Billie Sutton on Saving Democracy From South Dakota [08-15-19]

This is Larry Lustig, and this is the third season of the podcast Another Way. The subtitle for this season is POTUS 1, and that describes our effort at equal citizens to frame a commitment to fundamental reform in this presidential campaign and to get the candidates to accept it. And so, from that perspective, today's guest might seem a little bit strange. Billy Sutton is not running for president. As we discuss in the interview, he's barely old enough to run for president. He's not even running for any federal or state office right now. Though, as you'll hear today, he did. He ran for governor in South Dakota. He's a moderate Democrat from South Dakota. But as you'll hear in this podcast, he has been in the front lines of a fight to reform state government and to get South Dakotans a government that they feel could represent us or represent them. I claim a tiny slice of South Dakota because I lived there for about 10 minutes when I was born. Okay. As anybody listening to this podcast knows, this is something that I think we all need to think much more carefully about. If you're listening, then you're likely to think, like me, that nothing real is going to get done in America, certainly not with the American federal government until we fix this corrupted government. Yet what's so incredibly frustrating and hard to understand is how difficult it is to get the politicians to talk about the issue and to take it up as an issue. That's fundamental. That's something Billy Sutton did. And his extraordinary success, coming within three and a half points of beating a Republican to become governor in a state that Donald Trump won by 30 points, I think is a lesson not just for South Dakota, but for the nation. And of course, this lesson is not just for the politicians. It's for the media as well. We've had a presidential primary season so far where not a single question has been asked of the candidates in any of the debates about corruption or reforming our broken democracy. So what explains that silence and what can we do to change it? Anti corruption has been the battle of Billy Sutton in South Dakota. That's the topic for this episode. Stay tuned for the episode following now. Welcome, Billy Sutton. I'm so grateful that you would take the time to talk to us in this obscure podcast from the East Coast. I want to make sure everybody knows a little bit about you, because perhaps outside of South Dakota, you're not as well known. So you're born in 1984 and you come from Burke, South Dakota, which is. I looked up. I actually was born in Rapid City, although I Lived there for about 10 minutes. So I don't really know anything about South Dakota personally, but I looked at Burke online using the Google street view. There are no tall buildings in Burke. It's a very short building kind of place. What's that about?

We're just a small town. It's interesting that we're having this conversation even about tall buildings. We actually just had a. A small F1 tornado come through our town of Burke.

Wow.

And took out our. Probably our tallest buildings, which weren't that tall. Our school and our lumber yard and our civic center. And so at this small town of 600 people. Rural, very rural South Dakota. And I was born and raised on our family ranch and had to drive about 25 miles each way to go get to town. And just grew up here and loved it and knew I always wanted to come back after college. And so this is where I ended up.

So you grew up in a ranch and you became quite a successful. I thought it was always bronco rider, but people. But it's described as a bronc rider. Is that right? Is there some difference between.

Yeah, bronc rider is the term we use. I've heard it called bronco rider before. We just call it bronc rider. You know, it's probably one of the purest rodeo events because it's kind of how rodeo began is with, you know, rodeo or just regular, you know, ranch cowboys having a competition who can ride a bucking horse the best. And it really has evolved into a sport where you can actually make a good living. I fell in love with it at a young age. I started rodeoing as early as 4 and 5 years old. I didn't start riding bucking horses until I was about 14 or 15. And I had a good, good high school career. I finished second in the nation at the national high school final as a senior. And that got me a full ride to go to the University of Wyoming, where I competed there on the rodeo team, made the college national finals all four years, and bought my professional card and started rodeo professionally. And, boy, my life really changed in 2007. Had a horse flip over on me in the chute. I shattered two vertebrae and had spinal cord damage and was instantly paralyzed from the weight down. And that's probably where my story really begins. I kind of had my life planned out, but it certainly went in a different direction.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's where it begins. Right. Because that's where it gets focus, I guess. Yeah.

