Speaker 1: Monday, I had the opportunity to head to Parker, South
Speaker 1: Dakota for the Turner County Fair. It's a free fair
Speaker 1: goes through Thursday. If you get a chance, head to Parker,
Speaker 1: South Dakota. Take in an amazing fair. While you're there,
Speaker 1: you can stop by a bunch of different vendor booths.
Speaker 1: I had the chance to sit in the Vote No
Speaker 1: in November booth, and I caught up with Chris Larson.
Speaker 1: He is the chairperson of Vote No in November, and
Speaker 1: we'll have that interview in thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: No on RL twenty one. Keep the cronies off on him,
Speaker 2: No on I. I'm twenty nine.
Speaker 3: Keep brief out of Hawkins's hand. No on Amendment H.
Speaker 4: We choose all our leaders here vote no on amenden.
Speaker 4: Geez all lie the sacred here. Vote no in November
Speaker 4: in South Dakota. Wee eight food oh No in November.
Speaker 3: God the people pay four if I vote no.
Speaker 1: Sde excited to be at the Turner County Fair. And
Speaker 1: I am in the Vote No in November booth right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm here with Chris Larson, he's the chairman of
Speaker 1: Vote No in November. And there's several different issues here.
Speaker 1: But first of all, Chris, thanks for taking the time
Speaker 1: to chat with me.
Speaker 5: Sir oh, I'm just so glad you could join us
Speaker 5: in our booth. It's been a great time at the
Speaker 5: fair today.
Speaker 1: It has been The fair is just getting started today.
Speaker 1: It goes all week long, and when you're out and about,
Speaker 1: be sure to stop in Commercial building number two. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of way towards the end you're going to
Speaker 1: find this booth. And it's really it's a nonpartisan booth.
Speaker 1: People on both sides of the isle are supporting things
Speaker 1: that are happening in the Vote No on November booth.
Speaker 1: So let's take these one at a time. Let's start
Speaker 1: with vote No on H. Since on the poster that's
Speaker 1: on the top, what is vote no on H? And
Speaker 1: what is the what is H all about?
Speaker 5: Well, I'll try to keep it simple because what our
Speaker 5: group vote no in November. Our website is vote no
Speaker 5: sd dot com. And what we're trying to do is
Speaker 5: help people get more information on all four of the issues.
Speaker 6: And so.
Speaker 5: We'll start with the H. That's the one that people
Speaker 5: know the least amount. We just call it the primary.
Speaker 5: It's it would cause create more of the California style
Speaker 5: primaries what they call jungle primaries in South Dakota.
Speaker 6: But overall, there's a lot.
Speaker 5: Of misinformation around these each of these issues, and there's
Speaker 5: a lot around this one, and there's a lot of
Speaker 5: industry and money to be made if any of these pass.
Speaker 5: So anytime there's a lot of money to be made,
Speaker 5: you have really good, slick marketing, you know, campaigns behind it.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of marketing around this that we're
Speaker 5: trying to make it sound like open primaries would be
Speaker 5: more inclusive and blah blah blah. But the fact is
Speaker 5: anybody can vote in a primary now. But we have
Speaker 5: primaries for a reason. We have parties for a reason.
Speaker 5: And if you're trying to vote for the best Republican
Speaker 5: that you think, you should have Republicans voting in that,
Speaker 5: not you know, Democrats. You don't want Democrats voting for
Speaker 5: Republican candidates. That just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: And that goes both ways.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the Democrats don't want Republicans voting for the
Speaker 1: Democrat candidates either exactly.
Speaker 5: And on the Democrats side, what we've heard is in
Speaker 5: a lot of the counties, especially West Rivers, some of
Speaker 5: the rural ones, the Democrats wouldn't even be able to
Speaker 5: run a candidate because they would have no shot to
Speaker 5: get in the top two.
Speaker 6: So it would basically.
Speaker 5: Destroy the whole idea of what a primary is and
Speaker 5: so and the other thing is it would turn South
Speaker 5: Dakota into being more like California. And I think that's
Speaker 5: the main theme here, like we're not a necessarily political organization.
