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.
The party of personal responsibility is at it again.
I’m surprised that the Huron School district came away blameless in that article.
Any fair-minded member of our House GOP caucus would take issue with your false and frankly ludicrous statement that “leadership under Odenbach and Jon Hansen did literally nothing to seek consensus or middle ground.” You have no idea what you’re talking about. From being extremely fair when appointing committee chairs, polling our members repeatedly in caucus on budget and policy priorities, passing the largest (top priority item) property tax relief in state history, to finally getting some great coffee for everyone, we worked every single day, all day, to find consensus, be professional, and keep the trains running on time. We were done early on crossover day, and managed to get our work done on time and on budget in the middle of a contentious Governor primary where multiple factions were working to see that we got nothing done in order to use it as a campaign talking point. Whether from the single-member Freedom “caucus,” flying-monkey right, to these kinds of lies from this blog on the left, I must be doing something right to take fire from all sides.
Scott, did you miss all those meetings where half the Republican caucus met separately to determine where they were on issues?
Wasn’t Scott’s big issue coming in as leader saying we need to reform education?
“The fight’s not over,” said House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish.
https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2025/01/30/south-dakota-school-choice-fight-is-not-over-republican-leader-says/
I went to private school K-12. It was private for a reason: we didn’t want the government involved. This isn’t what the people of South Dakota want in school reform. Our public schools are sick of unfunded mandates, tired of ignorant legislators who don’t listen or even try to understand how each school district operates, and tired of ignoring families with special needs kids.
Being prolife doesn’t stop at birth.
This is laughable. You took very few meetings, wielded your “power” like sledgehammer and belittled caucus members that didn’t agree with you in public circles.
But the important thing that has come out of this is you won’t ever be elected to leadership again. How do we all know this. None of the people that will be returning to Pierre will vote for you because of the damage you have done to them personally and in public.
🚨 Crayon Eater Alert 🚨
Really? You have to bring your drama here and make snide comments? Are you even capable of having a civilized conversation?
Awwww. The truth does hurt sometimes. Bless your heart.
Go ahead Katie, eat your crayons, thanks for the notification.
I’m pretty fair minded and you were terrible at leadership. The blog is correct in stating leadership was just something that serious legislators had to work around. You had no confidence from among your peers. The moment that Ismay, who is arguably illiterate, was sat in Education, it was over. Referring to him as a good legislator was more than most could bear. The hope is he will continue to be as rude, belligerent and ineffective as he was the previous two years and become an anchor around your neck, helping to bring you down in the next election. Oh, and I wouldn’t be touting the “largest property tax relief in state history”. It does nothing to address the real underlying issues. But congratulations on the coffee. Big win. Huge.
Scott you as leader with the other nutjobs you placed in power have further driven job recruits away from South Dakota. They are having a very difficult job filling positions in the private sector, non profit entities and our universities. If they do they are substandard applicants. Brain drain has accelerated even more! Will the goal be making South Dakota 1st in the nation for Brain Drain? That is the problem with political extremists whether left or right. They are completely oblivious and doubt they care as to the direct and indirect damage their rhetoric and actions inflict on the state.
Anti-business and anti-opportunity extremists strike again!
I would agree with the comment about Scott putting the nutjobs in power. Scott had the caucus he raised money for and campaigned for, spending money against good incumbents in the process. He doesn’t get to complain about being considered a not-so-great majority leader when he handpicked the army that put him in charge.
It was Scott and Hansen who made Phil Jensen the Vice Chair of Education. I don’t think they gets to grumble in hindsight about the army turning against them. Whether they liked the coffee or not.
Don’t forget it was Hansen who misused the RTL/ Life Defense Funds to defeat 100% pro-life incumbents who would not support him for leadership
glad he’s gone!!
Glad he’s gone is an understatement. Good riddance to Jon and Karla Lems, chairman of the Commerce and Energy Committee.
Odenbach certainly was a big reason 1052 passed and the prison will be built. I wouldn’t put him in the same camp as Hansen. Hansen was much closer to Doeden. Odenbach was more focused on working with Rhoden.
