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Election of S.D. ag secretary is proposed
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)--Voters would elect a state secretary of agriculture every four years under legislation awaiting a committee hearing in the South Dakota House. The agriculture secretary is now a cabinet position filled by the governor. That gives residents no recourse if someone is doing a poor job, said state Sen. Jim Bradford, one of the bill's sponsors. "If I don't do my job, they (voters) get a shot at me every two years,'' Bradford, a Republican from Pine Ridge, said Monday. "For a job of that importance in the state of South Dakota I think it would be nice to have it go on the ballot.'' The legislation would make the job nonpolitical. Candidates would run without party affiliation and not as a party nominee. "My thought is that the secretary of agriculture should be able to stand on his own two feet,'' said state Rep. Dean Schrempp, D-Lantry, a sponsor in the House. "I have nothing against our Secretary of Ag--I like him and he's a good person. "But I feel like when decisions are made--there were two or three things that came up last year in the (House) Agriculture Committee that I sit on--that he couldn't actually say anything because he hadn't talked to the top dog.'' The South Dakota Farmers Union has long supported the idea of making the office an elected one, said Doug Sombke, the organization's state president. "I don't want that to be interpreted as being disheartened or at odds with the current secretary of agriculture, because Secretary (Bill) Even and I are good friends and have been for quite a while. So we have a very good working relationship with him and his department,'' Sombke said. But making the office an elected one provides more accountability to agricultural producers, he said. "An appointed individual only needs to be responsible to one person primarily, and that's the governor,'' Sombke said. Nominating petitions would be filed with the secretary of state for candidates to run on a nonpolitical ballot in the June primary election beginning in 2012. The two candidates with the most votes in the primary would run in the November general election.
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