SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – In three weeks, South Dakotans will decide what candidate will represent South Dakota in the House of Representatives.
Candidates Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson and Democrat Sheryl Johnson sat down with KELOLAND’s Dan Santella to discuss issues facing South Dakota and the country.
The candidates were given the same amount of time and asked the same questions. The full episode of Inside KELOLAND aired at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and will air again at 10:30 p.m. Sunday. You can also watch the segments in the videos above.
Why no debate?
KELOLAND News’ original plan was to host a debate with both candidates in the studio. However, Dusty Johnson’s office declined to a debate, but agreed to a one-on-one conversation with Santella. Dusty said the best way for citizens to understand what a candidate stands for is by answering questions directly.
“I mean, honestly, the debates I don’t think are the best venue to provide a ton of information,” Dusty said when asked why he wouldn’t debate Sheryl on KELOLAND. “They have a tendency to be an opportunity for people to land body blows and to provide bumper sticker slogans.”
Sheryl Johnson said she thinks debates allow voters to get a better idea of where candidates stand on issues before voting. She said she decided to run against Dusty because she feels he isn’t representing the people of South Dakota accurately.
“I’ve got the experience of an everyday average South Dakotan. I’ve done many different jobs. I was a farmer’s daughter. I was a navy wife. I’ve owned my own business. I have worked at a high school. I’ve raised four daughters. I have volunteered in the community, and he’s basically, has been a politician his whole life,” Sheryl said when Santella asked about her qualifications.
This will be Dusty’s first campaign in three election cycles where he will be running against an opponent from the other major party. He said that hasn’t changed the way he campaigns.
“Most of it is real work,” he said. “I’ve always felt like good policy makes for good politics. If I just work hard and do my job, South Dakotans will give me another two years to work for them.”
Money in politics
Santella’s first question on policy addressed the amount of money spent on elections and campaigns in 2024. Sheryl said she would overturn Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited amounts of corporate money to go into elections. She said that puts non-incumbents trying to run for office at a disadvantage due to the uneven amount of donation dollars.
“We are just struggling to make enough money to get ads on TV,” Sheryl told Santella. “I just, it’s not fair because I think it cuts out the average American’s power because when you get money from big donors and big corporations, when you get in office, you feel like you have to do their bidding for what things they get. I think there’s just a lot of corruption in that.”
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Dusty said he doesn’t spend very much time fundraising and attributes that to South Dakotans making small donations.
“To a tremendous degree, I’m able to finance my races with small dollar donations from South Dakotans,” he said. “These are not million dollar PAC checks. I tell you that those aren’t even permissible in our system, but I do get nervous about it. I think when you look at the states like New York and California where you can have house races that are $20 or $30 million races. I don’t know what we do to end that.”
Concerns voters have
He said the two biggest concerns he’s hearing from his constituents continue to be border security and inflation. The incumbent said he’s voted 81 times to secure the border.
“They thank me for it because they for the life of them cannot understand why we cannot secure that gosh, darn border,” Dusty said. “Eight million people crossing illegally in the last four years is indefensible.”
Dusty also said he voted against $12 trillion worth of spending. He told Santella he will help ease the burden of inflation by continuing to vote against large monetary giveaways– he mentioned Biden’s most recent student loan forgiveness plan– and unlocking America’s energy.
“We could be the most energy independent country in the world,” he said. “We’re already the world’s biggest producer of many kinds of energy. But unfortunately, we are just making it harder and harder. We don’t feel that pinch yet today because there’s a five or 10 year lead time.”
Sheryl said the biggest concerns voters have include the cost of living and productivity in the Washington.
“People are frustrated with the fact that Washington is not getting anything done,” she said. “The last legislature was the least effective in our history. I don’t know that they hardly passed any bills and the bills they passed don’t really focus on what the American people want.”
To help ease the burden of inflation, Sheryl said she hopes give tax cuts to working families and reign in corporate price gouging.
