’t get anywhere else to say like that. So I always stop there also Arby’s. Love some arby’s too.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah, I mean, the VN is great. I stop there every time to.
Murdoc: All right, listen to this. Ready everybody. There’s a gas station in Kadoka that has the best gizzards on earth. That’s where you stop. Oh, I’m gonna hit that up next time. Oh, it’s jam.
Urhe-Balk: Are there any other gas stations in Kadoka?
Jake: Yeah, there’s a whole bunch. That’s what I was like. Yeah, I could go to stop.
Murdoc: It’s mostly gas stations. There’s nothing but gas stations.
Chapman: but gas stations that sell gizzards on I 90. I’ve never heard of that before.
Jake: There’s this great drug store on the way out to the hills. It’s called the wall drug store. You love it. They get great donuts, really cool stuff around it.
Murdoc: I don’t know if they have gizzards, but they there ain’t no gizzards like the gizzards in Kadoka full stop. I defy anybody to beat me on this.
Jake: I’ve never had gizzards. So I guess I can’t even
Murdoc: Will you be from this state for a second. Good.
Jake: I just I they weird me out. So I don’t know.
Murdoc: We’re gonna take a break.
Urhe-Balk: Can we talk about the consistency? Like I don’t know what to expect when I bite into one.
Murdoc: That’s what’s nice about it. It’s a little texture surprise.
Jake: I’m a texture eater. I can’t do that. I can’t do that.
Murdoc: It’s mostly grease and breading. There’s like an inch of meat and three inches of good stuff. Meat is I’ll admit a stretch when we’re talking about gizzards. On that note, we’re gonna take a break. When we come back, why is everybody hating on David Owen? It’s from Jake in the East. I’m Murdoc in the West. It’s Dakota town hall .
Jake: You’re back with Dakota Town Hall. We are here with two of our good friends and returning guests. We’re here with Nicole Uri Bauch from District 32 Representative as well as Samantha Chapman from the ACLU.Welcome back
Murdoc: Why is everybody hating on the chamber? David’s the nicest guy
Jake: the nicest guy David I’m the internet door knocking with me man Love the guy.
Murdoc: I guess let’s set this up. Was it search light search light did an article
Jake: It was our good friend Josh Joshua here over at search Oh, yeah, with retiring articles Q &A retiring lobbyist lobbyist so South Dakota capital environment is increasingly hostile
Murdoc: Josh can you take me higher? Education higher education So if for those of you don’t know mr. Own is a long time 30 year maybe or more lobbyists for Association you guys I think are good guests to have on on this because I mean Samantha and your role at the ACLU you clearly work with lobbyists on a weekly basis out of magic and then Nicole as a first-year representative I’d imagine somebody like David was pretty helpful in the sense of learning how to do the job Which I think is a lot of what lobbyists do, but Let’s set it up this way. So, you know David I don’t think he was trying to take a personal shot at anybody other than commenting on the status of things where he just said It’s a little feisty out there if I can paraphrase and all the sudden the internet is called I saw him got called here.
These are actual quotes. I saw called of David a liberal Nazi I saw I ran out of fingers to keep counting the phrase Lib Tard You know I mean like I I don’t know This is for in a few minutes. There’s you know, he’s getting emails about Where his address is this week
Jake: and worst of all they called him a lobbyist
Murdoc: And establishment and part of the you know deep state. I saw deep state a couple times Listen, David might be a lot of things, but he ain’t deep state friends. I Don’t I just don’t Miss Chapman care to weigh in care to defend him or kick give him a kick in where do
Chapman: you Know I’ve lobbied for five legislative sessions at this point And you know, I’ve always found David to be a helpful resource very knowledgeable He carries a lot of institutional knowledge with him and readily shares that he’s definitely like a resource and a kind individual And a good a good lobbyist a good advocate. I read that searchlight piece I thought everything that he said was absolutely true and I guess it’s odd to I mean If you told me when I first started lobbying in like 2017 that large swaths of the Republican Party We’re gonna be coming out in for in force like en masse Against the Chamber of Commerce like I you know, it could have knocked me over with a feather Like what do you mean?