Maybe that's a better way to look at it. You Know, because honestly I had, you know, I knew what I was going to do and had it all planned out and wanted to be a world champion saddle bronc rider. And that was my focus. You know, I was very focused on myself, very focused on what I was going to accomplish personally. And after my injury, that changed everything. And I talked about it a lot on the campaign too, when I ran for governor in this last cycle, is that it wasn't about. It wasn't about me anymore. It was about the people around me and how I could have an impact. Because so many people gave so much for me to get to where I am today, just their time, you know, they're just investing in me as a person. People from all across the nation, especially in South Dakota though, and it kind of awakened in me a service over self mentality that I guess I didn't know I had. And that's kind of how I got into college.

So your accident happens in 2007. You don't graduate from Wyoming until 2008. So does that mean you were professionally riding at the same time you were an undergraduate?

Yeah, so I went to. I started college in the fall, 2002. And one thing that's unique about rodeo is you can rodeo professionally and in college at the same time, which is different than probably any other sport at the collegiate level. And so I started rodeo professionally after my sophomore year of college. So I was going to school, I was college rodeoing and I was rodeoing professionally when I could get away. And so that became a bit of a challenge. But then once I finished my four years of college eligibility for rodeo, then I was going really hard rodeoing professionally. I was only taking a few credits, I was traveling a lot, but I was still trying to get my undergrad done. And I was supposed to graduate in December of 2007. I got hurt in October of 2007, just as I was finishing my last semester. And so I had to drop my classes, pick them back up in January of 08, and then finished my degree in the spring of 08.

So then you returned to Burke from Wyoming and I take it you go to work for a bank, but pretty soon afterwards you're running for senate. So did you have a focus the state senate? Did you have a focus on running for politics for a while or was this just an obvious thing after what had happened to you?

I don't think it was obvious. And I really didn't have a focus on it either. I kind of took the perspective that I had planned out my life. So Many different times that I saw how the future was going to go, or at least I thought I did. And what I realized after my accident is that you just have to take one day at a time. You have to do your best today, and you can't control what's going to happen tomorrow, but all you can control is what happens right now and how you're going to react to different moments as well. And so I decided that I was just going to take every opportunity I could to give back. So when one door closed, another one opened is kind of how I looked at it. And I got asked to run for the legislature in January, February of 2010, and I had just gotten home the summer of 2009, and I wasn't home for that long. Now, we do have a background in politics. My grandpa was in the state senate in the 70s. He ran as lieutenant governor candidate with a guy named Roger McKillip back in the late 70s. They lost that race to, if anybody is familiar with South Dakota politics, they lost that race to Bill Janklo. And Bill Janklo, that's when he kind of began his reign as serving two different eight year terms as governor here in South Dakota. But then my grandpa kind of stepped out of politics at that point. He was killed in a farm accident in 1982, so I didn't get to meet him. But we do have a background in that. My grandma Ruth also ran a couple different times and for different offices. And so we do have a history in that. But I got asked, and if I wouldn't have been asked, I don't know that I would have thought about it. But it was one of those deals where I just said, well, why not? You know, I thought what was going on in South Dakota, especially how we, you know, the state has treated education for a long time. And I felt like I could make a difference because I saw how much education played a role in my life and the difference that it made in my life and compared to how my life would be if I didn't have a good education, the opportunities for me would have been limited.

So your grandpa and your grandma, were they also from Burke? Is it the same farm or cattle ranch that they grew up on?

Burke and Bonesteel is where they were from, but they're, they're very close together. They're, you know, 18, 20 miles apart. And our ranch kind of is in between them. And so we fell in the Burke school district, but my grandpa and grandma were kind of considered from Bonesville. But our, we still live on the home place that my grandpa's dad kind of started. And so it's been in family a long time.

So you're elected in 2010. You rise pretty quickly. You're an assistant minority leader, of course, of the Democratic caucus, which in the South Dakota Senate is not a huge caucus. And then you become a minority leader, and then you run for governor. Now, I want to make sure we have a clear sense of South Dakota before we talk about that. Run for governor. Obviously, South Dakota is an incredibly Republican state. I think only Alaska has voted for a Democratic president less than South Dakota has.

