I was kind of surprised to see that while I had my head down in working my real job this afternoon that the bill that would have helped stop legalized sex trafficking failed in the state senate this afternoon.

Did I say legalized sex trafficking? What am I referring to? Senate Bill 156, of course. The measure that proposed to increase the minimum age for marriage to 18 failed on the Senate floor on a vote of 16 for the bill, 19 against.

19 members of the State Senate are ok with this?  Really?

Many of the same people who want to demand that every effort be made to ensure that people are 18 and older before they can download apps on a cell phone are just fine with that same 16 year old girl getting married to a 45 year old man?  If a 35 year old man is exchanging nude pictures with a 16 year girl, he’s going to go to prison for a while. But, if he marries that same young girl and starts having kids, a majority of the Senate is perfectly ok with that arrangement?   Am I missing something?  Because typically the older man – and almost always an older man – is not the one who ends up with the bad end of the stick in this deal.

Let me give you a real-life example. My grandmother.

My grandmother was an Iowa girl with an indomitable will growing up in Waterloo Iowa in 1930.   She was not going to be told what to do, and one weekend she and her 22 year old boyfriend decided they were going to drive over from Iowa to Illinois to get married.  She claimed she was 18.  Nobody verified anything at the time, because this was a long time before electronic records.  And on the 28^th of December in 1931 my grandmother Lanore became a 16 year old bride.  From what family stories note, the families were displeased once this came to light, but, what were they going to do? They were married.

A year later, grandma was giving birth to one of my aunts. By the time she was 22, she’d had three kids, with much of their marriage spent with a husband who joined the military and ended up overseas for much of WWII. In time the war was over and married life continued, what seemed like a good idea when she was 16 left her divorced at age 34 with three kids.

She got married again right away in 1950. But in a story that was never mentioned for many decades, the two youngest including my mom ended up living down the street with neighbors, as the new husband didn’t have an interest in the three kids that came along with the marriage.  For better or worse, possibly for the better, he dropped dead of a heart attack leaving this once child bride not just divorced but also widowed by 35. The daughters still there were able to come home.

Thankfully, things stabilized with a third marriage a few years later to the person I and my cousins always grew up knowing as our grandfather.  But the whole point is that despite some who try to say that’s what we did “way back when,” child brides could still bounce around from crappy situation to crappy situation, with a chunk of that burden coming back on the kids. It wasn’t abusive to my knowledge. But by the same token, it’s not something that any of us would refer to as “good.”  Child marriage is not something that should be romanticized.

Yet, here we are, nearly 100 years later after my grandmother did it, supposedly 100 years better educated and more enlightened. And we still have people fooled by some illusion, whether hypnotized by religion or weirdly romanticized notions of the past that try to find justifications for marrying off 16 year old girls to older men like they are Irish Traveller brides.

There is not one of us who would say we don’t want to protect our kids. But as noted above, in the same breath, coming out of the same people’s mouths there are just too many who say kids should not be exposed to certain scandalous ideas in high school libraries, or have a remote possibility of looking at naughty pictures on-line, yet they are happy to cast a vote saying it’s ok that a 16 year old girl should be able to get married to their 29 year old boyfriend…. because they have a license from the state that says it’s somehow ok?

As one study noted, Some 60,000 marriages since 2000 occurred at an age or spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.  In about 88% of those marriages, the marriage license became a “get out of jail free” card for a would-be rapist under state law that specifically allowed within marriage what would otherwise be considered statutory rape.

People might think I’m using girls as an example too much. But look at the statistics. There really aren’t roving packs of cougars out trying to marry 16 year old boys. Of the child marriages that take place,  86% involve minor girls to 14% boys.

And if you listened to the testimony in committee, once they get into those situations and they try to escape, state laws make it near impossible for them to get out. A 16 year old typically can’t go to a women’s shelter. They cannot enter into a contract with an attorney to initiate a legal proceeding, because they’re a minor. Even better, many times minors who leave home to escape from an abusive spouse or impending forced marriage are typically considered runaways.

If you want to go read a good reference at what South Dakota just voted to continue to do to our daughters, the website Unchained at Last has more information than you might have ever wanted to read on the type of child-trafficking that the State Senate voted today to allow to continue in South Dakota.

We can do better for our daughters. And today, we should have.

Attorney General Jackley Praises Senate for Passing Government Accountability Legislation 

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley praises the State Senate for Tuesday’s passage of Senate Bill 62, which would establish mandatory reporting requirements related to improper governmental conduct and crime, and to provide a penalty.