Isn’t that like the heart of like everything that Republicans love commerce? Capitalism? now we now we’re hating on him like what I don’t know what changed, but it’s pretty stark.
Jake: I Think stark is there is the right answer I mean he talks in the piece a little bit about how you have a certain group people that just have no interest in reaching across the Isle and that’s where the breakdown happens in politics, right? Where you just have people stuck in the mud and they’re not willing to move and you have to move sometimes
Murdoc: I Guess I’ll kick it to representative Urhe-Balk. You as someone who I would imagine Might have to be against both of you. I guess as I say this you might be against him on a lot of issues in Some things maybe not I guess I’m like historically speaking I would think the left might have some issues with how the Chamber of Commerce is gonna set some things up because it’s pro development Not really thinking about some of the other stuff, but maybe that’s not true
Urhe-Balk: Not this session. I mean But there wasn’t enough legislation that was even like that much pro you know like And yeah, we didn’t get airport funding passed. We didn’t get like Just there just weren’t an even enough bills to be opposed on So I think I think we were aligned a lot more than than normal, but I Will say you know, and I know we can’t talk much about it because the lobbyist party is But David owned it a fantastic job at the lobbyist party it was so good and so David owned if you’re listening hats off to you because it was
Jake: we’re we’re gonna get him on well It might have that
Murdoc: happens next month or so Jacob may may may something made may something Davis mid-may Davis coming on.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah You know, that was one thing as a new legislator, you know, I wasn’t sure about You know how to interact exactly with lobbyists and and what that meant, but it is true they they own way more institutional knowledge than any of us and You know, definitely you learned which ones had a wealth of knowledge and resources and he was one of them and and it was so helpful to go to them and and ask Has this been done before? Where we’ve seen this because you know, none of this some of it has been recycled and is not new
Murdoc: devil’s advocate Can’t believe what says Let’s take the take that, you know, I’m hard on the right right so let’s take everybody’s personal opinions about everybody out of a first second Jake and like You’re the new team coming in and you’ve got nothing but momentum You’ve got nothing but wind at your sails and if you remove a couple of longtime fixtures in what used to be your side But if you get rid of them now, you got the whole party I mean You know you kick them down the river
Jake: Are you saying so some of this populous side of the party coming in? Why would they trust let the lobbyists basically right go to wash everything and from their point of view? I totally get it like I mean you’re talking to people that have worked with the people that you see as Non-Republicans as rhinos. So why would you trust them with helping you work out a bill or helping you get information? Why would you go to them? But at the same time like they may not agree to everything but they have an incredible amount of institutional knowledge as Nicole just said So if you don’t go to those people you’re losing out I mean like David is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to chamber issues and economic development issues Why wouldn’t you ask is even if you don’t agree with them on a ton of things? Even if you are a a communist Democrat, you’re gonna say hey tell me about what you think about this because it gives you a perspective So and that’s something I worry about with some of this like populist right They don’t really see that that way they see it as like oh you took a stance that wasn’t my stance Therefore you’re my enemy and that doesn’t really work in politics
Murdoc: Just so we can keep on time because there’s a lot of topics we should burn through Samantha Chapman speaking of communism. What have you are you guys weighing in on this? Sorry. I can’t help it. speaking of it. So you guys are you guys in the middle of this land dispute? This seems like something that’s in your in your wheelhouse where you might you know Buckle up on their side for once
Chapman: Speaking of communism….as the manager of the ACLU I am sworn to protect and expand the civil liberties guaranteed in the United States Constitution of America, which is not a communist country Um, I don’t have a ton of thoughts on this land dispute. I tried to I did some reading in advance about it And kind of I’m honestly I’m a little confused about why the federal government is coming down so hard on that family. You’re talking about the family with the land by Buffalo gap, right?
Murdoc: Yeah Defense is it the Maude family?
Chapman: Yeah, it just seems odd how quickly they’re looking at the timeline It seems odd how quickly the whole thing accelerated into like legal prosecution and likes prosecuting the husband and wife separately making communication challenging I can only imagine as like a parent and a wife like how hard that would be for me like oh now I can’t speak with my husband and I about anything and And our land is in a dispute for a fence that’s been there since before we moved in. The whole thing is odd to me. I’m not really quite sure. I’m the best equipped to talk about it, but it just seems a really weird posture in my opinion from the federal government, frankly.