“A lot of the companies took advantage of the pandemic when they were able to raise prices when the supply chain was backed up and then the supply chain is fixed, but they kept their prices high,” she noted. “We’ve got a lot of companies making record profits in our country. And I think that’s something they could have lowered prices on.”
What if the presidential candidate refuses to concede?
In 2020, Dusty, along with a majority of the U.S. House and Senate, voted to certify the election results as the constitution instructs. He said this year he will be looking at the evidence to see if it determines there was a free and fair election before certifying.
“We’ve got this built into our system,” he said. “We’ve got checks and balances. We have opportunities for people to have their day in court. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And you then fully intend to look at the evidence in front of you and vote to certify if that’s what the evidence tells you.”
Sheryl said if a situation arose where a presidential candidate refuses to concede the election, she would want Congress to be called in to verify the votes.
“Hopefully, you know, I think there’s going to be a lot of election security this election because everybody, both sides are worried about the other side cheating. I don’t think there’s going to be cheating. I think it’s going to be a very fair election, but I think we have to have peaceful transfer of power.”
Federal abortion ban
Sheryl said one of the reasons she decided to run was on the issue of abortion. During one of her own pregnancies, her baby had fetal abnormalities and a procedure was needed. She said she wants women to have that same care now and that the states shouldn’t decide a woman’s choice.
“I don’t think women’s rights should vary depending on what state they live in,” she said. “I don’t think the state should have the power to make the decision for women on what happens to their body in their reproductive or health care decisions.”
Dusty doesn’t support a federal abortion ban either, however he does believe the states should make the decision on abortion access.
“One of the things that Dobbs decision did is really return this power to the citizens,” Dusty said. “I got to admit when the left acted like the world was ending because of the Dobbs decision, I was frankly a little taken aback. I mean, what the Dobbs decision did is that we should not have nine old people in black robes make this decision. We should let the people of South Dakota make this decision.”
He also said he would be voting no on Amendment G, South Dakota’s abortion ballot measure.
What do South Dakota farmers need to see in the next farm bill?
The current Farm Bill is two years old and Sheryl said farmers want to see more reliability for what the different price supports will be.
“They don’t know whether certain things are gonna be covered as far as like crop insurance,” she said. “The snap programs are always up in the air. Are we going to get money to feed the hungry children in our state? We just need politicians that are willing to work together and negotiate and get a farm bill done on time so people can know what to expect.”
Dusty was one of the six representatives who drafted the farm bill. He said he wants to open up more markets for South Dakota farmers to sell to.
“They’re not going to get money just for being farmers, they’re going to get money because they create a product that the world wants,” he said. “We have the world’s best beans, best corn, best beef, best chicken, best dairy. Let’s give them an opportunity to buy our stuff.”
Immigration
Echoing his points from earlier, Dusty said that it is too easy for people to come to this country illegally but too hard to come here legally.
“I’m one of the grown ups in Washington DC,” he said. “I firmly believe that if we are big boys and big girls, we can find a way to address both sides of this equation.”
Sheryl agrees that people need to come to America legally and hopes the government can speed up the process to immigrate legally.
“The biggest number one issue I heard from small business owners was they can’t find enough workers,” she said. “We’ve got people wanting to immigrate to our country. We can get them vetted, we need to get them vetted faster. There’s a big backlog down there so send more judges down here, their cases, maybe even expand the worker visa program.”
She said she doesn’t think a border wall would be effective, but does support more technology security.
Kids and social media
Dusty said the first amendment is important when it comes to government involvement with social media apps, but is concerned about the countries the specific apps come from.
“My problem isn’t so much that young kids are on it,” he said. “It’s that we are allowing our adversary to buy the biggest news channel. We need to force the Chinese to divest.”
Sheryl said she would support age limits on social media, but doesn’t want to the government to get involved in something she thinks is an issue for parents.
“I think more parents need to stand up and be paying attention to what their kids are reading and doing on social media,” she said. “Of course, you know, you always have the parents that fall short or too busy and they’re not paying attention and then it hurts all the kids.”
