Life & Liberty Media sources tell me of a movement toward filing charges against Representative Brian Gosch (R-32) as a consequence of an alleged violation of South Dakota Notary laws.
The allegation is that Representative Gosch notarized his own candidate petitions in the most recent election cycle. On its face, it appears that Representative Gosch may be in violation of South Dakota law (SDCL 18–1-7).
§ 18–1–7. Notarial acts valid despite notary’s agency for party to transaction.
A notary public who is personally interested directly or indirectly, or as a stockholder, officer, agent, attorney, or employee of any person or party to any transaction concerning which he is exercising any function of his office as such notary public, may make any certificates, take any acknowledgments, administer any oaths or do any other official acts as such notary public with the same legal force and effect as if he had no such interest except that he cannot do any of such things in connection with any instrument which shows upon its face that he is a principal party thereto.
AND
§ 18–1–12.2. Party to transaction as notary public prohibited.
It is a Class 1 misdemeanor for a person to affix a signature to a document as a notary public when the person has also signed the document as a party to the transaction proceeding.
Representative Gosch is a practicing attorney in Rapid City and was a part of the South Dakota House leadership in the embattled 2012 legislative session. You may recall that in the 2012 legislative session, the GOP House Leadership capriciously tossed two Conservative legislators out of the House GOP Caucus. Representative Gosch served as the President Pro-Tempore of the House and told me as early as January 2012 that he expects to be Speaker of the House in 2013.
If true, and Representative Gosch is cited, it could result in his removal from the November general election ballot or at minimum may adversely affect his possible election as Speaker of the House.
Life & Liberty Media is making every effort to fact check the allegations and the circumstances surrounding this story and we will provide them to you sooner rather than later. Check with us here frequently for updates on this developing story.
***Ed Randazzo, is a nationally syndicated author. He has been a conservative activist and consultant for over 30 years and is currently the Chief News Editor of Life and Liberty Media and Co-Producer of Liberty Today, a weekly television program seen on cable systems in most of South Dakota***
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I LOVE the title for this post. “OH MY GOSCH!” What a genius way to market and make sure people understand this issue.
This is the most serious allegation against Gant in the SOS office. Gant went after Charlie Johnson a Democrat running against Russ Olson for this issue and actually kicked him off the ballot.
Then Gosch just insisted that he be allowed to sign his own petitions and Gant let him.
-“Gosch said he turned his nominating petition in at the secretary of state’s office in January and was initially told by a staffer that there was a problem with notarizing his own petition. Gosch said he argued that he was only notarizing the name of the petition circulator, not his own name. The petition and signatures were accepted.
“If they were going to take a position at that time that those were invalid, they should have said so,” Gosch said. “I turned mine in in late January. If some were thrown out, I would have had two months to get signatures. That wouldn’t have been a problem.”
Gosch thought the issue was settled. But it came up during a court challenge of Gant’s decision to deny Democratic House candidate David Mitchell of Mitchell a place on the House ballot from District 20. The key problem was that Mitchell didn’t list his political party on a line on his nominating petition. Gant also noted that Mitchell had notarized some signature sheets himself.” – RCJ http://rapidcityjournal.com/article_5274c072-407d-544d-9a49-c08663cd855d.html
(Obviously if Gosch was demanding that he be left on the ballot then I would hope a judge would kick him off the ballot for his own stupidness)
This is the problem for Gant because he enforced the law one way for a Republican and another for a Democrat.