Yeah, it's very. I don't know, I think sometimes it's more independent than people realize. You know, if you look at actual registered voters, it's about 46% Republican, 30% Democrats. So there's a big gap there. But you have a big group of independents, about 23, 24% registered independent. But to give you some context, I mean, South Dakota hadn't elected a Democrat Governor since 1974, I think, which was Dick Knight. And so the governor's race for Republicans is pretty coveted. You know, it hasn't happened a long time. Now, when you look at our Senate and House at the national level, in South Dakota, there was not that long ago we had Dashiell Johnson and Stephanie herself. Yeah, three Democrats, three of our. Two of our senators, and our representative were all Democrats. So there's been more of a history of elected Democrats there. Not as much in the governor's. The governor's race. And so that makes it all that, you know, more difficult, I think.

Yeah. So coming in to this election, though, I mean, you were running against a relatively popular woman who was running for governor. She became the first woman to become elected governor, I think. But still, it's a pretty heavy push because Donald Trump had won in 2016, had won South Dakota by 30 points. And so I imagine as you're stepping up to run, there are many Democrats who are grateful that at least there's a Democrat running, but there can't be many Democrats who think you have a real shot. Was that the feeling you got?

You know, we thought that that would be the feeling just because it'd been such a tough few cycles. To give you some context to that, I mean, when I got elected in 2010, I was the only Democrat to win a race that had a race in the Senate, and I came from a Republican district. You know, it has not been. The cycle has not been good for Democrats since the 2008. Cycle was pretty good. Then 2010 came around and it's been ugly. And so I think there is, there was always some pessimism, but I think I got such a good team put together and we had such a good rollout. We created a lot of excitement. And there's a number of factors, too. I mean, people were really upset in South Dakota about a number of things that have been going on, and especially as it related to corruption scandals and things of that nature. I mean, honestly, the voters passed the corruption measure, or anti corruption measure, I should say, on the ballot in 2016, and right within two months after that, the legislature repealed it.

Yeah. Now you're getting, you're getting ahead of, you're getting ahead of us a little bit. You're getting ahead here, Bill. You, you gotta hold on. You gotta hold the Bronco. I gotta pull you back like a Bronco here. Okay? So. Because I think people have not gotta understand the context before they understand how incredibly important what happened was in your campaign was. But the one other thing I want to make sure we keep clear here is, okay, you know, we've. My friend Beto o' Rourke was on our podcast earlier talking about his presidential run. And of course, he was, you know, such a superstar in the 2018 election, having, you know, come within two and a half points of beating Ted Cruz in a state where, you know, Donald Trump had won by just nine points. But what I, when I looked at the, at that election result, you know, what you did really stood out because you came not within two and a half points, you came within three and a half points. But that means you moved 26 and a half points in your state compared to Beto moving just six and a half points. The reason I think that's so important is if we're talking about what can rally America, which, of course, is a nation divided between Republicans and Democrats and independents. But what can rally America, what's so striking about what you did was that you obviously rallied an extraordinary number of independents and Republicans to join you as a Democratic candidate running for governor. And this ought to be a lesson that the rest of the nation focuses more on, because I think it's something to teach. You're going to agree with that, right?

I think so. It was an incredible race. I mean, we did have the, when it was all said and done, we had the largest shift in the country of any. I mean, it was amazing. And it was by over 10 points more than the next closest day. The medium shift was. And I mean, three of our county were the biggest shifts of either party in the nation Hughes family and Bowie county were the biggest shifts since the 2014 cycle, I think. And so you did see just a huge movement that it was incredible. The frustrating thing is you come so close just to not quite be able to pull it off, you know, I mean, but we thought from the beginning that we could win with the right campaign.

You came close.

Yeah, I mean, we did. We started way down and over a year and a half's time we worked really, really hard. We were out meeting people and just getting them to know you is the challenge. You know, getting people to understand who you are and where you come from and, and what you stand for. And once that occurred, you just saw that shift and the momentum just continue to gain steam. And it was just a dang close race, 51 to 51, 48. I mean, I got more votes in the gubernatorial election than a Democrat had since 1970.

