This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
Eleven counties in South Dakota experience persistent poverty. Whose problem is it to solve? What are some possible solutions?
Our Dakota Political Junkies take a closer look. Jonathan Ellis is a co-founder of the independent newspaper The Dakota Scout. Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader.
Plus, voters passed medical marijuana in the state, but the matter is far from settled. We explore the opposing sides of the marijuana wars.
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Cara Hetland:
You're listening to In The Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I'm Cara Hetland sitting in today for Lori Walsh.
According to the Census Bureau, one in 10 South Dakota counties experience what experts call persistent poverty. And what does that mean?
Well, Jonathan Ellis dove into the poverty trap in his recent reporting for The Dakota Scout, and Jon Hunter joins us here as well as we have our Political Junkies segment.
Jonathan is co-founder of the independent newspaper, The Dakota Scout. And Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame.
And they join me in the Kirby Family studio in Sioux Falls. Welcome, and thanks for being here.
Jonathan Ellis:
Thanks, Cara. Thanks for the invitation.
Cara Hetland:
So happy to have you. So let's dive in. Poverty, persistent poverty.
Jonathan Ellis:
As the tagline that the Census Bureau gave, it just is a problem that hasn't been solved for a very long time, and it's a problem for 10% of the counties in the United States of America that fall into this category. And basically, it's a category of the populations of those counties having a poverty rate of 20% or more since the 1980s.
So we're talking about a very long time where these communities across the country have just not been able to get out of poverty.
And in South Dakota, very specifically, there are 11 counties here that have been in that situation. And it's interesting to me, this is not new. We've known about this in South Dakota, that there are certain challenges, especially within an Indian country of trying to lift people out of poverty.
And despite a lot of, I think we would say a lot of cash assistance that have gone to these places, different programs, legalized gambling was a big issue for a lot of Native American communities across the country, but not really here so much. So the question is the poverty trap, what are the solutions?
And my reporting was disappointing a little bit because I went to some of the people who you would've thought would have some solutions or something, and they didn't really want to talk about the issue.
Cara Hetland:
Right. Well, what's the why, and then how do you solve it?
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah.
Cara Hetland:
Right. And whose problem is it to solve?
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah. It's a collective problem, I think, in some sense. You can't necessarily say it's a government issue, probably there are more issues. There are some private industry issues. The government certainly has a role in this because of the nature of the reservation system and so be it, but I think that it's broader than that.
Cara Hetland:
So we talked earlier about Clay County, about the merging of the two feeding organizations. So are we putting band-aids just taking care of people now today or are we solving a problem?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, as a food distribution problem, I would say while it's probably necessary, it is probably a band-aid. You want to get to a point where people don't need those services. So, you have the service and that's a good thing for the people who need them, but you need to have an economy that works so that people don't need those services.
Cara Hetland:
And so Jon, the politics of it all, is this a hotbed issue that politicians want to embrace and stand up for?
Jon Hunter:
We haven't seen any of our state leaders embrace it as such. I think George Mickelson was famous for trying to work out something. But as Jonathan's article mentioned, these are primarily reservation counties in South Dakota. And the reservation system in America, at least in South Dakota, is in awful shape. I don't think we should mince words and try to pretend it isn't. And the persistent poverty is just an awful situation.
It does need solutions. I think status quo is not a solution.
You'd say, "Let's just keep doing this." I feel awful for the tribal members who are suffering because of this, and there are other problems.
Poverty is bad enough in itself, but it does tend to cause other problems too. There's certainly violence in these counties that's a problem. There's alcoholism in these counties documented. So I think it needs a fresh solution. Cara, in the answer to the question. I think continuing the status quo is not going to do anything.
Cara Hetland:
You mentioned Bill Clinton coming in 1999. You were there.
Jon Hunter:
Right. Yeah.
Cara Hetland:
You weren't here. You were still-
Jon Hunter:
Jonathan was just a child
Cara Hetland:
You were still a child. I was there. But I remember the hype and remember that we got to do this, we got to solve this, and a whole lot of money got poured in, but were there a whole lot of solutions has always been my question.
Jon Hunter:
Well, as you mentioned, I remember it well, and there were so many conclusions about that later that it was a big event. And, yes, money followed that, but it didn't have the staying power that people wanted. And we don't know who that was. It was interesting though that President Clinton, a Democrat, was really proposing a capitalist solution for this, which I don't think would be done in today's partisan politics.
We could go on for a lot more than a 20-minute segment, but part of the trick is there's not unanimity on what everyone wants to do. The tribal leaders want one thing, the tribal members might want another. People in the communities who are not members of the tribe want a third thing. State government wants a fourth.
And the hardest part, I think, of the whole situation is that we can't come up with a unified plan that everyone can work on.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah. I would say there are some bright spots, and I try to end the story with some of those bright spots. From a state perspective, the state government and the tribal governments don't have as much... The tribal governments prefer to interact with the federal government because they're sovereign nations themselves. But I think one of the bright spots within is the Rural Broadband Initiative that Governor Noem deserves credit for. And the legislature deserves credit for funding that. And I think that's one of the bright spots that could help in this area. A source for this was Gay Kingman. She's been with the Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association, a great source for this story. And her entire career, basically, she's watched this.
