Clouds gather over the South Dakota Capitol building in Pierre on Sept. 17, 2022. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)
As the nation celebrates Democracy Day, it’s a good time to be thankful for the freedoms that we have but also be wary of the threats that democracy faces. Those threats aren’t limited to Washington, D.C. They exist in the statehouse and the local courthouse as well.
Democracy is threatened whenever government at any level wants to keep the public in the dark. In July, South Dakota Searchlight reported on one such government official who prefers to stay away from the prying eyes of the public, Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko. The secretary was speaking to the Legislature’s Government Operations and Audit Committee after two bouts of violence at two different prisons.
According to Wasko, the less said in public about those incidents, the better. At issue was her relationship with the state’s Corrections Commission. The citizen commission is bound by law to weigh in on criminal justice issues as well as sign off on funding requests for prison industries. Commission members complained that they were kept in the dark about the violent incidents at the prisons.