Wow. Okay, so let's understand the context of what makes your kind of campaign so attractive. Now the. So again, South Dakota is a one party state. I come from a one party state. Massachusetts, it's one party. The other way around. I think in one party states there's a sensibility, not just in Republican one party states, but in Democratic too, that the temptation to corruption in a one party state can be quite overwhelming because if you control everything, then there's not many who are going to be able to challenge you when you take advantage of your power. We've seen that here in Massachusetts and obviously other states like Illinois have seen the same thing. In South Dakota there were a couple pretty important scandals. I know of two, but there are probably others that were significant. There was a scandal involving visas, the EB5 visas, where a cabinet official had channeled a whole bunch of them to one company that I guess he, I'm assuming he, maybe I'm wrong about that went to work for. Then there's something called the Gear up scandal where money meant for low income high school students was channeled in a way that defeated its purpose for private gain. These must have been issues that most decodens were quite upset about and aware of. Is that right?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's what we certainly heard. And I was in the legislature when all those occurred. And it was very frustrating because not only were they scandals where money was lost or embezzled or things like that, but they were actually loss of human life. The individual you're talking about with the 85 committed suicide. The Gear up scandal, the individual that was involved in that committed murder suicide. He Killed his whole family and then killed himself and then burnt his house down. And it was just devastating to see this, the result of what could happen with corruption. Because a lot of times, I think when people think corruption, they just think, well, somebody took money. But it was further than that. It was loss of human life. That is just unacceptable. And I think I said this a lot. I think it could happen with either party that is in power for too long. It's not just a Republican problem or a Democrat problem. It's when one party controls power for too long, that there are no checks and balances, there is no accountability. And that's when a lot of these things get out of hand.

Yeah.

And so we were. We were fighting the system in a big way in this race. And the thing that needs to be known is that a lot of Republicans felt the same way, that they were frustrated with what was going on and upset that this would occur.

Yeah, of course. Because, I mean, people differ on their values. They don't differ on this value. And, you know, you can be a conservative Republican and be as angry at corruption as a liberal Democrat, and there's nothing odd about that. I mean, you might have very different views about abortion rights or gun control or anything like that, but we ought to be able to agree on this. And again, I think that was the enormous potential that your campaign signaled. South Dakota had an opportunity, though, to allow the citizens to step in and to try. Try to wrestle back some of this control or to change the system, because you have the initiative process. Indeed, South Dakota was the first state in the nation to adopt a citizens initiative proposal during the progressive era. And so this fight against corruption really begins in 2016 with the initiative process, something called Measure 22 or the Anti Corruption act, which had passed by 51.5 or 51.6% of the votes against 48. And it did four important things. It had a publicly funded finance system, basically democracy dollars, that you could use to give to candidates. It had an ethics commission to help run that program, tried to block the revolving door. And it did something which so many people are surprised this is allowed. It capped gifts that state officials are allowed to receive from lobbyists. You know, there are many states where there's no limit on gifts. Pennsylvania is a state where you can give whatever you want to your state official, which obviously creates an incentive for corruption, as Pennsylvania has seen. But these four measures were quite boldly put forward and passed, and especially the public funding one. It was very surprising to see it pass so overwhelmingly when that passed Were you heavily involved in promoting that campaign or how was that campaign perceived in the state of South Dakota?

Well, I think that after the EB5 and then the Gear up scandal, people just wanted some accountability. They wanted some action taken. And the legislature wasn't taking action. The legislature was sweeping it under the rug and say, you know, no problems, nothing to see here. I should say the establishment of the legislature, not all legislators, because myself and others, as well as some, you know, my Republican colleagues were upset about this and what was going on, but the folks in power didn't want to see anything done. And so, you know, the ballot measure circulated and, you know, I've always been a supporter of the will of the voters. And when they passed it, we said, okay, like this is what the voters wanted. They want campaign finance reform, they want limits on lobbyist gifts, they want an ethics commission. I mean, they wanted all these things. And so we went into the next legislative session thinking the people have spoken. And then to watch the establishment take that and just dismantle it and just repealed the whole thing. They threw the whole thing out and cobbled together what they viewed as some replacement measures that were watered down and. And did not address what the voters wanted, especially the campaign finance reform. I mean, it's kind of the wild west out here when it comes to giving money to legislative campaigns and whatnot. That was one of the more frustrating things for me.

