This Republican has my support!

You go, Mark!!

May 26 RCJ: "Rapid City lawmaker champions bigger billboard fees":

From Kirkeby's perspective, statistics are not necessary to make the argument that the state has too many billboards. He thinks that conclusion should be obvious to anyone who drives the busy highways leading into the Black Hills.

"At nighttime it looks like a landing strip for aliens that want to come and land down here along Interstate 90," Kirkeby said. "The aesthetic value and the beauty that we have here in the Black Hills is oftentimes really clouded with these billboards that stand 30 to 40 feet in the air."

There's a great little section that is a real Pierre story. Kirkeby, unlike most Republicans I know here, has a grasp of the concept of conflict of interest...

Kirkeby considered [Dick] Gregerson's dual roles who not only lobbies for billboard-industry giant Lamar Advertising but also is a member of the state's Transportation Commission.] a conflict of interest. As a member of the Transportation Commission, Gregerson helps oversee the state Department of Transportation, which is the very agency to which his lobbying client, Lamar Advertising, pays its billboard fees.

Gregerson told The Daily Republic that he did not consider himself conflicted, because the legislation came from Kirkeby and not from the DOT.

"If his had been a DOT bill, I wouldn't have touched it," Gregerson said. "But it wasn't."

And they say Illinois is corrupt.