If you haven’t read this hilarity, it might be worth the trip to the South Dakota Freedumb Caucus’ website. This week, they take stock of the fact that only one of them will be returning to the legislature this next session. And of course, they have to blame someone.
As opposed to putting the harsh glare of the spotlight on themselves for being the worst of the worst and embarrassing themselves because of their legislation and conduct, they blame the House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach:
The conservative movement in South Dakota recently experienced a significant impact on its conservative voting bloc in the legislature. These are the conservative lawmakers who fight for the values itemized in the South Dakota Republican Platform, including limited government, lower taxes, individual responsibility, and election integrity. Unfortunately, due to massive anti-conservative PAC spending and a failure by the Republican House Majority Leader to unite conservatives during the session and ahead of the election, the Establishment wing of the South Dakota GOP has taken control of the legislature and the Governor’s office.
and..
Republican House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach recently gave a self-serving podcast interview to one of the state’s most liberal media organizations, the South Dakota Searchlight on August 14, 2026. In this interview, Rep. Odenbach misdiagnosed the state and path of South Dakota politics, demonstrating either deliberate or blind ignorance of the facts surrounding his attempt to run a “conservative term.”
and..
Rep. Odenbach ignores the fact that he was the Majority Leader in this liberal Searchlight interview. He was the person 100% responsible for unity in the House Republican caucus. Numerous times throughout the legislative term, Rep. Odenbach lectured conservatives, spoke to the media about them, and attempted to tear them down rather than finding common ground among the three voting blocs. To establish unity, there must be baseline guiding principles to unite around. In this case, we have the Republican platform that must be followed. As the Republican Leader, Rep. Odenbach should regularly point to these guiding principles, not just half the time, but all the time. Doing so would have helped him be an effective leader.
Read the entire bag of silliness here.
I notice no one is taking any pride of authorship. The only free-dumber left standing is Phil Jensen, otherwise Jordan Mason has been the groups’ errand boy over the years, and neither one of them is putting their name to it.
Not that Scott Odenbach should get off scot-free. The Republican House has not exactly been a unified body over the past 2 years. In fact, it has been a disaster of divisiveness, where leadership under Odenbach and Jon Hansen did literally nothing to seek consensus or middle ground. The group you might term a ‘Republican caucus of normalcy’ regularly stomped all over some of the most egregious legislation coming through the House in year 1. And by year 2, their alliances were even stronger. Leadership didn’t lead. They were just an obstacle that serious legislators went around.
But for Phil Jensen, the remaining member of the Freedom caucus to try to cast blame that his group lost epically because everyone else is a bunch of RINO’s and liberals who ganged up on his group is more than laughable. For more than a decade, Phil has been a national embarrassment to the Republican Party. They haven’t been the “pure Republicans.” Just puerile ones.
God forbid we have an election cycle where the voters finally catch on.