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Several Rapid City mayoral candidates benefit from PAC donations

Flickr user Frankieleon
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Flickr Creative Commons

Donations from political action committees, or PACs, have risen significantly during American campaign seasons over the last decades.

They’re playing a role in South Dakota’s elections – including the race for mayor in Rapid City.

One of the most consequential U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent memory was 2010’s Citizens United. In that 5-4 ruling, the court determined the government cannot restrict donations to political campaigns from corporations, labor unions, nonprofits, or other groups like PACs and Super PACs.

Such groups have continued to use their new political pull, as seen in the campaign finance reports from this year’s Rapid City mayoral election.

The top fundraiser was business leader Brad Estes, who raised a total of just under $123,000, according to campaign finance filings.$38,000 of this came from four PACs, including a $22,000 donation from the SODAK PAC.

Ron Weifenbach’s campaign raised roughly $16,000 from personal donations and $64,000 from PACs. Forty thousand of those dollars came from Friends of John Roberts, the largest single donation from a PAC across the entire campaign.

$38,000 dollars was raised from individual contributions to the Laura Armstrong campaign, paired with $18,000 from political action committees. She also received less than $3,000 from several sate candidate committees, including Smith for Governor and Darla Drew for State House.

Jason Salamun’s campaign totaled just shy of $56,000 in individual donations and was largely unfunded by PACs, with just over $5,000 from those groups.

Political newcomer and business leader Josh Lyle’s campaign was largely self-funded, with 97 percent of his $38,000 coming from a single personal loan.

The election is scheduled for June 6. Voting locations can be found here.

C.J. Keene is a Rapid City-based journalist covering the legal system, education, and culture