Jake: You know who’s less equipped to talk about it? Legislator from Sioux Falls, who has nothing to do with it, is not part of the federal government.
Murdoc: It’s why it got so much to answer the question, why did it get so much traction? It’s because it was part of a, we’re going to get to in break three, somebody’s maybe gubernatorial campaign. Oh, wow. I got, it was the most thing I was texted about this week from my perspective out west, where I don’t, I have no skin in the game. I don’t, you know, but I’m friends with a lot of ranchers and they’re itchy about this stuff for obvious reasons. And like it’s the number one thing I got emailed about after last week’s episode when we were talking about it a little bit.
Jake: Is this going to become the next pipeline? Cause I just don’t have the, the strength for that.
Murdoc: Just a little, I think
Jake: I’m so curious. It feels like such a federal issue that if you’re a legislative, like, like rounds is dealing with this, like this is something that our US senators need to deal with, You do a great point of call.
Urhe-Balk: What are we going to do? A resolution?
Jake: Yeah. Like congratulations.
Murdoc: Yeah. Like it’s, I don’t know what the governor’s supposed to do about it to your point. Um, I, but I too, but also to your point, it is what, what 2026 is going to be about.
Jake: Is it more, it’s just more nimby stuff, right? Not in my backyard. It’s, it’s this property rights thing has become pervasive, I think. Yeah.
Murdoc: But there’s going to be just enough issues. If you take like, imagine how many land hitches are in all the rural counties in South Dakota. And now every time there is one, it’s going to be a public events because look what everybody taught, look what everybody learned. You can do with these things last week. And so now everyone, whether they’re right or wrong, it’s going to be a mixture of some stuff that’s absolutely egregious and some stuff that isn’t at all egregious. And they’re going to get kind of packaged into this. We got to do something about it.
Jake: And it’s also the easiest victory ever to right? Like you find these issues that are like, okay, it looks like the senators have a pretty good argument here. And you get a win, but basically it’s doing nothing other than just yelling a lot and go, oh, look, look at the victory we had over the government and look for how we won for property rights. There’s your playbook.
Murdoc: I’ll say this. I’ll say this. Nicole, you’re a West River representative. Maybe these are just my rancher buddies yippin at me. Have you heard about this? Where’s have you? Do you have constituents reaching out about it?
Urhe-Balk: No, I don’t. I mean, we are the heart of Rapid City, right? The second most certain.
Murdoc: Just not pulling a lot of cams in district 32.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah. Besides suit falls, we have, but yeah, I mean, we all have like cousins, uncles, right? Who are on the ranch in, but no, I have not been hearing about it. I’ve just been trying to do things and focus on the things that are going to, you know, actually help people make people’s lives better. Like education.
Murdoc: What about the summit carbon pipeline shootdown this week while we wrap up break two
Jake: the amount of times that they’ve been denied or something’s going on? I’ve lost track about where it’s at or what’s going on. Again, I talked about it when we entered the governor, I told him great job signing that bill on 1054. Is that what it was? I was like, end of the day, the fight is lost there. Like, if you still aren’t, like a pipeline supporter, like, I’m sorry, we got to move on.
Like there are just things that you, when you lose a fight, you got to move on. And if we’re still talking about, oh, they didn’t get the permit, they got the permit. What? It doesn’t matter anymore. Fights over.
Murdoc: I mean, it’s not like they can, what are they supposed to do? Just go home. They still got to, you know what I mean? I mean, eventually everyone’s going to be like, Hey, where’s this pipeline?
Jake: We’re going to reroute it. I mean, they’ll reroute it into different states.
Urhe-Balk: Yeah. I mean, technically 1052 never said no to them, right? I mean, yes, it makes it a million times harder, but they can still, if they can, if they had the permit, which it looks like now they don’t, if they had the permit, they could still, and that was the argument. Like it wasn’t about actually saying no or actually stopping it, but did it make it a thousand times harder? Yes. So it’s fair, but it wasn’t stopping it technically.
Murdoc: The listening audience knows this, but maybe remind your friends that this was a PUC thing. The upcoming gubernatorial race doesn’t have much to do with this topic. I think we have to constantly be reminding everybody of that. Okay.