Speaker 5: I'm just a volunteer. Everyone involved in this is volunteers.
Speaker 5: We don't have any politicians that are involved in this
Speaker 5: campaign necessarily, and so we're not trying to help any
Speaker 5: party do anything. We're just trying to help the citizens.
Speaker 5: You know, most people I ask, I say do you
Speaker 5: like South Dakota the way it is? Do you like
Speaker 5: South Dakota? And they say yes. I said, okay, then
Speaker 5: vote no in November on all four of the issues.
Speaker 1: Now, we've talked quite a bit about H. That's the
Speaker 1: first one on the page that you have here. And again,
Speaker 1: the thing that I think is fascinating about H is
Speaker 1: I see people on both sides of the aisle both
Speaker 1: saying vote no on H. People from the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: statewide campaign are saying vote no. I'm seeing people on
Speaker 1: the Republican side saying vote no. So this is one
Speaker 1: that I think that one is kind of the easy
Speaker 1: no for everybody because most people agree that that probably
Speaker 1: should be a nun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And for me, I think the biggest danger of
Speaker 5: H passing would be that it introduces more corruption, more bribeability,
Speaker 5: is the way I put it. Get You get candidates
Speaker 5: that are going to get more money from special interest
Speaker 5: more out of state money, which is that's really what's
Speaker 5: pushing this is out of state money has come in
Speaker 5: and pushing this. So you're going to have candidates that
Speaker 5: are more willing to quote unquote you know, get things done.
Speaker 5: They'll serve their donor class by getting more campaign donation donations,
Speaker 5: and then they'll be at the beck and call of
Speaker 5: their donor class. So they have to serve the people that
Speaker 5: got them elected, not the people of the state. Not
Speaker 5: the people of the state. And we already have too
Speaker 5: much of that all over the country. We see it,
Speaker 5: and certainly in South Dakota when I talked to voters
Speaker 5: just regularly, folks, that's what they say, they say, our
Speaker 5: leadership isn't listening to us.
Speaker 6: If you go to the top of the leadership in
Speaker 6: South Dakota.
Speaker 5: They're not listening to the voters, and so we think
Speaker 5: H would just make that problem even worse.
Speaker 1: And now let's move down the page a little bit.
Speaker 1: Vote no on G. What is G and explain why
Speaker 1: people should vote no on that.
Speaker 5: So G is an extremely extreme abortion bill. So it
Speaker 5: would allow abortion up till birth.
Speaker 1: So that is completely different than being pro life, pro choice.
Speaker 1: This is on the far far end of the spectrum right.
Speaker 5: And this would also put it in the state constitution,
Speaker 5: so it takes it out of the hands of the voters.
Speaker 6: And the way you know, our system is supposed to work.
Speaker 5: Really shouldn't be changing our constitution just at the will
Speaker 5: of you know, voting randomly because people, you know, groups
Speaker 5: come in and spend a lot of money in advertising.
Speaker 5: We shouldn't be able to change our constitution that way.
Speaker 5: And this is just a.
Speaker 6: Radically extreme ballot measure. That's that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: And again, this one, from what I've been told, is
Speaker 1: funded primarily by a lot of out of state money
Speaker 1: that's coming in to help fund the other side of this,
Speaker 1: isn't it?
Speaker 6: Oh for sure?
Speaker 5: And I will say this too, is our group that's
Speaker 5: fighting all for these ballot initiatives. If we win, if
Speaker 5: we get no's on all four, we don't make any
Speaker 5: extra money.
Speaker 6: It doesn't help us at all.
Speaker 5: We're not pushing any kind of industry or business, so
Speaker 5: we're just playing defense and we want to keep South
Speaker 5: to go to turning into California very.
Speaker 1: Nice and moving down. I see vote no on twenty one.
Speaker 1: That's the next on the page. What is twenty one
Speaker 1: and why should folks vote?
Speaker 5: Know on that, Chris Well, This is a great organization
Speaker 5: of farmers, ranchers, landowners who abandoned together to fight our
Speaker 5: own legislature and our own governor who passed this bill
Speaker 5: to basically allow private companies to come in and take
Speaker 5: their land so they can make money off of it.
Speaker 5: And we're saying no because we don't want to be
Speaker 5: human resources for a government private company partnership so they
Speaker 5: can make a bunch of money off because next, if
Speaker 5: they can get this pipeline deal to go through, which
Speaker 5: doesn't have a public interest, you know, it just benefits
Speaker 5: a few private companies. If they get this to go through,
Speaker 5: we know that wind farms are next, and it's already
Speaker 5: happening in some parts of South Dakota.
Speaker 6: We just had a gentleman stop buyer booth a while.
Speaker 5: Ago and really kind of shocked us with the stories
Speaker 5: he's telling about how his county commission is in the
Speaker 5: tank for these wind farms and they're not going to
Speaker 5: have a right to say no. The people are not
Speaker 5: going to have a right to say no. And that's
Speaker 5: a right that Americans should have. We should be able
Speaker 5: to say no to our own government.
Speaker 1: And this has a lot to do with land that
Speaker 1: you own. Anybody that owns their own land, and we're saying,
Speaker 1: I don't want this happening on my land. I don't
Speaker 1: want somebody else to decide what's happening on my land.
Speaker 1: So this really comes down to a lot of farmers,
Speaker 1: but anybody that's a land owner, anybody that just believes
Speaker 1: that the government shouldn't really be able to come in.
Speaker 3: And make you do something on your own land.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I've talked to legislators before that represent people, for
Speaker 5: example in Sioux Falls, and they voted for it because
Speaker 5: they didn't think their constituents cared about what happened in
Speaker 5: rural areas. And that's sad, because just because it's happening
Speaker 5: to somebody else doesn't mean it's right, and you should
Speaker 5: do what's right. You don't want the government coming in
Speaker 5: and doing what they want with your property. Like like
Speaker 5: I said, we're not human resources to be used by
Speaker 5: private companies who come up with. By the way, this
Speaker 5: whole CO two thing, just as an aside for my
Speaker 5: personal view, it's a scam. It's a Green New Deal
Speaker 5: scam that we should never it should never be in place.
Speaker 5: It doesn't solve any problems. That's personally how I feel
Speaker 5: about it. And I'm a landowner and I'm against it.
Speaker 5: So we need to say no a lot more often
Speaker 5: and a lot more stronger, you know, to these government entities,
Speaker 5: these private corporations that are trying to take our land,
Speaker 5: take our rights, and use them to make money off.
Speaker 1: Of Again visiting right now with Chris Larson. We are
Speaker 1: at the Turner County Fair. It's going on this entire week,
Speaker 1: and I'm in the vote No in November booth. We've
Speaker 1: talked about no on H, We've talked about no on G,
Speaker 1: We've talked about no on twenty one, and there's one
Speaker 1: left no on I am twenty nine, and let's talk
Speaker 1: about what I am twenty nine is and why that
Speaker 1: should be a vote no.
Speaker 5: I am twenty nine is the what they call recreational
Speaker 5: legalization of marijuana. I don't really like that word because
Speaker 5: recreational is a real positive sounding word. But it's just
Speaker 5: going to make it more widespread. And you know, we
Speaker 5: already have medical marijuana, so people who need it for
Speaker 5: medical reasons certainly have easy.
Speaker 6: Access to it.
Speaker 5: What this will do is really make it a lot
Speaker 5: easier for kids to get a hold of. And it's
Speaker 5: just going to be deep into our our society even
Speaker 5: more than already is now. And you're going to have
Speaker 5: companies coming in and you know, figuring out ways to
Speaker 5: make money off of it like they do pepsi and
Speaker 5: coke and all that stuff. And so it'll have for me,
Speaker 5: you know, my viewpoint on it is it'll have a
Speaker 5: detrimental effect on society. And as a as an employer,
Speaker 5: when I go to hire people, that's the hardest thing
Speaker 5: I have to do as a as a business owner.
