South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has enacted a law that bans government entities in her state from accepting private financial resources to help absorb the cost of running elections.
In signing Senate Bill 122, the Republican chief executive was responding to the GOP backlash against the hundreds of millions of dollars donated to state governments and local municipalities across the country in 2020 by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The money was used to help mitigate the higher cost of funding elections in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
Indeed, more majority-Republican communities than majority-Democratic communities accepted the funds. But many grassroots Republicans believe it was used primarily to boost President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in the last White House contest, and some GOP lawmakers have responded with legislation to prohibit the derisively termed “Zuck Bucks” from being used in 2024.
“In 2020, we saw Mark Zuckerberg pour ‘Zuck Bucks’ into local election operations across the country. Elections should be funded by government, and we will not risk creating avenues for big-tech billionaires to unfairly influence our free and open elections,” Noem, a potential 20204 presidential contender, said in a statement on signing S.B. 122.
“We take election integrity very seriously in South Dakota,” Noem added. “We already have some of the strongest election laws on the books, and this legislation will make them even stronger.”
Noem is seeking a second four years in the 2022 midterm elections. She has focused this year on enacting legislation that are a priority with Republican primary voters whose support she would need in a presidential contest.
However, Noem’s agenda makes for good politics at home, too. In 2020, Trump won nearly 62% of the vote in South Dakota, an overwhelmingly GOP state.