This was term with lots of angst but in the end much was accomplished. Big things.
Mr. Odenbach, most of the Conservatives with Common Sense breakfasting group feels only slightly sorry for you, because you encouraged those insaner than most, and may even be one, but generally chortle politely behind clean napkins.
You got elected on one singular issue—beating back carbon pipelines. The first thing you did as majority leader was instead run a bill for Kristi Noem on school choice, an issue that is a total poison pill in many rural districts across South Dakota where your allies were elected. Imagine being elected student body president to get hot dogs served at lunch everyday, and immediately turning around and getting salads served at lunch instead. That’s effectively what you did, it’s why your caucus was fractured from day one, what led to the rise of Toby Doeden, and ultimately you being replaced.
The whole way you’ve been bitter, weak, and impotent, and the people who are backing you shows you everything you need to know and how far you’ve fallen. You whine about wanting to retire so often—the most helpful thing you could do at this point is follow through on that so far empty idea.
Love watching MAGA tear itself apart.
The Freedumn incompetents at each other’s throat makes me laugh. That’s all you can do, otherwise a person would be very sad about the state of the state.
Oh well, time to put on some fake boobs and go online…
Ok. Don’t put me on Team Odenbach, but I get his point. He was elected by a coalition. He tried to govern. Half his coalition wanted to burn the house down. The other half were eating their crayons. He wasn’t left with much to work with. To the extent some of his group was actually conservative (most were just crazy), they didn’t understand that the perfect is the enemy of the possible – so the did the Ceaser number on him
Proving there’s always something we can find common ground on, I agree with this comment from Mr Schoenbeck!
Is magenta more tasty than aquamarine?
a coalition made of a bunch of idiots he directly helped get elected so he could get into leadership. There is no reason to feel sorry for Scott. Ever. And until ms. Hoffman stops drinking his bathwater, her “transformation” can’t be taken seriously.
No need to take me seriously. I’m just a housewife looking for legislators who put South Dakotans first without the grandstanding and lying. They instead focus on being genuine and honest in their approach to the job, and Odenbach does that.
So I’ll keep drinking his bath water! It’s good stuff!
again, your “transformation” is incomplete until you actually see Scott for who and what he is. The fact that this post was really about the Freedom Caucus idiots, but has turned into slamming Scott, should tell you a few things about the man. People around him know what he is. He was a horrible House leader and he’s been an ineffective legislator in general.
A Jewish friend of mine told me once a long time ago that the Jewish race was and is unhappy with Jesus Christ. He did not expound on that statement but one can foresee the hope that the Jewish race had in Jesus promoting them to super power status instead of blanketing everyone with forgiveness. One can easily assume the vote in the SD House for ML had very similar intentions of outcomes but reality got in the way; as it always does. Odie is a true red blooded conservative who thinks better than most and in a normal Republican society would always be elevated to leadership except when the angry republicans don’t all get their super power status gifted to them. Frank Kloucek said one of the dumbest and goofiest things I’ve ever heard from a PUC candidate last week in his diatribe against data centers disqualifying him from ever voting on one should he win a seat on the PUC. The anti everything angry republican crowd is flailing and the Leola data center is cheek in tongue coming to a county known well for killing everything with anger.
Free kuchen and jerkey for all!
I think that leader Odenbach tried to bring people together. As far as people getting together behind his back to tell how issues should be voted on, it is not his fault. It has always been that way. One group will pledge their loyalty to their friends who brought the legislation,, no matter how far off base the issue is. The other group will get together and discuss the bills for the day and see if anyone has questions about them. I bet a poll could be done, and just a few would fabricate that he called names and never called meetings. Now people who need someone to blame for their own problems have singled out one man. Move along.
Sorry, but he didn’t try to bring people together. Clearly you weren’t around the Pierre scene much the last two years. He helped fracture the party. He is as divisive as they get. But frankly, his biggest problem is he’s not likable. NO one likes him, except for Katie Hoffman. I should clarify, no one that works with him, or around him, likes him. Arrogant and condescending. When he’s gone, he won’t be missed.
Always ate all the donuts too. SOB