Speaker 5: In my business, it's hiring younger, you know, people under
Speaker 5: the age of forty, let's say. And I don't think
Speaker 5: having more weed, you know, in our society is going
Speaker 5: to make the workforce, smarter, more effective, more motivated.
Speaker 6: You know, this isn't the marijuana from our day. John.
Speaker 5: Back in the eighties, that stuff was very mild compared to today,
Speaker 5: It's not the same thing. If it was the same thing,
Speaker 5: it might be a different story. But you know, these
Speaker 5: are jacked up to one hundred percent THC, very potent.
Speaker 5: We don't know exactly, you know what the long term
Speaker 5: effects are, but you know there's been a lot of
Speaker 5: studies showing that the effects on marijuana on younger teenagers,
Speaker 5: anybody before the age of twenty five, can have very
Speaker 5: long term damaging effects on our brains.
Speaker 6: And we need our brains, right.
Speaker 3: I use mine every day, at least I try to.
Speaker 6: You do. I've seen you use it a couple of times.
Speaker 3: A couple of times today.
Speaker 1: Getting things set up here just to do this interview
Speaker 1: now again, the booth that I'm in is vote No
Speaker 1: in November booth and if people have questions, vote no
Speaker 1: sd dot com as the website. And again, if you want,
Speaker 1: you can stop by this booth at the Turner counting Fairy.
Speaker 1: This whole week and each of the things that we
Speaker 1: just talked about, there are groups that are leading up
Speaker 1: all of these, but you're kind of leading up, You're
Speaker 1: kind of the conductor in charge of all of them,
Speaker 1: kind of helping everybody come on the same page and
Speaker 1: have a unified voice.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm certainly not in charge of their groups. I'll
Speaker 5: tell you that they know a lot more than I
Speaker 5: do about what they're doing. We just try to direct
Speaker 5: folks who are looking for more information to go there.
Speaker 5: We're just trying to help people be aware that these
Speaker 5: are going on and that they have access to information
Speaker 5: and they can decide on their own what the best
Speaker 5: path for themselves when they vote. But at least they'll
Speaker 5: have hopefully all the story, not just one side of
Speaker 5: the story. So that's how our website does. It helps
Speaker 5: get people more information who want it. And if folks
Speaker 5: don't want more information, just vote no. I'm gonna vote
Speaker 5: no at least five times. So uh, that's that's that's
Speaker 5: what we're recommending to vote no. And I will say
Speaker 5: this about the fair it is. I've never been to
Speaker 5: this one, and it's pretty cool. They do have cheese kurds,
Speaker 5: John don't. I don't know if we'll have to hit
Speaker 5: them up later.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And and they also have hand dipped corn dogs,
Speaker 1: which are way better than foot dipped corn dogs.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's I've heard the foot dipped ones.
Speaker 5: That's what That's another California thing we don't we don't
Speaker 5: want that in South Dakota, I say no.
Speaker 6: I'd say no.
Speaker 3: I vote no on foot dipped corn dogs as well.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 5: Chris, thank you for chatting with me. Sir Ah, thank
Speaker 5: you for having me again.
Speaker 1: Chris Larsen and he is the chairman of Vote No
Speaker 1: in November, and again the website where you can learn
Speaker 1: all of the information on the four different things we
Speaker 1: talked about, and you can learn more as well.
Speaker 3: Vote no SD dot com.
Speaker 2: No on l twenty one. Keep the cronies off on him,
Speaker 2: No on I on twenty nine, Keep out of Hakin's hand.
Speaker 4: Vote no on amending h We choose all of theirs,
Speaker 4: No on on them, ge all lie the sacred here.
Speaker 4: No in November in South Dakota, we ain't fool oh.
Speaker 4: No in November.
Speaker 3: Under God, the people pay four by boat. No st