Category: Uncategorized

 Gov. Noem Signs Foreign-Owned Ag Land Bill into Law

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Kristi Noem signed HB 1231, which places restrictions on the ownership of agricultural land, stopping six evil foreign governments and foreign entities from those governments from buying up South Dakota’s precious ag land, into law.

“South Dakota respects the Freedom to farm and ranch. That Freedom should not extend to our enemies,” said Governor Noem. “Over the past year, we have had continuous discussions to create this legislation to protect South Dakota from foreign adversaries buying up our ag land. In my State of the State Address, I said that we could not afford to wait another year to get this done. I am very proud of this bill that will keep South Dakotans secure for generations.”

The bill strengthens South Dakota’s protections against foreign ownership of ag land in the following ways:

• Blocks six evil foreign governments (China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela) and foreign entities from those governments, from owning South Dakota ag land;
• Strengthens enforcement by putting teeth into the law and requiring more reporting; and
• Closes loopholes in the current foreign ownership of ag land statutes, including the previous lack of limitations for domestic companies, corporations, LLC’s, trusts, and other similar entities that are owned by foreign entities or persons.

This bill will stop nations that hate America from buying up U.S. agricultural land. Foreign adversaries will do all they can to control America – and once they control the food supply, they will control the country. China’s ownership of American ag land has increased by 5,300% in just the past decade.

Footage of Governor Noem signing this bill can be found here, and a photo can be found here.

Governor Noem has signed 110 bills into law this legislative session.

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Johnson Announces Butte County Sheriff as State of the Union Guest

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) announced Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere will be his guest at the State of the Union on March 7, 2024.

“President Biden’s open border policies have significantly impacted communities across America, and South Dakota is no exception,” said Johnson. “Sheriff Lamphere has made it clear that crime he sees in Butte County is a side effect of a broken border. I hope the President will address the drug and crime crises from illegal immigration that are plaguing our communities.”

“Our current unsecured border is a modern-day Trojan Horse,” said Sheriff Lamphere. “It has led to unprecedented fentanyl deaths in South Dakota and nationwide, it has increased the abuse of our medical services and social programs, and it has allowed thousands of undocumented military-aged people into our country. Although Butte County, South Dakota, is a long way from the border, the anxiety is felt here as it is in many places across America. I hope that President Biden and his Administration will listen to the American Sheriffs and the American people and let our Border Patrol do their job to keep America safe.”

Johnson met with Sheriff Lamphere in November 2023, where Lamphere shared that illegal immigration was costing South Dakota taxpayers $56.9 million. Sheriff Lamphere and Johnson agreed stricter border policies are necessary to address this problem. In May 2023, Johnson voted for passage of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which includes the strongest border policies ever voted on in the House. The bill awaits action in the Senate.

Over the last few years, Sheriff Lamphere has made several trips to the southern border and has expressed concerns for how the crisis at our border impacts South Dakota’s communities, primarily through drug use and trafficking.

Attorney General Jackley Praises SCOTUS Decision to Keep Trump on Colorado Ballot

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley is praising Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows former President Donald Trump to appear on the ballot for the Colorado state Presidential Primary election.

The high court unanimously reversed the Colorado State Supreme Court decision that ruled Trump should not be allowed on the ballot because he violated the insurrection clause in the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution due to his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that no state could remove a federal office candidate from any ballot.

Attorney General Jackley was one of 25 Attorneys General who filed an amicus brief in January requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court reverse the lower court’s decision.

“The U.S. Supreme Court made the right decision in this case because only Congress has the authority to decide whether to disqualify a person from running for office,” said Attorney General Jackley. “This decision allows voters to exercise their fundamental right to decide elections.”

Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision can be found here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

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Attorney General Jackley Urges Consumers To Participate in National Consumer Protection Week

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley is urging South Dakota consumers to take time, especially during this week’s National Consumer Protection Week observance, to safeguard their personal and financial information.

National Consumer Protection is today (Monday) through Saturday. Government agencies, businesses, and organizations will encourage the public to protect themselves from potential scams.

“The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division received more than 64,000 calls, inquiries, and complaints in 2023 from consumers who reported they had been a victim of a scam,” said Attorney General Jackley. “While many of the scams are ones that have been used for years, scammers are becoming more adept at using social media to intimidate consumers, regardless of their age, in providing personal information.”

Other consumer protection tips are:

• Do not give into high pressured sales tactics.
• Never accept items that have been mailed to you that you did not order.
• Always get any repair work, construction orders and other types of contracts in writing with expected cost estimates and deadlines.
• Hang up on robocalls.
• Be cautious about free trial offers.
• Do not deposit a check and then wire money.
• Talk to someone you can trust before you provide money or personal information to someone who contacts you.

Consumers who believe they may have been a victim of any type of scam should contact the Attorney General’s Office’s Consumer Protection Division at 1-800-300-1986 or at https://consumer.sd.gov/.

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I feel a little dirty sharing this because of the source, but the off-the-wall SD Canvassing group took to equally off-the-wall Frank TV of all places this last weekend to complain that Senate President Pro Tempore Lee Schoenbeck is picking on them.

And, try not to fall out of your seats, nobody is taking their complaints seriously.

They remind me of the never ending hanging-chad issue from the 2000 Bush-Gore election that seemingly took years to go away.

They swear to god that the machines are flawed and results are being manipulated, and then play the victim when people point out their silliness.

In the off-chance you aren’t a listener of Dakota Town Hall, you should be. And they had my favorite quote from last week.

“The ungovernable Pat Powers is my favorite Pat Powers.”

– Mudoc Jurgenson, Dakota Town Hall, 3/1/24

That gave me a good laugh. (As if I was governable before.)

Check it out here, and become a regular listener with new episodes every Friday with Murdoc & Jake Schoenbeck on the most entertaining political podcast in South Dakota!

From The Hill, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds is behind John Thune to succeed outgoing Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, as a fresh breath, and willing to stand his ground when it comes to Donald Trump:

Asked by ABC’s “This Week,” co-anchor Jonathan Karl how important it is for McConnell’s successor to be “willing to stand up to Trump,” Rounds said, ” Well, that’s what I’m looking for in a leader. I want someone who will work with a president, but who also will stand his own ground.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I very publicly and openly supported John Thune, and I supported Mitch McConnell. I think John Thune will bring some – you know, a fresh breath. That always happens when you have a change in leadership,” Rounds continued.

Read the entire story here.

As I’ve had inquiries about what happened at the Butte County Lincoln Day Dinner after they felt the need to feature unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Steve Haugaard, here’s the report I was given by a couple of attendees.

Long and boring speech about the Republican Party platform, and how legislators are not following it. 

That was pretty much the long and short of it. Although, don’t think anything remotely short occurred. Long and boring.

One person thinks that Haugaard might be gearing up to run for Governor again, but considering how badly he was beaten  – 76% to 24% –  more than 3 to 1 – it’s hard to conceive that Haugaard would try to jump on that horse again, since it fell asleep the first time he tried to ride it.

Biden’s Actions Jeopardize U.S. Energy Security
By Sen. John Thune

Since his very first day in office, President Biden has pursued an agenda that has put American energy security in jeopardy. His actions have discouraged conventional domestic energy production, threatened the stability of our energy supply, and led to higher prices for consumers.

Rather than pursue policies that ensure a reliable and affordable supply of energy, the Biden administration’s energy actions seem to be driven by a misguided Green New Deal vision. The latest example of this is President Biden’s decision to pause approvals of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permits. The move, which apparently was made in part to assuage climate activists on TikTok, is a terrible decision with serious implications for American energy.

The export pause is ostensibly for climate-related reasons, but it will do nothing to reduce global emissions. In fact, it runs the risk of increasing emissions by pushing other countries to import natural gas from less environmentally friendly nations or to rely on other forms of energy, like coal. On balance, the move will not benefit the climate or reduce emissions, but it will negatively impact the United States’ energy industry and our export partners.

Russia and Iran are all too ready to replace American LNG with their own. Europe struggled to wean itself off Russian energy, and American exports ultimately played a significant role in helping them replace Russian gas after the war in Ukraine began. President Biden’s LNG pause is making Europe’s energy industry understandably nervous about its implications. While Russia and Iran are working on new export facilities for LNG, the president’s action is putting construction of these facilities in the United States in jeopardy.

At a time when we need to be building up the American energy sector, this action risks undermining its strength. Of course, this is just the latest move in President’s Biden’s long history of hostility toward conventional energy sources like oil and natural gas.

Another example of this Green New Deal agenda is the president’s goal of transitioning to electric vehicles on a broad scale in the next decade. The reality is, our supply chains and electric grid are nowhere near where they need to be in order to support such a widespread transition and the resulting surge in electricity demand. In fact, we are already rapidly approaching a situation in which we won’t be able to keep up with current electricity demand.

We don’t need to look far for examples of the consequences that these policies will bring. I’ve already mentioned the energy situation in Europe. Closer to home, California has implemented the types of policies that the president envisions for the whole country, and, in the last decade, Californians’ utility bills have gone up as much as 127 percent as a result of inadequate energy resources. This is not the energy future we should be striving for.

President Biden’s energy policies may please climate activists, but I’m concerned they will leave many more Americans suffering from more expensive and less reliable energy.

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Preserving Our Outdoor Heritage
By: Governor Kristi Noem
March 1, 2024

Almost every memory I have from my childhood is outdoors. I think my parents used to send us kids outside as an attempt to keep us out of trouble. And to this day I am still more comfortable in my jeans and ball cap. As Governor, though, my hours are often filled with other things. But even with all those other things that have to fill up my time, one thing I have always prioritized is hunting.

I come from a family of hunters. Our hunting trips and the lessons that my dad taught me turned me into the woman that I am today. When I had kids of my own, I knew that I was going to raise a family of strong-willed, independent, stubborn hunters, too. When I think about future generations, about my two grandkids (and the third on the way), I don’t want anything more than for them to be able to grow up experiencing the outdoors and seeing the world the way I did.

If we want our grandkids to experience the joy of hunting and the outdoors, we need to proactively protect habitat.

In 2019, I started the Second Century Initiative to increase resources to grow our habitat here in South Dakota. This Initiative included the Working Lands Program to provide an alternative to cash flow marginal acres and make ends meet by converting those acres into habitat. And I am very proud that we have enrolled about 10,000 marginal acres in our Working Lands Habitat Program!

With the Second Century Initiative, I also launched my Nest Predator Bounty Program to increase the trapping of predators that kill our precious pheasants. Every year, participants turn in 50,000 tails of predators that would otherwise devastate our pheasant and wildlife population. But what I think it really awesome is that last year 46% of our participants were under the age of 18. I love that more kids are getting involved in trapping, hunting, and fishing!

I was honored to kick off Pheasant Fest this year. I am so proud that we are hosting this great event in Sioux Falls. They used to only go to Minneapolis, but because of our passion for pheasant hunting and habitat conservation, as well as our economic development efforts, we now get to host Pheasant Fest right here in South Dakota!

I signed a bill that my Department of Game, Fish and Parks has been working very hard on. This legislation creates a habitat conservation specialty license plate and emblem.  We will be unveiling the design later this year – but I can tell you that it will have some beautiful scenery featuring our grasslands and the habitats that are so critical to our wildlife. We will also have several emblems to choose from – a buck, a rooster pheasant, a meadow lark, and a pasque flower. There will be something for everyone! The dollars to purchase these special plates and emblems will then go to benefit habitat.

I grew up as a farmer and a rancher. My family put food on our own table by putting food on tables around the world. And my dad used to always tell me, “Kristi, you have to take care of the land, God isn’t making any more of it.” That has always motivated me to start these initiatives and prioritize conservation and habitat preservation.

I am very proud that we are ensuring that future generations will get to grow up and experience the outdoor heritage that is so central to our way of life here in South Dakota.

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