Yeah, so the repeal is lightning fast. I mean, the governor signs the repeal bill on February 2nd 2nd, 2017, which means it's basically a month since you guys come back in January, and it's pretty overwhelmingly passed in the Senate. You're one of eight legislators. There's some Republicans who vote to resist it. But even more striking is that they declared it the product of a state of emergency. And the reason that was important is if they called it a state of emergency, they could block the citizens from repealing their repeal, which is the kind of people's veto which in Maine, there was a people's veto of the legislature's veto of their ranked choice voting proposal. But that was made impossible by what the legislature did in 2017. So it's not just, we're going to repeal what you did. We're going to tell you, just shut up. We're not going to let you actually even speak back to us. And when that happens, you know, I read about it. I just can't believe that politicians can get away with that kind of behavior to the citizens. I mean, there must have been an outrage expressed across the state when that happened?

Yeah, I think that we definitely saw that. I mean, a lot of people showed up to testify in opposition to that repeal. And it was a very frustrating time in my political career. You know, I've worked across the aisle on pretty much every issue you could think of here in South Dakota to find common ground and bring people together. But that became such a divisive move that it was hard to stomach. And honestly, that that repeal is probably the biggest reason that I, that I decided to get into the governor's race is because I just sat there and said, you know what? The people aren't being heard. They passed a measure on the ballot and the legislature is not listening to them. We need checks and balances here. The governor should have stepped up and vetoed that repeal, but signed it and moved on. I just didn't think that was right.

And did your opponent in the campaign defend the repeal?

Not that I remember. She was a beneficiary of the repeal to a certain degree. She didn't know it at the time. So once it passed, there's canvassing that occurs before it actually takes effect. So usually about a seven day window from when something is passed on the ballot to when it actually takes effect. And both Congresswoman Noem and her primary opponent, Attorney General Jackley, moved a whole bunch of campaign money into their governor's race account from political action committees and from Congresswoman Noem's federal campaign committee. Because what im22 did is it limited the transfers from federal accounts or tax to $5,000. And so she was able to move like 1.6 million and he was able to move just short of a million dollars into their governor's race campaign account, which they then used the campaign on.

Yeah. Now she had been, she'd been in Washington for a while.

Right.

Christine Noem had been a pretty significant figure in Congress. So she decided to run for governor and then obviously saw that she needed to make this change quickly because nobody expected there would be such a quick repeal.

I guess it just shows you that she was thinking about running for governor long before she got elected to Congress for her fourth term in that 2016 election. And within six, five, six days, she announced for governor because she had to move her money over. And so that was, I think a lot of people felt that that was disingenuous too. But, you know, it is what it is. And then the, it turns out she probably wouldn't have had the that because the legislature repealed the whole thing which removed those transfer limits. And it's just Interesting to see how that that shook out. But people were upset on both sides of the aisle were upset about the repeal and were upset about. I heard a lot of people that even said, you know what, I didn't vote for im22 what the legislature did was wrong in repealing that the people spoke.

Yeah, no, I want to talk about your campaign in one second because I think that's the most interesting part of this story. But given what you'd expect in the public's reaction to the legislature basically telling the public it didn't know what it was talking about, I find kind of surprising that in 2018, in a year where you come within a razor's edge of beating a Republican in 2018, Amendment W, which attempted to revive ethics reform or anti corruption reform, actually failed on the ballot and it failed by about the same percentage that it won the other way around. So how do you understand that failure? It's not your responsibility, obviously. So I'm not asking you to defend it personally. But, but what do you think happened? Why didn't people rally to affirm what the people had done before?

I think that second round, it was a constitutional amendment rather than an initiated measure. I think you'll find in South Dakota that South Dakotans are pretty protective of the constitution here. The state constitution is what we'd be talking about. And I think that was just enough of the difference that people were just people were just more hesitant to change the Constitution than they are to change a state law through initiated measure.

So was it originally controversial or originally not controversial and then became controversial because the campaign focused on the idea of amending the Constitution or was it from the very beginning just a mistake?