We have a handful of minutes. I want to go back to Samantha Chapman. Samantha, if you’re just joining us, she is the head of the South Dakota ACLU. We don’t do a lot of national stuff, but like these deportations and the, you know, as you said a few minutes ago, your entire job is protecting the constitution as it’s written. And you’re hearing a lot of people stress out about due process.
Jake: And if I can frame that a little further, why should South Dakotans care so much about that?
Chapman: Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons that everyone should care about that. So I mean, at issue, I mean, there have been nasty portations as promised from the Trump administration. But what is especially concerning to us at the ACLU is people are being kind of rounded up and expeditiously, they detain an expeditiously deported without going through the full due process that people should be going through with immigration law with deportations. We’ve seen that with the gentleman who was a, you know, rounded up by mistake, detained and deported to CICOT and El Salvador. And you know, the federal government even admitted that it was a mistake and he shouldn’t have gone with on that plane and been in that prison. Supreme Court ordered nine to zero that the federal government had to do whatever they could to facilitate his return. And the federal government said, hmm, can’t do that. Sorry, I don’t know.
Can’t do that. He’s, he’s there now and we can’t bring him back despite the fact that we had a sitting United States member of Congress go to El Salvador, meet with him and return back to United States. I don’t understand why that, that man can’t be brought back if he can be easily located in a country where he was wrongfully deported to. And if that can happen to somebody who, who is an immigrant, regardless of their immigration status, whether that be on a visa or temporary protected status or asylum, green card, naturalized, whatever, that can also happen to American citizens.
It’s really a slippery slope in a matter of time. If there’s no due process, there’s no amount of time that’s set aside to figure out and determine whether or not you actually should be deported or whether or not you actually should be detained. It’s just the government saying, we don’t have the time to ask these questions. We’re going to forego all due process rights regardless of, of your citizenship status. And that should be scary to everyone.
Because like I said, they can, you know, the, then the federal government can kind of get rid of anyone they don’t agree with, not just people who are here, maybe illegally, maybe not illegally.
Jake: That’s a question. So I’ve been like not only kind of following the story. Um, I keep seeing like a lot like the White House Twitter, for example, being like, no, he’s an MS 13 person. Like how is there like a discussion like if he is or isn’t, if we’ve already like, they already admitted wrongdoing and Supreme Court already said that’s 9-0. Oh, like I don’t get how there’s still discussion on this. And maybe I’m just, it’s probably, it’s propaganda.
Chapman: It’s spin. Like we don’t know whether or not he’s an MS 13 gang member because he hasn’t been through due process. He hasn’t had his day in court. We don’t know that. The prosecution hasn’t proven that he has gang affiliations. He hasn’t had a chance to defend himself. He simply has had all of his rights stripped away, shipped off to a foreign country and his family can’t get him back. Like the government, like step one, he was, he was arrested, detained, deported. Government said, oops, actually he wasn’t the guy we were looking for. Supreme Court said, you need to bring him back.
Federal government said, we can’t. Oh, also we think he might be MS 13. So it’s okay that he’s there anyway. Like they’re trying to make up a justification for them, for the federal government robbing him of his rights and his family of this, of this dad and this husband. But really what’s happening is that they’re laying out a foundation for a process where anyone can lose their due process rights.
Murdoc: I, there’s also, you know, the Turk, is it Turk, the Turkish college student where like I saw the video where six guys just surrounded her and, you know, there’s, I don’t love Hamas either, but I don’t think you should blackbag someone in a van for some opinions. And I know that ain’t shocking coming from this side of the podcast, but it’s not great feeling. You know what I mean? It feels like, it feels real axis-ie Jake?
Jake: Well, that’s the reality of like the social media age too, right? Like anything can be true and it can be false at the same time. Like that’s the reality of it, right? Like the regards with that person is or does whoever takes that video clip can say it’s one thing or another thing. And then you have a whole controversy, no matter what happened. Right? And I’m not saying anything happened. I’m just saying like, that’s where we’re at.
Like regardless of the MS-13 or not, they can just say he is and all of a sudden now half the country thinks he is. And we’re just down that path now and nothing ever happens.
