Pure Pierre Politics

There’s speculation elsewhere tonight that MAYBE it was the Catholic Church which was the secret provider of $750,000 to Promising Future in the 2006 abortion-ban campaign. Well, gee. What do the campaign finance reports of the Vote Yes For Life committee show? Why, there’s a $5,000 contribution from the Chancery Office in Sioux Falls. Hmmm, not much secrecy there. What else do we find? Oh my, look at all of those churches, from all of those different denominations — Catholics, Lutheran, Baptists, et cetera, et cetara – which gave. All in the open. That hotbed of political radicalism, Blue Cloud Abbey, is on the list too. Look at all those Knights of Columbus donations too! Not the Catholic Church nor any other church had any reason to hide contributions. Their names, addresses and amounts are there in the report, available on the Internet, for the world to see.  While some speculate (gee, do you think the political defeat the legalized-abortion supporters suffered in the U.S. House of Representatives on the no-abortion-funding amendment in the health-insurance legislation  has anything to do with this attack on the Catholic Church?), if you want to look for yourself at who gave to which side, just go to the web site of the South Dakota secretary of state at www.sdsos.gov and under the Elections tab find the campaign finance link. The names of the two main ballot committees from the 2006 fight were Vote Yes For Life and South Dakota Campaign For Healthy Families. You can see where the money came from. Watch too in the near future for a report from the University of South Dakota law school on the outside financial influences on both sides in that campaign.