I don't know if I'd say it was a mistake or not. I just think that overall voters were just more hesitant with a constitutional amendment and it was a little bit different than the original. Im 22 but it was just a different cycle too. And it's just hard to it's just hard to know what exactly happened throughout that. And I probably didn't. I was so focused on our campaign that there were several different measures. And that's part of the problem too is when you get multiple measures on the ballot, there are a faction of people that just say, well, I'm just going to go vote no for everything. I don't want to. There's too many for me to worry about, which shouldn't be the case. But the reality is that sometimes happens.

Yeah, I mean there was a very interesting measure on the ballot. I don't think this will withstand constitutional scrutiny, but it. But it basically blocked the ability for out of state money to be used in a ballot measure, which that provision won. That was controversial because, of course, a lot of the support for Amendment W came from out of state. So this was almost like the people were saying they don't want out of staters participating in the amendments of the South Dakota Constitution. Maybe that worked against it as well.

Yeah, I think that's possible because a fair amount of funding was from out of state, and I think that did occur, which is also interesting. I think if probably the majority of South Dakota knew how much out of state money went into to my opponent's gubernatorial campaign, they might rethink that support as well, because over half of Congresswoman Noem's support came from out of state. And I think right at 90% of my financial support was from right here in South Dakota by individuals. And there was a big difference there.

Yeah, so. And the out of state support she received was at. From individuals, or was it. What was the nature of that support?

A lot of pac. A lot of PAC money. Republican Governor association came in at the end with a lot of financial support for her. I think a couple million in the last two or three weeks, which in South Dakota, you can run a very competitive race for a couple million dollars. We have the cheapest media market in the country, and so you can run a very competitive campaign for a smaller amount of dollars. I think I raised more than, well, more than two times what any other Democratic candidate had ever raised in South Dakota. And then I had raised more than any other Republican candidate with the exception of my opponent in that cycle, Congresswoman.

And so the money that you were raising from in the state, these are, you know, are you raising it online? Are you raising it face to face? How's that? What's the dynamic of fundraising in South Dakota?

It was a combination. We raised a lot of money online. We raised a lot of money through, you know, just grassroots efforts from mailers, you know, in person events and things like that. But, I mean, our. We did not have a lot of large donors. You know, it was a lot of people that were given 50 to 100 bucks at a time and just saw the opportunity for change and wanted to be a part of. Was very much a grassroots effort. We had a lot of donors that were given 5, 10 bucks a month throughout the campaign. And it all adds up and made a huge difference in the rig.

Those repeat donors are the greatest gift that I think the Lord has ever come up with, because those people, I mean, they commit early on and they stay committed. We have a number supporting our work, and I can't say how grateful I am for that.

It makes a huge difference because you can actually, you know, it's ongoing money that you can count on so you can build such a better base for your campaign, more knowing that that's going to continue to occur. And so it was really helpful.

Yeah, the planning is possible. Okay. So, I mean, you ran an incredible campaign in all sorts of ways. I think if people see your media and they see the strategy and they see the way you raised money, all of that's great. The part I'm most interested in, though, is not so much what you said, because I think you said the right thing from my perspective. Absolutely. About the need to restore trust and integrity to government. What did you hear when you were out on the road and people heard you talk about this issue? What did you hear? What did you hear, especially from people who didn't necessarily share your political values? How did you feel this resonate in the course of the campaign?

Yeah, I think people are looking for somebody that's real, authentic and that understand our underlying values. And that's really all I know. I come from a ranching background where you worked hard till the job got done, never quit, never gave up. You did it with honesty and integrity. And that really resonated with people because I am who I am. I'm real to what I say I'm going to, and my word is good. And so that's worth a lot to a lot of people. And it's very culturally important to South Dakota. And that's what I heard from a lot of people. They say, you know what? You're real, you're authentic, and we trust you. We trust you to do the right thing. Because that's a lot of it is just building that trust and. And then making sure you don't. You always live up to that. And that's just the values I was raised with. And so it came very natural, I guess you could say.