Chapman: Well, and also it means to Brad’s point though, we are seeing a lot of international students being targeted for their speech. So whether that is speech that is pro-Palestinian speech, speech that is critical of the current administration, speech that’s critical of like making fun of Teslas. I mean, I personally love to do the big L sign when I drive past them. But I mean, like that, even that’s getting a little bit dicey, right? Like if you have, if you’re here on a visa, Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem can now say, well, I don’t like what you said about me. I’m taking away your visa status and you’re going back to where you came from. And that should also be scary to any American who appreciates free speech and expression.
Murdoc: I want to go back to Jake’s first question. Cause I don’t know if, I mean, we’re nibbling around it. Cause if you agree with this, you agree with this. And if you think we’re stupid, do you think we’re stupid? How do we get some, what, how’d you phrase it, Jake?
Jake: What, why should South Dakotans really care about this as a whole? I mean, like, I, like other than the moral stuff, like why, how does this affect South Dakotans? Like when does it knock on my door?
Chapman: It knocks on your door when our workforce is deplenished. I mean, that’s like the most obvious kind of conservative talking point that I could make here is that like you’re deporting workers who are working on our dairy farms, who are working in our, you know, meat packing plant, poor, participating in contributing or schools who are contributing to our economy.
That’s a huge economic hit in general. And then additionally, like these are our neighbors. These are our friends. These are people that we probably know in our communities.
All of a sudden gone. I mean, I have a restaurant down the street from my house that was raided by ice and was shut down for a long time because all of their workers were, you know, detained and those are people that I interact with on a regular basis.
Jake: You’re not talking about the Hibachi Grill in Sioux Falls, right?
Chapman: Oh, no, that is an entirely different subject.
Jake: Yeah, that’s what they’re starting us, right? Like there is a real argument that, OK, there are actual exploitation of illegal individuals here.
Murdoc: Yeah, but they would’ve caught the Hibachi people no matter what. You know what I mean? That’s a different thing.
Chapman: That’s right. That was a labor trafficking situation. Right.
Jake: But like that has similarities in this conversation, right? Like I’m just trying to play that aside for devil’s advocate purposes.
Murdoc: Yeah, I hear you.
Chapman: I think like South Dakota should care not only about the economic argument, not only about the fact that these are people that we know and care about in our communities, but also again, like the principle, not the moral, but the principle in that legally, if we’re establishing this system where there are no due process rights, if we’re establishing a system where there are governmental penalties for a dissent that is an erosion of our democratic norms and our, you know, our country, our country as we know it and for our free speech and a lot of the values that South Dakotans hold super dear.
Murdoc: We’re going to take a break. We’re talking with the director of the ACLU in South Dakota, Samantha Chapman. Also, Nicole Uri-Bak, who is a District 32 representative and one of the few Democrats in peer during the session. When we come back, there’s new US House candidates being thrown around.
Yeah, just faces you just made. You heard nothing yet. And then we need to get to who’s in and who’s out gubernatorial 2026. It is Dakota Town Hall. We’ll be right back.
Murdoc: Welcome to the most listened to political podcast with Jake in the East, Murdoch in the West, the advocacy manager from South Dakota ACLU, Samantha Chapman and District 32 representative, Nicole Urhe-Balk. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Jake: Urhe or Urhe?
Uhre-Balk: Uri.
Jake: Dang it, I got it.
Urhe-Balk: In fact, when I was teaching and students had iPads, they would often say Miss Uri and Siri would come up. And so that’s a good way to remember it is that rhymes with Siri.
Murdoc: I know who’s dumb enough to name their kid, Alexa, brats. OK, Rob. Let’s play. Let’s play South Dakota Town Hall’s favorite new bit in or out. South Dakota gubernatorial 2026 edition. We’ve got a big in.
Jake: Big in. The first announcement, I think it’s coming tomorrow, right? It’s 6 p.m. Sometimes the NFL Draft, which is a wild move. I don’t know, like just I’m just doing a football where I’m like, I’m not going to go watch that over Cam Ward getting picked up number one overall.
Murdoc: Well, the juggernaut of John Hansen and Carla Lemes is cats out of the bag as we record here on a Wednesday night.