“Thank you to the Senators for strengthening government accountability, protecting taxpayers and renewing trust in our State Government,” said Attorney General Marty Jackley.

The bill was approved 33-2 and now goes to the House for further action.

Tuesday’s approval means that all of the Attorney General’s legislative bills have passed the Senate and will be considered later by the House.

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I was pointing out Senate Bill 180 earlier today, the bill proposing to require age verification before an individual may access an application from an online application store.  Specifically, the joint letter from Meta, Snap Inc, and X on the measure and how some of the larger internet companies viewed the need for parental verification.

Nicole Lopez, Safety Policy Director for Youth at Meta testified on the measure, and offered the following testimony to help clear up some myths about age verification:

South Dakota Senate Judiciary Hearing
Nicole Lopez – Oral Testimony
Feb 18, 2025

Chair Wheeler, Vice Chair Hulse, and members of the Committee, it’s nice to see many of you again and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is Nicole Lopez and I am the Safety Policy Director for Youth at Meta. Many of you heard from me during the Summer Study about the merits of requiring app stores to age verify and obtain parental consent anytime a teen under 16 tries to download an app – a solution to online teen safety that Meta has been advocating for since 2023.

Since I was last in Pierre, this solution to age verification online has already been formally introduced in 8 states, with nearly 20% of all states now considering app-store age verification and parental consent bills – and more expected. The broad support of parents and organizations across political and ideological spectrums should not be ignored.

But the bill we are talking about today is not the same as what I was advocating for last summer, because SD Senate Bill 180 is modeled off Utah UT SB 142 currently being led by Utah Parents United and the Digital Progress Institute. So while different from what Meta proposed, we do support it. But I want to be clear that this is not a “Meta” bill.

I don’t think I need to get into how the concept of app store age verification and parental consent works or what the merits are again – beyond the facts that this solution makes it (1) easy on parents; (2) gives parents control; (3) and does so in a privacy-protective way – while also ensuring that teens are protected across the ecosystem of the 40+ apps that teens use *on average* every week. Further, this is what parents want: A Morning Consult poll found that nearly 80% of American parents support legislation that would require parental approval for children under 16 to download apps.

Instead, I want to spend the duration of my time addressing head on the arguments that we are seeing in opposition. In doing so, I hope to dispel some of the repeated myths and scapegoats, so that we can continue a substantive dialogue about the best ways to provide supportive and age-appropriate online experiences for South Dakota teens.

Claim: Meta supports app-store-based age verification only to push the responsibility off to Apple and Google.

• Facts:
  • Meta–and other–apps–aren’t abandoning age assurance. We recognize that people may still find ways to bypass what we think is the most viable solution here, and so we will continue to use AI and age verification checkpoints to catch the age liars–there will just be fewer age liars.
  • Further, we have already embraced this responsibility: Meta has its own virtual reality app store in our Meta Quest platform and has already integrated this solution. We believe all app stores should follow suit.
  • Finally, we aren’t “passing the buck” off to Apple/Google because they: (1) already collect this limited info, and (2) have an existing infrastructure in place and share the information through their existing APIs (e.g. I as a parent will get a “consent to purchase” ping on my phone if my kid wants to buy apps or make purchases within apps).

Claim: App-store-based age verification shields bad actors by pushing the onerous age verification off the platforms. 

• Fact:
  • By requiring age verification at a single entry-point of the device’s applications, bad actors will have a more difficult time misrepresenting their age across the entire app ecosystem. This is because all the apps downloaded to a device will have the same age signal about the user, including smaller or newer apps without the same resources to accurately age verify as larger, more established apps.

Claim: Technical implementation will burden small companies, and will not be as simple as implied. 

• Facts:
  • The opposite is true. SD SB 180 would make app stores responsible for verifying ages and obtaining parental consent – NOT individual app developers – mitigating the need for each individual application to build their own system to collect, store, and secure large amounts of sensitive user data While large app developers like Meta may have the resources to safely age verify – we are just one company in the app ecosystem. And since app stores would be responsible for verifying age and consent, smaller and newer app developers with fewer resources will be spared from steep liability costs associated with enforcement and litigation of setting up their own age verification processes or enlisting other third parties to do so on their behalf, which could introduce more privacy risks.

• An app store approach effectively reduces barriers for new and smaller developers — providing a healthier competitive market.

