Tom Pischke: Banned again. This time from the House of Representatives in a sticky situation of his own making.

State Senator Tom Pischke, who in 2015 had a protection order for domestic abuse filed against him by his ex-wife (which was later dismissed), today finds himself at the receiving end of a different kind of order.

Today, Speaker of the House Hugh Bartels has issued an order banning Senator Pischke from the House Floor and House Lobby for the remainder of the legislative session for violating joint rule 1B-1. The Speaker also noted in the order that he will be speaking to Senate Leadership about the situation as well.

After a weird House Commemoration sponsored by Rep. Phil Jensen and Senator Pischke discussing Aunt Jemima’s contributions to society was pulled from the House Calendar by State Representative Kris Conzet, someone unknown had surreptitiously left a bottle of syrup on the lawmaker’s desk. House leadership was informed and video was reviewed and we come to find out State Senator Tom Pischke was caught on film as the person who placed the bottle on Representative Conzet’s desk.

In fact, video of his placement of the syrup was also caught on Public Broadcasting’s legislative coverage during a legislative recess, where Pischke can be observed walking into House chambers with a piece of paper covering something, then pulling the bottle out of syrup out from behind it:

Pischke, who co-sponsored the measure with Representative Phil Jensen came over from the Senate and left the bottle at the Representative Kris Conzet’s desk at a time when no one else was around.  Why? To protest her request to pull the measure, which had nothing to do with South Dakota?  Who knows? What we do know is that this is another Tom Pischke unforced error.

Remember, this is not Pischke’s only ban from activities in the South Dakota Legislature. Don’t forget that during the last legislative session, Pischke held a press conference which bizarrely demanded the that the Hughes County State’s Attorney criminally charge many of the members of the Senate Republican Caucus. After which Senator Pischke found himself disinvited from attending the daily meetings where Republicans conduct strategy sessions on legislation.

Sources inform me that Pischke’s ban from the Senate Republican Caucus has continued on through this year. With today’s action, there are getting to be fewer and fewer places Pischke will be allowed to conduct himself in the State Capitol.

Should he choose to run again, Senator Tom Pischke will be facing former State Senator Jordan Youngberg who has been running for the seat for the past few months, and the incident provides yet further ammunition for his opponent to use against the Senator in talking about his lack of judgement.

Yet again, it’s a sticky situation of Tom’s own making.