Jake: Yeah, that came out. The news came out, I think, Thursday last week, which was just unfortunate for us when we recorded on a Wednesday. But it’s it’s big news. You have the first interest into the governor race and also it’s a unique entrance to I could be wrong. And Tony can credit us on this in the future. I don’t know if they ever had somebody announce governor, lieutenant governor at the exact same time. That’s super unique to run as a team right off the bat as a serious candidate to doing that. That’s a super unique thing to do.
Murdoc: Why I guess first question. I’ll start with Nicole. Why do that?
Urhe-Balk: Well, didn’t it wasn’t that there was something that passed, right? That allows the government like.
Jake: Yes, but there’s you’re correct. There was a bill that passed that moved the lieutenant governor nomination out of the convention into the basically they just get to choose it. But at the same time, that’s not to go. Why would you choose somebody? Therefore, you’re eliminating someone that be in your camp. Right. So like if you’re dusty, why would you pick somebody?
Because then you’re limiting like Will Morton’s eliminating Taylor Rafe? I’d be like that. That’d be like, oh, governor. So it’s usually not the move to do to choose a kind of governor off the bat. You’re correct.
There is a different calculus. But I think the real reason it’s happening is because of 10 or sorry, governor wrote in the lieutenant governor, Tony Ben-Hyzen, who are going to be running as a pair, most likely.
Murdoc: Oh. That’s why I guess. Right. Yeah. He’s from Sioux Falls, Minnehaha. Yeah. He’s a Minnehaha area. What is he district 25 and. It’s still rapids.
Murdoc: Don’t rapids. That’s what it is. And she’s from Canton. District 16.
Jake: Yes. That sounds about right. Definitely Sioux Falls area. You look at them. So John Hansen, current speaker of the house, Carl Lem, speaker pro temp. That’s one thing I’ve heard right away from people is like, regardless of what happens is the amount of change that’s going to happen in the house just from them running is huge speaker. Speaker speaker and speaker temper gone. And the way it works in the house is usually speaker is the speaker for two to four years and the pro temp moves in that spot next. And so you’re taking both of them out. You’ve now just opened up leadership in the house, basically.
Odenbach. So there is also a name that’s being floated for for Congress. So the way this reshapes 2026, not just in a gubernatorial sense is absolutely massive. I mean, it changes your house perspective significantly.
So that that’s huge. But look at the two candidates. John Hansen definitely has gotten very popular on the far right when it comes to the pro life movement. Also got very popular with the pipeline stuff. And of course, Carl Lem’s kind of the property rights person when it comes to the pipeline.
Murdoc: Let’s not phrase it that way. Can we can we phrase it?
Jake: Well, she is. She also got a ton of money through her family. So this is going to be a formidable group of candidates running for governor to governor.
Murdoc: Samantha, you must be thrilled with John Hansen’s candidacy.
Chapman: You know, Speaker Hansen and I don’t have a close relationship, as you might imagine. So I can’t imagine that we would suddenly develop one should he win the governor’s seat. But he’s going to have some pretty powerful players to contend with in that primary race. And so I don’t know how confident I am that he’s going to beat out some of these other guys like Dusty Johnson, who have a really solid ground game who are, you know, have a greater access to campaign funding, better name recognition. I don’t know. I mean, honestly, if he’s he runs and he loses his primary and then he can’t be Speaker of the House anymore. Oh, gosh, darn.
Murdoc: So OK, I here’s. I think it’s pretty smart on their behalf, because one of these hard right ding dongs needs to be the, you know, out early, keep everyone else from getting and then spend a bunch of time making sure there’s not 40 other candidates. It’s not stupid if you think about it on that scale.
Jake: I also think I don’t know how much calculus went into this, but announcing Lieutenant Governor also put specifically Dusty in a very awkward position. He now has to choose Lieutenant Governor basically right away or run alone, which is, in my opinion, going to look kind of weird.
Murdoc: If he takes it seriously. If I’m Dusty, he’s like, who?