Claim: Age verification laws continue to be challenged and are likely to be found unconstitutional. 

• Facts:
  • An app store age verification law has not been considered by any court. Instead, courts have recognized the serious constitutional concerns around laws that selectively implement age verification and/or parental consent on only a subset of the many websites and apps available on the internet. Legislation that implements age verification and parental consent at the app store level can help ameliorate constitutional concerns that governments should not single out particular speakers or types of speech for unique regulatory burdens, and may be more likely to withstand legal challenge, so long as the the requirements apply equally to all apps and online services, regardless of the content, revenue, or identity of the speaker. An app store solution would do exactly that.
  • A simple, streamlined mechanism at the app store level would also significantly reduce the burden on both minor and adult users to access protected speech online.

Claim: There are “better” ways to protect children from access to mature content, specifically parental controls and education for parents.

• Facts:
  • There is no single silver bullet to protecting teens online – and we agree with a multi-layered, holistic approach that includes education and parental But app developers have to know the age of users and who their parents are, in order to offer said controls like the ones Meta provides, including the ability to set time limits and restrict inappropriate content for teens.
  • With required app store age verification, all apps – not just Meta apps – will be able to more accurately place teens into age-appropriate experiences (like Instagram Teen Accounts) that have built-in parental

In closing, there will never be a solution that 100% of people agree with. But we are all here today because we all care about protecting teens online and it is our collective responsibility. Not just on a handful of apps, but across the entire online ecosystem. And every single proposal in doing so requires applications to know the age of users. Senate Bill 180 is the mechanism to achieve this industrywide, that can be easily implemented, and that would have an immediate impact.

Thank you.

Who’s running for statewide office in the SDGOP in 2026?  Here’s the newest version of my “Tale of the Tape, infographic as the race for 2026 heats up on the afternoon of the Hughes County Lincoln Day Dinner:

In a press release issued a few minutes ago, Governor Larry Rhoden signed Senate Bill 12 today, the legislation sponsored by Senator Michael Rohl to end (Toby Doeden’s) unlimited PAC cash dumps disguised as loans, placing campaign finance limits on loans given to political committees to be in line with the regular donation limits that all committees must abide by:

Gov. Rhoden Signs 13 Bills into Law 

PIERRE, S.D. –  Today, Governor Larry Rhoden signed the following 13 bills into law: 

• SB 12 limits the amount of money that may be loaned to a candidate or political committee; 
• SB 29 amends provisions regarding the Division of Insurance and the former Division of Securities operating fund; 
• SB 35 modifies substances listed on the controlled substances schedule and to declare an emergency;
• HB 1002 requires that all certified educators take a course in South Dakota Indian Studies; 
• HB 1003 amends definitions pertaining to the school funding formula; 
• HB 1004 provides tuition for a student who is placed in a residential treatment center that provides educational programming; 
• HB 1014 modifies provisions related to emergency medical services personnel and to declare an emergency; 
• HB 1027 repeals obsolete provisions pertaining to noncollecting retailers; 
• HB 1028 revises certain references to the Internal Revenue Code; 
• HB 1029 updates provisions of the South Dakota Retirement System; 
• HB 1030 updates the South Dakota Retirement System’s member information protection provisions; 
• HB 1031 updates the South Dakota Retirement System member identity verification procedures; and 
• HB 1032 updates a reference to the Internal Revenue Code in South Dakota Retirement System statutes. 

Governor Rhoden has signed 34 bills into law this legislative session. 

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The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing a number of age verification measures today for on-line content, including Senate Bill 180, to require age verification before an individual may access an application from an online application store.  Attached is the prepared joint testimony from industry leaders META, Snap, Inc, and X:

Meta’s Director of Youth Safety Policy, Nicole Lopez, will testify in person during the South Dakota Senate Judiciary hearing in support of Senate Bill (SB) 180, a bill that would require app stores to verify age and get parental approval before children can download apps.

During the hearing, Lopez will discuss the legislative proposal aimed at empowering parents and protecting teens online, address opposition arguments, and answer committee member questions. A written copy of Nicole’s oral testimony will be made available after.

Additional Info:

• Meta has been calling for legislation that would require parental consent at the app store-level for teens under 16 to download an app – learn more here and here.
• In September 2024, Meta introduced Instagram Teen Accounts, a new experience for teens, guided by parents. Instagram Teen Accounts have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways to safely explore their interests. Instagram will automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and teens under 16 need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. You can learn more about Instagram Teen Accounts in the Meta Newsroom post HERE. 
• Nicole Lopez also testified at a hearing before the South Dakota Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Internet Access by Minors in October 2024. You can find the meeting notes and audio of that hearing here, as well as Nicole’s formal letter to Committee Chairs here.

