When Public Servants Become Gatekeepers:
A Constitutional Warning About Electocratic Drift in South Dakota
When Public Servants Become Gatekeepers:
A Constitutional Warning About Electocratic Drift in South Dakota
I came to South Dakota thirty‑six years ago, expecting the kind of
accessibility that small states often claim as their strength. What I
encountered instead was a culture of insulation so abrupt and so
unapologetic that it left a mark I have never forgotten. And in all the
years since, that culture has not changed one bit, except perhaps to
harden.
My first attempt to engage with South Dakota’s government came shortly
after I arrived. I called my State Representative about a statewide
issue, the details of which I no longer remember, because the response
overshadowed everything else. I was told, plainly and without
hesitation, that if I wished to speak with him, I should "hire a
lobbyist," "sorry," he said, "but that’s the way it’s done in South
Dakota." That was my introduction to South Dakota civics: access
reserved for intermediaries, not citizens. The door was closed before I
even reached it.
Years later, preparing to travel back to visit family in Michigan, I
needed to confirm concealed‑carry reciprocity for my South Dakota
permit. I called the Midland Michigan County Prosecutor’s Office. A
prosecutor came to the phone, listened to my question, and gave me the
information I needed. It was simple, human, and exactly what public
service is supposed to look like.
Then much later I needed the same thing here in Minnehaha County. The
secretary answered, and the entire conversation lasted seconds. "We do
not give legal advice." That was it. No guidance. No direction. No
willingness to help a citizen trying to follow the law. The refusal was
immediate and complete. I was not allowed to even hear the sound
of a prosecutors voice in the background. The secretary appeared
to take some satisfaction in the authority she exercised over a citizen.
This pattern has repeated itself across decades. When I attempted to
speak with the Sioux Falls Chief of Police about the handling of my
late wife’s death investigation, and the crime that was committed, I
was told the Chief "does not take appointments." I was referred to a
lower‑level functionary. The same walls, the same gatekeeping, the same
culture of distance.
Over time, this insulation has endured, if not calcified. SDCL Ch. 1‑25
requires that official meetings of public bodies must be public and
advance notice is to be given of such meetings. SDCL 1‑25 applies to
City Councils and County Commissions, and I have attended some of these
meetings personally. At one such meeting in a town outside Sioux Falls,
I was threatened with having my taxes raised simply for questioning the
level I was paying. The council member became aggressive, rising out of
his seat in a way that made me genuinely concerned he wished for a
physical confrontation. I have also witnessed other citizens dismissed
out of hand. These are not the actions of a government confident in its
legitimacy, but the reflexes of a closed system that has forgotten who
it serves. Officials at every level, city, county, state are
essentially unreachable. Citizens are redirected elsewhere, anywhere
but those entrusted with authority. The message is unmistakable: the
people may vote, but they may not speak with real efficacy.
A government that hides from its own people is a government that has forgotten who it serves.
The Constitution of South Dakota speaks directly to this point. In its
own original words, Article 6, §4 declares: "The right of petition, and
of the people peaceably to assemble to consult for the common good and
make known their opinions, shall never be abridged." This is not a
suggestion. It is not a courtesy extended at the discretion of
officials. It is a constitutional guarantee. It affirms that the people
have the right to make their opinions known directly, without
intermediaries, without gatekeepers, and without being told to hire a
lobbyist. No office, no policy, and no "South Dakota way" can lawfully
override this right.
I must also speak plainly about a fear that has grown over the years:
the fear of being told, "This is the South Dakota way. If you want
different, go back to Michigan." That fear is not irrational. It is the
predictable result of a civic culture where access is treated as a
privilege rather than a right. But the Constitution of South Dakota
does not belong to a region, a party, or a tradition. It belongs to the
people. And no citizen should ever fear being dismissed from his own
state for exercising a right the Constitution explicitly protects.
Silence is not the expectation of a republic; it is the warning sign of
its decline.
Political scientists have a word for this kind of system. They call it
an Electocracy. It is a form of government where elections still occur,
but meaningful public influence ends the moment the ballots are
counted. The people choose their leaders, but the leaders do not answer
to the people unless it is time for their vote. Power becomes
self‑directing, insulated, and unaccountable between elections.
Initiated measures, a breath of much‑needed oxygen in a closed system,
approved by the voters, are overturned by the Governor’s office or
Legislature as being unconstitutional, rather than being examined by
our Judiciary and any question about constitutionality decided there,
with the branch of government mandated by our Constitution to decide
such matters, in as much as I can ascertain. I do not believe I
am wrong in this.
An Electocracy is not really defined by corruption or malice. It is
defined by distance. It is what happens when public servants become
managers, when representatives become gatekeepers, and when the
machinery of government becomes more responsive to lobbyists and
internal networks than to the citizens it was created to serve.
South Dakota prides itself on being a small state with small‑town
values, a place where government is close to the people. But the lived
reality tells a different story. In a state of fewer than a million
residents, no citizen should be told they need a lobbyist to speak with
their representative. No police chief should be so insulated that a
grieving husband cannot request ten minutes of conversation. No
prosecutor’s office should treat a law‑abiding citizen’s question as an
inconvenience to be dismissed.
The founders themselves warned that this kind of insulation would be
the undoing of a republic. They understood that when officials cease to
answer directly to the people, the republic begins to hollow out from
within.
"It is essential to liberty that the government in general should have
a common interest with the people;" — Federalist No. 52 (1788)
"The representatives of the people… should be bound to the people by
the ties of an immediate dependence." — Federalist No. 71 (1788)
This is not a partisan problem. It is a structural one. It appears to
be one of vanity. And it is a warning. When the public cannot reach its
own officials, the republic is already drifting. Elections remain, but
the relationship between the people and their government has thinned to
a thread.
I write this not out of bitterness, but out of hope. Systems do not
correct themselves. They drift until someone points it out, names
the drift. They harden until someone calls attention to the hardening.
If South Dakota is to remain a representative republic in more than
name, the culture of insulation must be confronted, not with anger, but
with a clarion call to return to a government of and for the people
once again.
Public servants must once again become servants. Access must once again
be direct. And the people must once again be recognized as the source
of authority, not an inconvenience to be managed.
If we lose that, we lose the very thing that makes a republic a republic.
Please excuse any misspellings, mispunctuations, or crimes against syntax.
Respectfully yours,
Anthony K. Pritchard