Author: @SoDakCampaigns

On January 5^th, I joined several state and local officials for a deployment ceremony honoring the 235^th Military Policy Company. The unit from the South Dakota National Guard is heading to Guantanamo Bay for a challenging operational mission. 

The war in Afghanistan may be over, but the War on Terror still carries on. Our state’s brave soldiers are stepping up to continue keeping our streets safe from international terrorism. During my speech, I highlighted half a dozen soldiers who were going on their fourth deployment since joining the National Guard. 

These amazing troops have answered the call to serve and have been sent into action again and again. Still, they continue coming back and proudly serve with the best National Guard in the nation. 

During his speech on Wednesday, Captain Patrick Moran, Commander of the 235^th, highlighted some of the recent missions his troops have prepared for in recent years. He also spoke about his soldiers understanding their core mission, regardless of the venue. 

“When I first took command of the 235th, I knew this, and I told the Soldiers that the professional that we want is the one that is willing to do the job – the job that others are not willing to do. I asked the unit for a motto, they came up with ‘Guardians over Glory,’” Captain Moran recalled in his speech.  

“In a way that represents the 235^th and what the history of the 235^th Soldiers have done. They are the ones that don’t need the eye candy. They have always been the ones to step up and do whatever job asked of them.” 

And they have been asked to do a lot in recent years. In June of 2020, the 235^th was put on standby with less than 24 hours to prepare to be deployed to the riots in Minneapolis. That deployment was stayed, and instead the 235^th successfully kept the streets peaceful in Pierre, Sioux Falls, and Rapid City.  

They worked with local law enforcement and the Air National Guard Security Forces during President Donald Trump’s Fourth of July visit to Mount Rushmore. For most of 2020, members of the 235^th were serving on Medical Transport Teams. In November 2020, they transitioned to vaccine mission teams. Throughout 2020 and 2021, their soldiers also served in Call Centers. 

And then, in January 2021, they were deployed to Washington, D.C. Two weeks later, they were back in South Dakota training 800 National Guard soldiers on minimizing civil disturbances. 

Over the last 16 months, while most of these other calls to action were happening, 113 members of the 235^th Military Police Company have been training for this mission to Guantanamo Bay. Captain Moran was very clear about how unique this mission is to his Company. 

“We won’t be dodging bullets across a battlefield,” Cpt. Moran explained, adding “we will have to battle complacency, mental health challenges, and strive for keen attention to detail and awareness on a daily basis.” 

“GTMO has some of the world’s most dangerous and uniquely challenging prisoners and the 235^th will be the Soldiers that will be hands on — in close contact with them on a day-to-day basis. If anyone knows about corrections or detainee operations, they know that this usually is not the most desired job that Soldiers want. This is the difficult task. No battle glory, no combat badges, this is the job that normally doesn’t come with a plethora of awards or recognition.” 

I know our soldiers are ready for this mission because they have a clear vision for why they are serving in the first place: Guardians over Glory. 

Thank you to Commander Moran for your inspiring words and strong leadership. I speak for all of South Dakota when I say we are praying for your safe return from this important mission. Godspeed.  

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Governor Noem Announces First Round of South Dakota Legislators Endorsing Her Re-Election

Pierre, SD – Today, Governor Noem’s campaign released the first round of legislators to endorse her re-election for Governor. The list includes 58 members of the South Dakota House and Senate.Governor Noem stated the following in making this announcement:

“ Lieutenant Governor Rhoden and I are incredibly honored to have the support of these legislators in our campaign for re-election. These people have all endorsed our shared vision for South Dakota that includes promoting strong families, protecting freedom and individual liberty, fighting back against federal government overreach, and a robust economic plan that has made our economy the best in the nation. I’m grateful for their endorsement and I look forward to continuing to work with each of them this year, and if re-elected, the next four years.”

Legislators listed by chamber, then alphabetically:

Senator Al Novstrup
Senator Arthur Rusch
Senator Brock Greenfield
Senator Bryan Breitling
Senator Casey Crabtree
Senator David Johnson
Senator David Wheeler
Senator Erin Tobin
Senator Gary Cammack
Senator Helene Duhamel
Senator Herman Otten
Senator Jean Hunhoff
Senator Jessica Castleberry
Senator Jim Bolin
Senator Jim Stalzer
Senator John Wiik
Senator Kyle Schoenfish
Senator Lee Schoenbeck
Senator Marsha Symens
Senator Mary Duvall
Senator Michael Diedrich
Senator Ryan Maher
Senator Wayne Steinhauer