Okay, so that's you. And that's obvious from your background that you would be able to claim that. What's not so obvious is how people in the state of South Dakota would think about their government. You know, when you think about other states, like Colorado, for example, we're going to talk to Mike Johnston, who's going to run for Senate in Colorado. Mike Johnston also ran for governor. He wasn't anywhere as successful as you were. But one thing he said to Me, which is very interesting, is that though people in Colorado are quite angry about the federal government. They would think the federal government's deeply corrupted. They don't think that about their own government. They think their own government's. You know, it's not like it works perfectly. It's government, but it's not corrupted in the same way. But what's striking in South Dakota was that obviously your message must have resonated because many people were just, you know, disappointed or let down with the idea of how government was working in South Dakota. Did you hear that when you talked to people around the state?

Absolutely. I mean, that was the number one issue that people were about, concerned. Concerned about was corruption in state government. And as we discussed, with the loss of life and the money that disappeared and all those things that really our media exposed a lot of that. And so people got to see it reported, and they were very upset about that. And I think that's probably the biggest reason that we got as close as we did to winning this race, because they. They viewed me as a departure from that corruption. And that was the number one issue in the campaign. And a big part of the plans that we laid out in how we addressed that, especially as it came to campaign finance reform and gift limitations and making sure we had an ethics commission that was going to address the corruption that has gone on. And really, probably the other factor is just a change within state government to have new leadership and to bring in new people that, you know, maybe hadn't been there for 30 or 40 years. That's part of the problem. You have people that are working in state government that have been there for, you know, 40 years that do things the same, just because that's the way they've always been done.

Yeah. Yeah. So when you. When you would have your exchanges with Congresswoman Noem, did this issue come up? Was this an issue asked about in debates? And how did she distinguish herself from the way you were describing the issue?

Honestly, she tried to paint herself as a change agent in that degree as well. I feel like it largely fell flat because she was trying to say that she wasn't part of. Of the establishment. She wasn't part of that club. And you can say one thing, but the reality is that she is a part of the establishment, and you're not going to see any change from that. But she was putting out some proposals and initiatives, some Sunshine Law things and things of that nature where she's promising to have an open and honest government. But so far, we have yet to see Any of that change within that administration.

And you don't expect that change to come in this administration.

I don't expect to see it. But I hope I'm proved wrong on that. It was the number one issue in this campaign, and the voters deserve to have that openness and honesty in their government. I mean, big government should be as honest and open as the people of South Dakota. And they're not getting that right now. And I hope that changes. So I hope they prove me wrong.

Okay, so you're not a candidate running for president. You barely old enough to run for president. And this has been a series, it's been a podcast about this issue in the presidential race. But so I'm talking to you not because I'm trying to recruit you to run. And you're not actually an announced candidate for anything right now. I mean, you left the government in the beginning of the year, and you now have a foundation, I guess, or an institute that's focusing on recruiting young people into doing good in South Dakota. But if you were, you know, if the leaders of the Democratic Party called you and said, Mr. Sutton, what did you learn when you tried to persuade a state that had gone for Donald Trump by 30 points about what kind of message a Democrat could be promoting that might actually work? How would you persuade them that what you did was a strategy that might have legs? Not just in South Dakota?

Yeah, I think there's a number of things I would tell them. Number one, that candidates need to listen. Too often, I think you have candidates that go out and use polling to push their message or whatever it is that they're going to focus on because of polling or because of preconceived notions. But the biggest reality is that you need to listen to the people. And that's what we did when we kicked off the campaign. We held a listening tour across South Dakota and invited people to come, regardless of party affiliation. And I literally just sat and listened. I gave a little bit of my background of who I am and where I come from, and then I said, this race is about you. I want to hear what's important to you. And it's more challenging than you think it is to just sit there and listen and not respond to what people are saying. But it gave us a response, really great insight as to what people actually want from their government. And the biggest takeaway from all those listening sessions that we held all across South Dakota was that people wanted a government that they could trust, and they wanted someone that was real and authentic, that would actually do what they said they're going to do, and that's the advice I would give to any candidate, is do more listening than talking and address the issues that people care most about. And right. At least, at least in South Dakota, that was corruption. And I think people feel that way across the country as well. Just from what I've read and seen throughout other states.