No Time to Waste to Secure the Border
By Sen. John Thune

The need to secure the border has never been clearer than in the last four years. The Biden administration’s open-border policies allowed criminals and gang members into the United States. South Dakota law enforcement traced drugs on our streets back to the southern border. And we all heard the tragic stories of Americans killed by illegal immigrants who should have never been in our country in the first place.

Like many Americans, I’m glad that President Trump wasted no time fulfilling his promise to crack down on illegal immigration and secure the border. It’s difficult to believe that some of the individuals who have been arrested were still in this country: members of violent international gangs and individuals arrested for murder, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking, sexual crimes involving children, and human smuggling. Our communities are safer with these individuals in custody.

The chaos of the last four years was dangerous. More than 10 million individuals came across the southern border. Law enforcement officials were overwhelmed. Officers were pulled from guarding the border to process the flood of migrants. Border cities and other cities across the country struggled to deal with the influx. This chaos was an invitation to terrorists, smugglers, drug cartels, and other dangerous individuals to enter our country.

President Trump, Secretary Kristi Noem, and Border Czar Tom Homan have spent their first days in office making it clear that illegal immigration will no longer be tolerated. Congress also got right to work. The first bill that we sent to President Trump’s desk, the Laken Riley Act, ensures that illegal immigrants who steal, assault a law enforcement officer, or kill or seriously injure another person are detained instead of being allowed back out on the street. We’re making progress turning things around, but there’s still much more to do.

Tom Homan recently briefed Republican senators on the administration’s progress. He also made clear that Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will need additional resources to continue the important work of securing the border and getting criminals off of our streets.

Republicans are prepared to deliver those resources. The U.S. Senate has begun the process of producing legislation that will lay the foundation for a transformational investment in border security and immigration enforcement, as well as national defense. Congress will provide resources to increase the number of ICE officers and Border Patrol agents, expand detention space, facilitate deportations of dangerous individuals, and obtain the barriers and technology that we need to secure the border.

No longer will Americans be asked to tolerate rampant illegal immigration. We will get the border under control, finish the wall, and get dangerous illegal immigrants off the streets. The American people made it clear that border security is one of their top priorities, and Republicans are working to swiftly deliver it.

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Restoring Fairness to Tribal Education
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
February 13, 2025

 BIG Update

School conditions are dire in Indian country. For years, they haven’t received the funding they need, and now, unfortunately, schools are riddled with leaky roofs, broken heaters, mold, and more. Congress and the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) must do better to uphold our trust and treaty obligations to tribes.

I recently called on the House Natural Resources Committee to hold an oversight hearing on BIE failures and I’m glad they responded by doing so. This week, I had the honor of introducing Cecilia Fire Thunder of the Oglala Sioux Tribe for her testimony on the state of tribal education.

Committee discussion revealed that fifty percent of recommendations to BIE to improve its mismanagement of funds and allocation of resources have gone unimplemented. BIE must improve its systems to meet the basic needs of Native American students.

Click here or the image above for Johnson’s remarks

BIG Idea

Our nation’s highways need consistent maintenance and improvement, and these projects are primarily funded by the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which is mostly funded by federal gas tax. Unfortunately, current projections show the HTF becoming insolvent by 2028, and its instability has worsened due to increased electric vehicle (EV) adoption. California and the federal government have been doling out tax credits for EV purchases to the detriment of our federal roads and bridges.

Gas-powered cars contribute by paying the federal gas tax when they fill up at the pump. While EVs use the same roads as vehicles with internal combustions engines, they don’t contribute to the HTF. Additionally, due to the heavier weight of an EV, they cause more wear and tear on the roads than a standard gas-powered vehicle.

To remedy this and support improvements to our federal roads and bridges, I introduced the Fair SHARE Act to ensure EVs contribute their fair share to the HTF. My bill would impose a $1,000 fee on all-electric vehicles at the point of sale and an additional $550 one-time fee on each battery that weighs more than 1,000 pounds. These fees would be directed to the HTF to ensure the vehicles are fairly contributing to road and bridge maintenance.