Representative Arch Beal
Representative Becky Drury
Representative Caleb Finck
Representative Carl Perry
Representative Charlie Hoffman
Representative Chris Johnson
Representative David Anderson
Representative Dean Wink
Representative Doug Barthel
Representative Ernie Otten
Representative Fred Deutsch
Representative Greg Jamison
Representative Hugh Bartels
Representative Kent Peterson
Representative Kirk Chaffee
Representative Lana Greenfield
Representative Lance Koth
Representative Larry Tidemann
Representative Lynn Schneider
Representative Mark Willadsen
Representative Mary Fitzgerald
Representative Mike Derby
Representative Mike Stevens
Representative Mike Weisgram
Representative Nancy York
Representative Paul Miskimins
Representative Rebecca Reimer
Representative Richard Thomason
Representative Rocky Blare
Representative Sydney Davis
Representative Taylor Rehfeldt
Representative Tim Goodwin
Representative Tim Reed
Representative Trish Ladner
Representative Will Mortenson

After a number of weeks have gone by where Democrats haven’t said much if anything about the candidate they have running for U.S. Senate, on the occasion of Sen. Thune announcing his reelection campaign South Dakota Democrat party Chairman Randy Seiler puffs himself up for some smack talk in a press release today:

“After weeks of saying he’s not sure he wants to represent South Dakota for another term in the Senate, John Thune announced his intent to run for reelection today. South Dakotans deserve a U.S. Senator who actually wants the job and will deliver on important issues like healthcare, education, and good-paying jobs, and that’s why it is so important to elect a Democrat.”

Democrat Brian Bengs, a military veteran and lawyer from Aberdeen, is running against Thune for South Dakota’s U.S. Senate seat. Bengs announced his candidacy late last year.

Read that here.

In response, just about everybody in South Dakota said “who?”

pic.twitter.com/riLV3RU1v0

— John Thune (@johnthune) January 8, 2022

Earlier this week, the White House held a roundtable to discuss the meat and poultry supply chain. Farmers, ranchers, and independent processors from across the country shared their experience and expertise with this Administration. I hope their firsthand account isn’t used to score political points – the White House has the opportunity to take what they heard and implement a real fix.

Unfortunately, the White House is attempting to put lipstick on a pig. South Dakotans already know that over the last few decades, a handful of packers have controlled the market for beef, poultry, and pork, which has left us with a system with less competition for producers and increased vulnerabilities for consumer disruption.

Despite this well-known fact, the Administration is using political spin to say this packer concentration is the reason for inflation. They are totally ignoring the trillions of dollars they spent that’s wreaking havoc on our economy and instead, blaming private businesses. While we can acknowledge the structural challenges to the meat industry, placing complete blame on the industry for higher prices is an oversimplification.

I want to give credit where credit is due – I do agree with the White House that the meat and poultry industry is far too concentrated, and it’s a good first step to bring attention to the industries concentration. That’s the reason I have been focused on legislation to achieve those goals like the Cattle Contract Library Act that passed the House in December, the PRICE Act, Butcher Block Act, and Small Processor Overtime Fee Relief Act. In fact, the implementation of the Small Processor Overtime Fee Relief Act was highlighted as part of the White House announcement this week.

Some shared goals and concepts in the plan that I have previous included in my legislation include:

• Increasing competition and creating more options for producers and consumers by starting small independent processing projects through grants.
• Strengthening the financing systems for independent processors by increasing the amount of capital available to them for credit.
• Supporting workers by building a pipeline of well-trained workers and supporting fair wages.
• Promoting innovation and lowering barriers to entry through publicly accessible expert contract knowledge.
• Increasing price transparency.

While all of this sounds good, the devil will be in the details and this White House announcement lacked enough details to set me at ease. I’m cautiously optimistic but with these market investments there will be a huge need for congressional oversight. In my role as Republican Leader on the Livestock Subcommittee, I remain committed to leading and supporting legislation that will benefit producers, consumers, independent packers, and processors. Press releases and attention to the issue is fine if there is follow-though – we must remain committed to pragmatic, long-term solutions that foster competition, transparency, and fairness throughout the industry to improve the market for Americans.

Gov. Noem to Deliver 2022 State of the State on Tuesday

PIERRE, S.D. – On Tuesday, January 11, Governor Kristi Noem will deliver the 2022 State of the State Address. The address will take place at 1:00 pm CT/12:00 pm MT in the South Dakota House of Representatives. The address will be livestreamed on South Dakota Public Broadcasting, SD.net, and Facebook.com/GovNoem

WHAT: Governor Noem to deliver 2022 State of the State

WHEN: Tuesday, January 11, 2022, 1:00 pm CT/12:00 pm MT

WHERE: South Dakota House of Representatives

WATCH: SDPB, SD.net, and Facebook.com/GovNoem

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Our Founders recognized that it wasn’t just kings who could be tyrants. They knew majorities could be tyrants too, and that the majority party – if unchecked – could trample the rights of the minority party. And so the Founders combined majority rule with both representation and constitutional protections for the minority. They established safeguards – checks and balances – throughout our government to keep the government in check and ensure that the rights of the minority party were protected. One of those safeguards was the Senate.