Jake: But Rodin is absolutely going to run with Tony now. Like that gives Rodin the green light to run with Tony. And then it puts Dusty in a spot where he has to now pick Lieutenant Governor and alienate somebody. So for example, let’s say he picks. You can pick a lot of people, but say he picks. Taylor, Taylor, I felt that Taylor, I felt that now alienates Will Morenstein allows him to go for Rodin’s team.
Sure. So that calculus has totally changed by now introducing the idea that you have to have Lieutenant Governor with you. The so it’s it’s a big change him announcing with the Lieutenant Governor. I don’t know if people are going to comment on that too much, but it’s going to be a big difference how we run this race.
Murdoc: As we wrap up in or out, I saw was it Kello or the Dakota scout had an article with Senator Rounds where he said 100 percent he is not running for governor.
Jake: No, everyone’s like, oh, yeah, we know. I mean, I still think he might. No, I was like, OK, I know.
Murdoc: And then some ruled out gets next next up.
Jake: Marty, right? Let’s find out. Yeah, I’m not running.
Murdoc: Let’s find out how Hinky gets in DC in the next eight in the next 10 months. I bet I bet the gubernatorial chair looks warmer and warmer every week.
Jake: Do we think Toby Dodin is going to announce or is he out for governor?
Chapman: My guess would be he’s out, right? Like, I don’t think you’d want to kind of compete with John Hansen. They’re kind of the same camp of supporters, right? It would be dividing their further like quartering their base. I wouldn’t think that would be strategic.
Jake: Dodin’s guy, Brian, what’s his name? Brian. He’s one of his campaign guys. As soon as this is such inside baseball, as soon as John Hansen, Carlons announced, the guy changed his profile picture to a picture of him with John Hansen, Carlons, which like
Murdoc: that’s so it’s that maybe he’s leaving, you know, right away.
Jake: That’s signing out like saying, hey, we’re not fighting.
Murdoc: I have a hard time thinking they are going to be there in the same camp philosophically, but they’re not like, you know, I guess, maybe, unless, if unless Toby’s the guy behind the curtain right in the checks, but then they’re all going to have to bend the knee. Like someone’s going to have to be the boss. No one’s going to be the boss there. No one else’s boss. And there’s not enough room on the porch for all the dogs.
Jake: I bet John Hansen is pretty annoyed with Toby Dodin. Like Toby did not get here on anything other than his own money. Whereas John Hansen’s got here by his own hard work. Right? You disagree with him on a lot of issues, but he got there by his own hard work. And I bet that really annoyed John Hansen. It’s like, what do you think you’re running for governor? You have not. You weren’t here two years ago.
Murdoc: Maybe Toby, you know, maybe Toby’s like, hey, I work for you, John Hansen. You know what I mean? Like one of these guys has to like find the path to like understand that you’re not the boss.
Jake: You’re right. Toby has humility. That’s what we’ve seen so far.
Murdoc: A boundless, boundless amounts. One might think.
Chapman: Maybe like an Elon Musk Trump situation, you know, Toby Dodin is the Musk to Hansen’s Trump.
Murdoc: Yeah. Who knows. That’s exactly what I think. I think it’s a lot like that. I think even they would say that I think they themselves might go for that. You know, I mean, they might have to thumb wrestle or. You know, who’s going to be who, but that’s up to them, I guess. Someone should ask them, maybe.
Jake: I want to hair gel that that group take up will be.
Murdoc: I wish I wish they’d hire a fashion consultant. Sorry. Okay. Moving on. Let’s do.
Jake: Congress, you had something about Congress.
Murdoc: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Name off, if you will, the people who you’ve heard might be running for house. And we’re going to see if you’re, if I get to add a name at the end of this Christmas tree.
Jake: Nicole, Samantha, you guys go first. Give us the names. Okay.
Murdoc: Let’s just start with what we know. Crabtree’s running. Yeah.
Urhe-Balk: I mean, I’ve heard rumors of taffy Howard.
Murdoc: I think taffy’s running. It’s got a lot of. I’ve heard Odinbock.
Chapman: Is it Taylor Raefeldt running?
Murdoc: I have heard that name, but I don’t know what, you know, in the name of maybes. Mayor Paul. Paul TenHaken, who’s coming on the show next week.
Jake: No, two weeks. Next week, we’re having on the Brankos.