BIG News

On Sunday, I had the privilege of watching South Dakota-native Dallas Goedert as he helped the Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs. After graduating from Britton-Hecla High School, Goedert was recruited by South Dakota State University’s football program. He’s had an impressive career with the Eagles over the past several years and represents South Dakota well.

I ran into President Trump while at the Super Bowl – he’s the first sitting President to attend this major sporting event.

Johnson and President Trump at the Super Bowl

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Gov. Rhoden Celebrates the Return of Fireworks to Mount Rushmore

PIERRE, S.D. – This President’s Day, Governor Larry Rhoden celebrated the return of fireworks to Mount Rushmore. This past Friday, Governor Rhoden and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum agreed that fireworks will return to Mount Rushmore for America’s 250th birthday in 2026.

“We are ready to throw the biggest birthday party ever for the United States of America,” declared Governor Larry Rhoden. “Thank you to Secretary Burgum for helping us bring this historic event to life. Our nation’s 250^th birthday will draw the attention of the entire world, reminding us just how proud we are to be Americans.”

Mount Rushmore is a national memorial under the control of the United States Department of the Interior. Fireworks were last set off at Mount Rushmore in celebration of Independence Day in 2020. In years since, the Biden Administration rejected requests to continue the fireworks celebration.

Governor Rhoden recently invited President Trump to attend this fantastic celebration. He made this invitation in a letter to the President, which you can find here.

“South Dakota is excited to work with your administration to bring back the Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration for Independence Day,” wrote Governor Larry Rhoden. “I trust that you will work closely with us to make it happen, and we cannot wait to see you there.”

Governor Rhoden looks forward to partnering with the White House Task Force on Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday (Task Force 250) to make this historic event possible.

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Weekly Legislative Report
by State Rep. Tim Reisch

We’ve got five weeks down and four to go in this, the 100th session of the South Dakota Legislature. Several committees are having to reconvene following adjournment in the afternoons because their number of assigned bills is so high. Monday afternoon I was a member of two committees (State Affairs and Military & Veterans Affairs) that were meeting at the same time! This caused me to miss votes on three bills that were heard in State Affairs, but sometimes that’s unavoidable.

On Tuesday afternoon both sides of the prison construction bill (House Bill 1025) were given the opportunity to present their positions and field questions in a private caucus setting. In my opinion, Ryan Bruner from the governor’s office made the most compelling case for why the legislature should support the bill. The proposed prison facility is exactly what was recommended by an independent group of corrections experts that conducted a study of South Dakota’s prison system three years ago. During the 2024 legislative session, the Department of Corrections (DOC) was appropriated money to purchase the necessary land and to pay for design and engineering costs. This year’s bill would authorize the construction of the 1,500-bed facility south of Sioux Falls in Lincoln County. The total cost of the project including the land purchase, design, engineering and construction is $825 million.

On Wednesday, the prison construction bill was considered by the House State Affairs Committee. The SD Sheriffs’ Association and SD Chiefs of Police Association both testified in favor of building the new prison but didn’t want to take a position on the site the DOC had selected. The governor’s office and DOC personnel restated the arguments they’d effectively made the day before. Individuals who testified against the measure largely argued that it was being built in the wrong location or that the state was not following county zoning ordinances. No one argued that the 144-year-old penitentiary didn’t need to be replaced. I made it clear that I believed that the site selected by the DOC was a good location, and that we should authorize construction this year. Having previously served as Secretary of Corrections and having gone through the site selection process for a prison facility in Rapid City, I know first-hand that it is impossible to find a site that everyone is in favor of. Delaying the construction of the new prison for just one year is estimated to cost an additional $40 million or more.

The prison bill will next be considered by the House Appropriations Committee and then taken up by the whole House the next legislative day. Because it is a spending bill, it will require a 2/3rds margin to pass. We are very fortunate to have all the needed money set aside to pay for construction of this new facility, and I plan to vote in favor of it. If the measure fails to get the 2/3rds required for passage, legislators need to resist the temptation to spend those dollars on other pet projects. The cost for a new prison will continue to climb by an estimated 4% or more every year, and the need to replace the old penitentiary will not go away.

I enjoyed meeting with Madison Mayor Roy Lindsay, DSU President Jose-Marie Griffiths and Eric Hortness from the Madison Chamber of Commerce last week. I also enjoyed spending time with the Lake Preston and Sioux Valley senior high school classes while they were visiting the Capitol. If you want to get in touch with me during the session, my legislative email address is [email protected].