The Founders made the Senate smaller than the House of Representatives and senators’ terms of office longer, with the intention of creating a more stable, more thoughtful, and more deliberative legislative body to check ill-considered or intemperate legislation and attempts to curtail minority party rights. And as time has gone on, the Senate’s legislative filibuster has become perhaps the key way the Senate protects those rights.

The filibuster ensures that the minority party – and the Americans it represents – has a voice in the Senate. It forces compromise. It forces bipartisanship. It encourages a greater level of stability and predictability. Even in the rare case when a majority party has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the filibuster still forces the majority party to take into account the views of its more moderate or middle-of-the-road members, thus ensuring that more Americans are represented in legislation. Removing the filibuster would erase this protection and allow the majority – including an incredibly narrow or merely technical majority, as Democrats have now – to trample minority party rights.

In the words of one former senator, “We should make no mistake. … It is a fundamental power grab by the majority party … Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of guaranteeing individual rights, and they also have a consequence, and would undermine the protections of a minority point of view in the heat of majority excess.” That former senator of course was Joe Biden – one of the many Democrats who has opposed abolishing the filibuster.

Because, of course, Democrats were singing a different tune on the filibuster just a couple of years ago. When President Trump urged Republican senators to abolish the legislative filibuster – dozens of times – Democrats were strongly opposed. In 2017, 32 Democrat senators – including now-Vice President Harris and a majority of the current Democrat caucus – signed a letter urging that the legislative filibuster be preserved. Republicans agreed and refused to abolish the legislative filibuster despite the former president’s repeated urging.

Now, however, many Democrats who not only supported but actively and repeatedly used the filibuster during the previous administration to block major coronavirus relief legislation and police reform legislation have apparently decided that rules protecting the minority should only apply when Democrats are in the minority. Apparently Democrat minorities deserve representation, but Republican minorities do not.

I urge my Democrat colleagues to think about what abolishing the filibuster would mean for ordinary Americans. Of course it would mean decreased representation for any American whose party was in the minority. But it would also mean highly unstable government policy (and a resulting lack of confidence in government) as well as a sharp increase in partisanship – which I venture to say is not what we need right now.

Abolish the filibuster, and policy will shift sharply with it. Social policy – on abortion, religious freedom, and other issues. Regulatory policy. Tax policy. Foreign policy. The list goes on. And such incessant changes of national policy would unquestionably heighten partisanship in this country. As the laws became more extreme, the tension between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, would only heighten. Here in Congress, yes, but most importantly throughout the country.

When Republicans were repeatedly faced with the prospect of abolishing the legislative filibuster during the previous administration, we said “no.” Not because there wasn’t important legislation we wanted to pass, but because we knew that the best thing for our country – and for our future representation in the Senate – was to preserve this essential protection for the minority party. I urge my Democrat colleagues to think of their future and our country and make the same decision.

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Happy Birthday to Senator John Thune from everyone at the South Dakota Republican Party! @SenJohnThune pic.twitter.com/QWBzGt2v63

— South Dakota GOP (@sdgop) January 7, 2022

A third candidate has emerged in the House District 33 race, adding another likely primary election to the tally.

The district includes mostly rural portions of Pennington County surrounding west, north and south Rapid City. It also includes and a portion of Meade County from Summerset to just west of Black Hawk.

Pro-Life Rule Blocking Telemedicine Abortions Approved

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Kristi Noem and the Department of Health’s rule blocking telemedicine abortions was approved by the South Dakota Legislature’s Interim Rules Review Committee.

“Chemical abortions are four times as likely to cause a woman getting an abortion to end up in an emergency room – and we have a duty to protect the lives of those women,” said Governor Noem. “I look forward to the day when the life of every unborn child is protected in South Dakota. Until then, South Dakotans will know that if a mother uses abortion pills to end her unborn child’s life, she will not get those pills from a stranger over the internet.”

In September, Governor Noem signed Executive Order 2021-12, directing the South Dakota Department of Health to establish rules preventing telemedicine abortions in South Dakota. The rule does the following:

• Requires that no medical abortion by use of mifepristone and misopristol take place except in a licensed abortion facility, with an observation period;
• Requires in-office visits for the taking of the mifepristone and separately for the misopristol. This provision makes South Dakota the only state in the nation to protect the life of the mother to this extent;
• Ensures that South Dakota law is properly followed by requiring that the mother be informed that, after administration of the mifepristone, it is possible to rescue the unborn child and stop the abortion from occurring; and
• Requires abortion facilities collect and maintain certain information.

Governor Noem plans to work with the South Dakota legislature to pass legislation that makes these and other protocols permanent in the 2022 legislative session.

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