She talked about some of the bright spots and agriculture that the tribes can participate in. But for her, she's seen this problem. And I think one of the quotes, they visit presidential administrations, they visit congressional delegations and nothing really seems to get solved. So, following on the money that came into these communities, just throwing money is not necessarily going to solve the problem. And just like we see with education, you can't just throw money at it. So, it takes more than just money and it takes more than just government. It's a broader solution, for sure.
Cara Hetland:
So the connectivity side, so here you're going to have internet resources that's just in the air, right? You need the devices, you need the apps, you need the content for it to make a difference.
Jon Hunter:
And training.
Cara Hetland:
And training.
Jon Hunter:
The broadband project does provide a lot of the devices too. They have programs that go with that. So it goes a little bit farther down the stream. But again, using the creative ideas how to use it, whether it's in agriculture or in entrepreneurship or whatever it is, yes, there are more things that come with that. But I agree with Jonathan, it is a bright spot in those counties that they're going to have as good a connectivity to the internet as anyone in America.
Cara Hetland:
Well, and I know SDPB is working on offering preschool education with tablets once they have the connections to do that. So start educating as well and letting these kiddos get their hands on some of that material before school starts as well. So just a little plug for one of the things that we do. Let's move on. Petitions, secretary of state. Here we go.
Jonathan Ellis:
Controversy. Imagine that.
Cara Hetland:
There you go. What's going on?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, my colleagues wrote this story yesterday, but there's a dispute. So there will be a ballot measure, most likely, I guess, to repeal the state's medical marijuana law. And the ballot language, there's a dispute now, South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws. Matthew Schweich says, "Hey, this violates the law because if you're going to repeal something that's law, you have to have it struck out within the petition. You have to show voters what is actually being struck out." And that law was many pages long and nothing.
So the petition to revoke it doesn't have any of that language. It just says, "I think Exhibit A doesn't actually show the voters what's being struck out." So they've complained to the secretary of state's office saying that this should be revoked. This should be taken off the ballot. The secretary of state's office has said no. And that's about all they're saying. They're certainly not talking to us. There's no transparency, at least on this particular issue.
Cara Hetland:
Well, who brought it forward?
Jonathan Ellis:
A gentleman in Rapid. He's not responding, either. Travis Ismay, I think, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly. So there's a question of whether it violates the law. So this could potentially be challenged in court.
Cara Hetland:
So we could vote on this, and then it would be challenged in court, or would it be challenged first?
Jon Hunter:
It'd probably be challenged first.
Jonathan Ellis:
I would challenge it first, given what happened with the last legal marijuana, it might be challenged first.
Jon Hunter:
I'm often surprised that petition organizers don't do more vetting. It seems frequently these things are challenged, and there's a technicality that if I were to do it, and I've never started a petition, but I would check with the attorney general's office, the secretary of state's office, everyone I could find to get that thing before you'd start to do this. But as The Dakota Scout reporting said, this could be an error that keeps that thing off the ballot.
Cara Hetland:
So the attorney general, their only job is to write the explanation. Their job is not to make sure it's correct.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah. They do the explanation. In those explanations in the past, they have said, "Hey, this might be challenged because it might violate the Constitution." They'll throw a warning flag out there now and again.
Cara Hetland:
Right. But they're not going to look at the petition and say-
Jonathan Ellis:
They're not going to. Well, they should, yeah, you'd think-
Jon Hunter:
Well, I think there is something that the attorney general's office does in that process. It isn't just a quick explanation on the top. But I don't know exactly where the limits of where they go on those things. But again, I would try to get as much clearance as you can from both those offices and peers before I'd ever start proceeding. And I don't know if either one of those would've caught it or took the gentleman in Rapid City to point it out to people.
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws, obviously, you have an industry now that is starting to grow, and they would hate to see the plug pulled on it after one vote. So they're going to probably do everything they can to say, "Hey, let's get this off the ballot."
Cara Hetland:
But this is to repeal.
Jonathan Ellis:
This is to repeal medical marijuana.
Cara Hetland:
Right. Okay. And those organizations don't want it repealed, correct?
Jonathan Ellis:
No.
Cara Hetland:
Right. They want it to continue to grow,
Jonathan Ellis:
To continue for the industry to grow, and for everybody to get back pain and get a card.
Cara Hetland:
Okay. Well, Jonathan Ellis is co-founder of The Dakota Scout. Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader. They joined me for our Dakota Political Junkies conversation today. And thank you very much, both of you for coming in. I appreciate it.
Jon Hunter:
Thanks, Cara.
Jonathan Ellis:
I'm just happy I didn't have a Mitch McConnell moment. Thank you.