Do you think South Dakotans have a better view of the federal government than they do of their state? State government?

I think in South Dakota, probably. I think that that's probably the case, especially when you see how the numbers have gone recently with past elections. I think at least here in South Dakota, people feel like their representatives are doing a good job in fighting for them. I think they still think there's some corruption, but it's largely in South Dakota. Revolves around state government is what we saw.

Yeah. And the fight against corruption in the state government. I like the way you framed it. It's not so much a fight against Republicans as a fight against establishment or a fight against those that have an old way of doing things and want to profit from that. And you know, of course, your state has a strong history of these kind of strong willed resisters of corruption. I remember Larry Pressler, Right. Who was a senator, he's a Republican and he was. Maybe he was a congressman when this happened. But anyway, there was a scandal called the Abscam scandal. And he was. They tried to set him up to get him to take a bribe. And there's a really great video of him just almost outraged at the idea that somebody would ask him to take a bribe.

Well, you know, Senator Pressler actually endorsed my campaign out here in South Dakota and we did an event where a bunch of Republicans endorsed me and independents as well. And I think that part of why you saw just our momentum throughout the campaign increase is because I wasn't focused on party affiliation. I never have been. Because when you look at the corruption issue, it shouldn't be a partisan issue, and it's not. But I think candidates need to look at how they can bring people together, not seek to divide. And that was at the base of what my campaign stood for, is how do we work together, how do we find common ground to address the issues that people care most about. And that was the corruption issue. And so I think it's a mistake for people to demonize one party or the other because the party doesn't always represent all the people as a whole. It is oftentimes about our base values and our core beliefs. And it isn't Just Republican versus Democrat, or Independent, for that matter. It's about bringing all people of all stripes together to solve a problem. And I think we've lost a lot of that on both sides of the aisle. People seek to demonize the party as a whole, which then becomes personal to a lot of people. And if you demonize somebody, you can't get them to the table to have a conversation, because most of these people are really good, hardworking, honest people that feel like they're getting attacked all the time.

It's such a great message, and it's what makes me so anxious about this election cycle right now, because obviously, the president has done a lot to divide the nation and divide us in ways that many of us thought was not even possible to find those lines anymore. But there it is. We're divided on race, we're divided on immigrants, and we're divided in a partisan way. And one way to respond to that is to play the same game, to continue to emphasize just how different we are, how far apart we are from the other side. And as you say, to demonize the other side. I've always thought another strategy that might be more effective would be to emphasize what we all actually do agree about. And, you know, that might not be some of the things that we people from the Republic of Cambridge care most about, like health care or issues like that. Instead, it's the issues that you were talking about. You know, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent in America, you think the federal government is fake, filled with the kind of corruption we need to address. And I really hope that there are more from the national party who hear the message that you were delivering in South Dakota and ask themselves, wouldn't it be easier to try to rally America to something that you don't have to convince them of, rally them to something they already believe, which is that every American deserves a government they can trust.

Yeah, I think that there was a time when we started that conversation with what we agreed with rather than what we disagreed, because I certainly found that during my time in the legislature, that as South Dakotans, specific to South Dakota, we agree on 90% of the issues, I would say, here in South Dakota. But too often the conversation starts with the 10% that we disagree on, and then we lose sight of that. There's this common ground and commonality, I guess, that makes us who we are to our fabric. And I just get so frustrated when I. It's easy to. It's easy to take that path of, you know, rallying your base by criticizing a party or an individual when really we agree on way more than we disagree on. That's where we should start the conversation. If we don't do that, we're not going to be able to solve problems that we actually have. We're not going to be able to find common ground and build trust. That's how you solve problems. You build trust with, with folks that maybe disagree with you on some things, but you find ways to work together, which is what I've done in the legislature. And what if I ever am in public office again? I'll continue to have that same belief.

Billy Sutton, I'm grateful for your time and your leadership, and I wish you luck in your work in South Dakota. And I hope we see you more outside of South Dakota than we have so far.

Far.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you for your time and for your work. Really appreciate it. And we'll see. We'll see what the future holds one day at a time.

Okay. Thank you, Billy.

Thank you.

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