Murdoc: Oh, yes. We’re going to talk about teenage public camp and I’m going to try not to giggle.
Jake: And city council here in Sioux Falls. Yes, that’s of course. There’s names of me there as well. Uh, let me think of their names. Mayor of Rapid.
Murdoc: Mayor Jason. Thank you. Jason Salamun’s name gets casually thrown around.
Jake: Is that the one you’re going to add? I’m trying to figure out.
Murdoc: That is not the name. I do agree. And that is a good dark horse.
Jake: Michael Loll.
Murdoc: Senator Michael. I love that.
Jake: Oh, is that your name? Is that your name? Is that another name you had? No, it’s not. Dang it. Let’s try to guess your name.
Murdoc: I’ll dial it in West River. under 40.
Jake: Uh, under 40. Oh, Amber Hulse.
Murdoc: Amber Hulse.
Urhe-Balk: No.
Chapman: Already?
Murdoc: That the sound and face you just made should be the bumper sticker. Nicole. Sorry, didnt mean to out you.
Urhe-Balk: I mean, that’s not a surprise. It was just like, it seemed like this was a stepping stone.
Jake: I did see her down in Mar-a-Lago taking pictures with Easter Bunny.
Murdoc: I, of course, that’s where the Easter Bunny starts. I, I, this is not, I don’t know anything. I said, if you’re listening, feel free, you would be happy to have you on. If you want to come on and comment.
I, multiple people have thrown in names saying hearing this is an option and they don’t want to be sourced and I don’t know where it, so I can’t maybe, you know, I, it’s pretty blind as I say this, but it’s being tossed as an option. And Samantha, did you say, I think maybe your bumper sticker might be better. “Already? “
Jake: If you just erase the question mark already, it has that very much like, Oh, you’re just trying to do the Noem thing. Oh, okay. Like, right. Nome did what two terms, I think in the house and then ran, like maybe at least give it two more years. Like you didn’t get anything passed. Like you did, but like there’s nine people.
Urhe-Balk: We had a nice funny moment where I was the only Dem in some event or whatever. And she was there and she’s like, I get it. I was the only Republican at Georgetown. And so I know what it’s like to be in the minority.
Jake: I was like, no, I mean, I can tell you what’s happening. She’s running in circles and DC and she’s, she’s in other states doing speaking things were like, well, you’re clearly a rising star. You’re going to be the next greatest. Everyone’s telling her that I’m sure
Murdoc: It’s a working strategy. Why are we throwing shade?
Jake: It’s worked the past, but like also, I don’t know. I don’t think you’re qualified yet. I don’t mean that.
Murdoc: I don’t mean it personally. I think it could be. I don’t think you like it. There’s 47 people running and so anybody could win and she’s good at this. So like, why not? You’re not on anything. I mean, you know, I wish she would not run personally, but like it’s a winning strategy, man.
Chapman: I mean, if she runs for US House, does that mean we get Julie Fremjuler back in the state legislature?
Jake: That’s just like her. I didn’t even think about that. I didn’t even thought about that for you. Yes. I just need to think about that.
Murdoc:And she’s back. Who thought Julie Fremjuler would outlast Lee Schoenbeck. And she made it.
Jake: Lee Schoenbeck running for office.
Murdoc: Like, he’s going to like come to on a golf course the day. Wow, there’s a disturbance in the forest. All right. That’s good. He’s out of his grip. We that’s going to do it. We’re kind of timed out. I want to I want to make sure I give out our thanks. The advocacy manager of South Dakota ACLU, Samantha Chapman. Thank you so much for coming back on. And then the District 32 representative who just finished up their first session in pier, Nicole Uhre-Balk.
Jake : If you have any questions you want to ask the show, you can find it. Find us at Dakota town hall dot com. Next week, Jake, is who? It is the Brankos, Catherine and Dave. We’re going to have the Branko duo.
We’re going to talk about teens or public camp a little bit where I cut my teeth back as a kid. And it’s going to be coming back with Catherine at the helm, as well as little Sioux Falls City Council action with Dave Branko.
Murdoc: From Jake in the East, I’m Murak in the West. This is South Dakota’s most listened to political podcast. Thanks for listening to Dakota Town Hall. See you next week.
