"According to its website, the members of the South Dakota Freedom Caucus keep busy by 'fighting for the people’s rights.' If their legislative results this year are any indication, the people’s rights are taking a beating."
Commentary from Dana Hess:
BREAKING NEWS: President Donald Trump said Homeland Security Secretary #KristiNoem will be leaving the post for a job as a special envoy. buff.ly/Pu5Due6
One of the last remaining bills dealing with #DataCenters in the South Dakota Legislature — a measure that would impose new regulations — passed the state House and now heads back to the Senate for consideration of a House committee’s amendment.
Two bills that would allow local governments in South Dakota to impose new #SalesTaxes for specific purposes cleared their last legislative hurdles and are headed to the governor for his consideration.
Police in South Dakota logged fewer theft reports in 2025 than the previous year, but made more arrests for theft. The figures suggest license plate readers adopted in Madison and expanded last year to Sioux Falls can make it easier to find suspects, the technology's supporters say.
Several South Dakota political insiders think #KristiNoem will stick with her new role in the Trump administration following her dismissal as U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, rather than jump into a political race in her home state.
A South Dakota Senate panel said no to a bill that would've put the onus for age verification in app store purchases on app stores. A lobbyist for app stores argued that the makers of apps that cause harm ought to bear the burden of age verification.
southdakotasearchlight.com/briefs/south...
If the idea earns the support of South Dakota Senate and Gov. Larry Rhoden, the state Department of Education would cover the cost of reduced price meals for qualifying students. Currently, schools charge 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch.
For the second time in as many years, South Dakota lawmakers have rejected a bill to force carbon pipeline companies to file environmental impact statements. One of the bill's opponents declared the pipeline project that inspired it "dead" in the state.
A bill on parental rights failed in the House of Representatives Tuesday over concerns about health care and child abuse.
The legislation would have codified a parent’s right to “direct the upbringing” and “moral and religious training” of their child.
Two bills to regulate digital currency in South Dakota are on their way to Gov. Larry Rhoden’s desk after votes in both chambers of the legislature.
One bill is meant to curb scams involving digital currency kiosks; the other would define cryptocurrency as a seizable asset.
A committee of state representatives rejected a measure that would have asked South Dakota voters to approve sports betting and use the resulting tax revenue to fund property tax relief.
Talk of political memes spurred an amendment to a bill from South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley to criminalize the creation of deepfakes. The state Senate would need to sign off on the bill's newly narrower definition of nudity for it to get to Gov. Larry Rhoden's desk.
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden worried about the cost of pursuing a ban on soda for SNAP recipients, but he signed a bill to start that pursuit anyway.
The bill had a veto-proof majority. Rhoden said federal-level SNAP reform would be preferable to "a patchwork of state waivers."
Students who are aggressive or violent in the classroom could be sent to an alternative setting if Gov. Larry Rhoden signs two bills passed this week by South Dakota lawmakers.
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden has thrown his support behind a plan to use revenues from an upcoming increase in the statewide sales tax rate to offset homeowner property taxes — something his administration opposed earlier this legislative session.
A bill to criminalize the sale or advertisement of “an article or thing” designed to perform an abortion is on its way to the South Dakota Senate.
If it succeeds in the Senate, it will go to the governor’s desk for final approval.
The South Dakota House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a resolution that would have placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot asking voters if the lieutenant governor should be stripped of his role as the Senate’s presiding officer.
The committee that oversees South Dakota’s #MedicalMarijuana program will continue its work for at least another year, a panel of state senators has decided after the House had voted to end it.
Arguments for local control won the day during debate on a bill that would have banned school day cellphone use by K-12 students in South Dakota.
Cellphone policies "should remain in the hands of the school," the Avon school district prinicpal said.
If the state Senate and South Dakota and Gov. Larry Rhoden back the idea, students in the state would be required to watch videos on prenatal development that opponents call medically inaccurate.
A bill to make state officials wait two years before taking private jobs with state contractors failed in the South Dakota House of Representatives after the House speaker moved to return it to its original, more restrictive form.
It was a crazy week in the South Dakota Senate: arguments about the lieutenant governor's authority, absent senators, motions and search parties to compel their presence, and more.
A special episode of 🎧️ Searchlight Report 🎧️ podcast brings the experience to listeners:
buff.ly/PFaRMdN
South Dakota Republicans kicked one of their own out of caucus meetings for two weeks. Meanwhile, writes Dana Hess, "Taxpayers have been shut out for years, with the future of the state being decided in secret."
COMMENTARY:
South Dakota lawmakers have whittled down ideas of how to use $31 million in one-time funding, including money for roads near Ellsworth Air Force Base, grants to help victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, protective gear for firefighters and more.
Good morning. I'd like to introduce you to the @statesnewsroom.com DC Bureau and remind you we work for a non-corporate, non-legacy-media nonprofit with reporters in 39 state capitals. Let's start with @arianalfigueroa.bsky.social, who covers immigration:
www.newsfromthestates.com/author/arian...
It was a crazy week in the South Dakota Senate: arguments about the lieutenant governor's authority, absent senators, motions and search parties to compel their presence, and more.
A special episode of 🎧️ Searchlight Report 🎧️ podcast brings the experience to listeners:
buff.ly/PFaRMdN
U.S. forces have launched “major combat operations” on targets in #Iran, President Donald Trump said.
Via @statesnewsroom.com
buff.ly/hdL4SFL
A lawmaker's comments shed light on an aspect of South Dakota's property tax conundrum: people who work from home, with "no large commercial building paying property tax." That's partly a byproduct of Kristi Noem's "Freedom," writes @sethtupper.bsky.social.
COMMENTARY:
