Last fall, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken had expressed that he wished that the South Dakota Legislature would focus on real issues, and not the culture war nonsense that was tending to be brought up by legislators.
“We’re in a divisive time right now. Politics is gross and people are mad,” TenHaken said. “How do we put just put some of that anger aside, culture issues aside, what’s the basic tackling and blocking we have to do to keep up with a city growing 5-6,000 people year. Keeping a couple books out of our library is not high on our priority list.”
and..
TenHaken said “culture war issues” take a lot of time and the return on investment isn’t there to benefit the community.
Read that all here at KELOland.
Of course, the legislature did the opposite, and people like Rep. Bethany Soye pushed forth efforts to lock up librarians, etc.
Today in the Argus Leader, Mayor TenHaken reflected back on the failure of a legislative session we just had:
“I don’t think bills that force the hanging of Ten Commandments in school classrooms is a priority in our state right now,” TenHaken said. “As a guy who tries to live his life by the Ten Commandments and thinks it’s a fantastic, fantastic set of words to live by, I think it’s a dangerous precedent when you start saying, ‘I’m going to impose my religious values at a legislative level into my public school base.’ I think we’re kind of messing with fire a little bit there.”
TenHaken bemoaned that bills regarding school lunches and public school initiatives were “quickly discounted” while legislators spent “a lot of time dealing with library issues” and not with housing, public safety and other things that the mayor said “I hear about in my office way more than some of the stuff that ate up a lot of the time in the session.”
and..
“They love local control until we don’t take cash and then they want to step on local control,” TenHaken said. “And they love local control until they want to tell you when to have your elections. And they love local control until they want to tell you you can’t be a sanctuary city or whatever the topic might be.”
He also said he felt there had been a lack of communication between the city and legislators, saying that he had struggled to get responses from legislators when he reached out about questions or concerns on bills.
And that was the 2025 South Dakota State Legislative session.
Please run for Governor so we don’t end up with some whackadoodle
He would be my dark horse pick to win.
I think the race for governor will come down to Doeden and Tenhaken.
Not in a million years does Doeden make it as a serious contender to the end.
He fails the “know-like-trust” test. Nobody knows him. And even the few who do, they certainly don’t “like” him. If you can’t get past the first tier of the test, you’re in trouble. Especially when you’re an unlikeable @$$hole.
Toby Doeden despite the efforts of his family and the few employees that would participate is still sitting at 70% as the most Unlikeable man in Aberdeen.
No amount of staged and self promoting acts of charity by Toby will help him.
He will be a wrecking ball.
I agree. Toby Doeden a neo nazi fascist himself will obliterate what is left of the Grand Old Party brand setting the stage for Governor Billie Sutton.
I don’t know that I see Billie as “the guy” for Gov for Democrats in 2026. Be more nervous if Herseth Sandlin jumped in. That would be a problem for the SDGOP.
Dem’s problem is that their bench is ridiculously depleted. For every race people are throwing around Jamie Smith or Billie Sutton to the point where they get stale. Been there, done that.
Although, in 2026, there will be so many seats open, they all could get a shot at a title.
Aren’t Jon Hansen, Tom Picshke, and Bethany Soye from the SF area? Mr Mayor, have you been taking the chemtrail residue and putting it in your water?
Tenhaken through shade on 4 people in his rant. Mortenson over elections, Crabtree over sanctuary cities, Soye for librarians and Carley for the ten commandments.
“I don’t think bills that force the hanging of Ten Commandments (John Carley) in school classrooms is a priority in our state right now,” TenHaken said.
TenHaken bemoaned that bills regarding school lunches and public school initiatives were “quickly discounted” while legislators spent “a lot of time dealing with library issues” (Bethany Soye) and not with housing, public safety and other things that the mayor said “I hear about in my office way more than some of the stuff that ate up a lot of the time in the session.”
“They love local control until we don’t take cash and then they want to step on local control,” TenHaken said. “And they love local control until they want to tell you when to have your elections (Mortenson). And they love local control until they want to tell you you can’t be a sanctuary city (Casey Crabtree) or whatever the topic might be.”
Tenhaken should run for governor and see how big his following is. I bet it’s sizable.
He’s not wrong. But he left out a half dozen or more SF lawmakers who voted against critical airport funding, too. Disgraceful lot.
I agree with local control until it conflicts with federal law. Complaints about not being allowed to be a sanctuary city are nuts. Just nuts. Why did he say that??
The mix of the Legislature shows that the GOP is a big tent with loads of differing political priorities. I see this as a positive, but yes, it’s makes governing a chore at times. This is especially so when we’ve had a governor unwilling to unite the party as she pursued her national aspirations. We’ve got to drop the narrative that we’ve had such wonderful governance in the past, and now it’s horrible in every way. Nonsense.
Our GOP is less a big tent, and more like a big sewage plant. Republicans of all stripes are letting Trump pretend Jan 6 2021 wasn’t a crime, and all except four are smiling and white-knuckling their way through these stupid tariffs. A political price will be paid, my pretties.
Predictions and politics rarely mix.
You didn’t say “never” good sir. Cauldron bubble, toil and trouble, and so on – you don’t need to get an opinion that it’s raining, and another opinion that it’s not – open a window.
The markets are in turmoil due to the whiplash created by threatened, then retracted, then threatened, then retracted, then implemented tariffs, bud. That’s already happening. No prediction needed.
They worry about culture wars while they destroy Ag and watch our markets crumble. Everything is tanking. Are we great yet?
Don’t forget giving Putin and Xi more than what they ever dreamed of. The Trump administration destroying our economic and strategic alliances while placing all of us at greater risk of a major power war.
Maybe Tenhaken is taking the sane lane while Dusty, Jackley, Rhoden, and Doeden fight over the rest.
It could be like the race where Kirby and Barnett were throwing expensive mud at each other, trying to prove who was holiest. And Rounds walked right over their carcasses to win. 2002.
Yes.
At this rate it will be dusty and tenhaken taking the sane train. The other three are aggressively pursuing the extremists. I watched it all session. Dusty is not courting that particular crowd. Rhoden could have had my vote but lost it with the shenanigans he pulled with pipleline bill. He also lost a lot of support in the senate. Next session may actually be worse than this last one.
Next session will be clown show 2.0. with spiked Chemtrail residue beverages.
LOL at Dusty not courting that crowd. Oh really?
Yes. Really. You don’t see any whackadoodles at his events. He’s outspoken against the culture war bs. Not sure what you think you’re seeing but I don’t think you have the correct perspective. I’ve been around all the people mentioned here with the exception of tenhaken. He would be an interesting candidate. But I believe my statement is factual regarding what I’ve seen from the others. Jackley has been actively wining and dining the nuts. Rhoden has tried to appease them and lost himself in the process. Doeden is a narcissistic dbag. Dusty has stayed more towards the middle and gives more “politician” type answers to questions. Take that for what you will.
“I know Elon’s heart is in the right place,” Johnson said. “When we’ve made mistakes, of course we’ll come back around and we’ll make sure we do right by those areas, but overwhelmingly, on net, these things are moving us in the right direction.”
Wow that’s the sound of a trailblazing bipartisan Everyman cutting his own path in Trumpland lol ok yeah I see your point.
I don’t know what lane Rhoden is in. Like the guy, but during session, he keept swerving over to go off-road with the crazies. Now he’s busy with a ‘vote for me campaign tour’ on the state dime. He can’t decide if he wants to be a wackadoodle or Kristi-lite.
Instead of trying to drive in the ruts someone else left, Larry needs to get on a horse and be Larry.
Agreed.
I think Rhoden’s getting poor advice.
Exactly. And he is hosting all the goof ball legislators for bill signing events. Does he know that #1 he looks like an idiot when he posts a bill signage with these fools #2 they will never take his side during the election because he isn’t crazy enough. Who is advising him?
That’s a good observation. Tenhaken would easily be a top 3 candidate.
The donor class would back him.
He’s cool. That alone means people will support him.
The Mayor has been South Dakota’s most consistent and capable leader for a while
Yeah, but that’s a shamefully low bar.
Dusty has been consistent and to work as a member of congress who is 1/1 in the state of SD, is like taking a daily beating. I would support him over the mayor any day.
Dudsty.
Dusty is quite underrated as a congressman. At least by his home state. For some reason we don’t seem to take him seriously. Meanwhile, if you spend time around DC, you find that he commends a good amount of respect from both sides of the aisle.
Keep in mind if Governor Rhoden does run for re-election, he will have the benefit of being an incumbent. If Dan Lederman or John Wiik were still in charge of the GOP, there would be no debates prior to the primary. With Jim Eschenbaum now leading the party, would Dusty, Toby, Paul, etc. be given a chance to debate before the primary or have to do rallies defaming the Governor if he chooses to run?
She tried. She tried to pitch unity to the Republican Central Committee with a speech about remembering who the real enemies are, but the wackaddoodles didn’t listen, I think that was at the 2023 winter meeting.
The previous June she had the big dinner at the convention but many of them boycotted it and had their own oppositional dinner at a restaurant in Watertown, indicating they had the money to blow on a dinner party but they didn’t want to pay for hers.
If she got fed up with state politics, got tired of dealing with these yahoos, and turned her attention elsewhere, how can anybody blame her? .
The Party is not supposed to be involved in primary races, and so there would not, and should not be party sponsored debates. There are plenty of other opportunities for them to do so.
Now that I’m thinking about it. I see on this site info about Senator Thune & Rounds, Congressman Johnson but nothing on here about Governor Rhoden. I know Pat does press releases that he sends but when Noem was Governor, that was on this site.
I still see thing like Summit Carbon Solutions who might be done because of this session still on display here.
What this tells me if at the end of the day, If Toby Doeden somehow becomes the Republican nominee for Governor in 2026, that Pat not only will vote for him over any Democrat in November but will be more than happy to promote him on this blog going forward.
No f in way would 51% of the Republican Party support Doeden…in the primary or otherwise. Glady would step away for a vote.
Well maybe the governor should
Pay for some ad space. Pretty sure the statement that Pat powers would support Doeden is the dumbest thing I will hear all week. Gold star to you.
I will take the gold star then. What you’re saying is Pat might vote for a Democrat over Toby if he became the nominee.
I agree, there is very little chance that he will become the nominee especially if Gov Rhoden does run for re-election.
Pat just posted that the party chair shouldn’t schedule any debates between a challenger and an incumbent.
Kids, don’t do drugs. If South Dakota fell into one of the levels of hell, and Toby Doeden became the nominee, I would not be “happy to promote him on this blog going forward.”
But if Governor Rhoden’s political people reach out, I’ve love to have him advertise along with Dusty, Mike and JT.
Rhoden should have vetoed HB 1052 and let the idiots over-ride the veto. Then he could at least say he tried to stop them from killing the ethanol industry, the corn growers, etc. By signing that thing he became complicit in undermining the state’s economy.
Well that’s what he told them he was going to do. And then didn’t. All respect and my vote out the window.
Man, all this winning and making America great again kinda sucks and seems like an economic crisis, guys. But I guess we’re not playing 500d chess.
Rhoden should have vetoed HB 1052. Both chambers probably had the crazy-votes to over-ride the veto, but at least he would have come down on the side of the farmers and ethanol producers.
TenHaken needs to STFU about wanting to make Sioux Falls a sanctuary city. It might already be too late, given that his statement is perfect for a postcard..What a dumbass thing to say. You don’t have to be one of the crazies to think that’s a Really Bad Idea.
What was left out was the following in which I stated, “Not that I think some of these things are a bad idea, but they should be left to local control.”