Pro-Amendment L Group Calls for Truth in Advertising

SIOUX FALLS – The grassroots coalition leading the Yes effort on South Dakota’s proposed Constitutional Amendment L sent cease and desist letters to South Dakota media organizations this week, requesting that they immediately stop airing misleading and untruthful commercials funded by opponents of Amendment L.

Proposed Amendment L protects the South Dakota Constitution and South Dakota citizens by requiring a 60 percent vote to change the Constitution. All other measures remain unchanged.

“Voters deserve an open and honest debate on the merits of Amendment L,” said State Representative John Hughes (R-13), prime sponsor of the measure. “These blatant lies by anti-Amendment L activists are a desperate attempt to mislead voters, and the deceptive advertisements need to be removed from the airwaves immediately.”

The request to pull the misleading advertisement points to opponents’ false claim that the Yes on L effort is funded by wealthy non-residents. Specifically, the ad falsely states “Out of state billionaires and their lobbyists are coming to South Dakota pushing Amendment L” and “Our constitution isn’t for sale to some Californian.”

A ballot question committee in support of Amendment L, Save Our South Dakota Constitution, consists of South Dakota residents and groups of concerned citizens. Supporters of Amendment L include Protect South Dakota Kids, South Dakota Family Voice, South Dakota Retailers, and South Dakota Right to Life.

Official campaign finance disclosures filed with the South Dakota Secretary of State in mid-October will demonstrate that Save Our South Dakota Constitution is funded entirely without financial backing from any California billionaires. Ironically, according to public documents, anti-Amendment L special interest groups have already spent more than $400,000 misleading voters.

“Our state Constitution is a foundational document that makes South Dakota a great state, and that’s worth protecting by passing Amendment L,” Hughes added. “We are asking voters to defend against radical special interest groups who want to allow late-term abortions, take away gun rights, and legalize recreational marijuana.”

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Amendment L was placed on the ballot by the South Dakota Legislature during the 2025 session as House Joint Resolution 5003. The measure passed the Senate with 29 yes votes and 4 no votes; it passed the House with 61 yes votes and 5 no votes.

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“Dindependent” US Senate candidate Brian Bengs launched a laughable online store this week to scrape together donations.

The comment made me laugh. I would agree. Strangely, no signs or shirts depicting him snapping his fingers at people. If you want evidence of one of the worst run campaigns by one of the worst candidates in years, shop wisely, as he’s hitting people for $20 for a yard sign.  Trust me. I sell the things. That’s quite the markup.

If only there were items available that were useful in the real world.  I’m holding out until they add this shirt to the shelves.

Thune: Republicans Help America’s Small Businesses Grow, Put More Money in Americans’ Pockets

“We’re setting the conditions for a brighter future and keeping the American Dream alive and strong for future generations.”

Click here to watch the video.

 WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the above remarks on the Senate floor.

Just a note for any collectors of political items out there, I’ve revamped and updated my long ignored eBay store, and linked it with my listings on Facebook Marketplace, whatnot, and Etsy, and I’m clearing out a number of duplicates and things gathering dust.

Lots of South Dakota related presidential pins, as well as other political items as I come across them in drawers and as I unpack what I had for sale when I had a booth at 605 Antiques in Sioux Falls.  (Comics too, but this probably isn’t the venue).

You can check out my current listings of political items on eBay here.

Amendment K is a wise investment in South Dakota
By Rep. Chris Kassin (R-17) and Rep. Erik Muckey (D-15)

As state representatives, we’ve worked together for the past two years on the Joint Committee on Appropriations. As you might suspect, we don’t agree on everything, but we do seek out common ground whenever we can.

This election season, that common ground is Amendment K. We’re asking you to vote yes on this important amendment to our state’s constitution.

Amendment K takes the funds or assets the state holds for people who’ve lost track of them, known as unclaimed property, and places those claims in a constitutional trust fund. That trust fund lets the state spend only what that fund earns, and the principal stays where it is, available to pay every claim.
Rarely do you find unanimous agreement in the Legislature and with the Governor. This is one of those instances where bipartisanship came together around the common good and finding a real, responsible way to steward the trust of South Dakotans.

Why is Amendment K important?

There may be money in the State Treasurer’s office with your name on it, whether an old bank account from a job you left, or an insurance payout a relative never mentioned. South Dakota took in a record $357 million of unclaimed property in fiscal year 2025, and another $242 million by the time we met in Pierre this session.

When an account or property goes dormant at the bank, a bank whose charter is in South Dakota transfers the responsibility of uniting unclaimed property with its owner to the State Treasurer’s office. The State notes the claim and the value at the time of its abandonment and owes that amount to the owner forever. The claim never grows. Whatever it was worth that day is what we owe, whenever somebody comes for it.

While a good chunk of this unclaimed property belongs to South Dakotans, most of it comes from somewhere else. Banks chartered here hold accounts for people across the country and the world, and when those go unclaimed, South Dakota inherits the job of holding it and finding the owner. We’re carrying more than $1.2 billion in those promises.

For years the state spent a good share of it, and that was a mistake. Collections spiked after the pandemic, and the more that came in, the easier it was to treat as revenue. About $60 million a year shows up in the general fund and gets spent like any other money, and what comes in the door to the state is significantly higher. There was no plan to stop this until recently.

A group of us came together across party lines in the 2025 Legislative Session to end that practice, resulting in Senate Bill 155. Rep. Kassin prime sponsored it in the House, and Rep. Muckey co-sponsored it. Senator Taffy Howard served as the other prime sponsor, and several others in both chambers signed on as co-sponsors. After significant discussion and negotiation between legislators on both sides of the aisle and the executive branch, the Legislature unanimously supported Senate Bill 155 and the Governor signed it. The law weans the budget off using unclaimed property in steps, dropping the general fund’s share from about $61.4 million this year to $25 million by 2035, so nothing gets yanked out from under K-12 education, Medicaid or the state workforce.

Amendment K is the last step, and it’s the one we can’t take as legislators. Without a constitutional amendment, the Legislature cannot direct the South Dakota Investment Council to manage this money as a real trust. Right now, the account holding it earns very little. Because property claims never grow, whatever the money earns while it waits is money the state can use without shorting anyone and meet our obligations to education, Medicaid, and state workforce.

Amendment K would then require three-fourths of both chambers, or 53 of 70 representatives and 27 of 35 senators, in order to take anything from the principal for a purpose other than paying claims.
The Senate voted 35 to 0 to send Amendment K to the ballot. The House voted 69 to 0. The State Treasurer wrote the argument for Amendment K in the ballot pamphlet, and nobody wrote one against it.

The work in Pierre is done to properly manage a liability on our state’s balance sheet. Amendment K will ensure that every valid unclaimed property can be honored and turn a billion-dollar liability into an asset that works for South Dakotans.

All that’s left is your vote. Please vote yes on Amendment K.

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Chris Kassin represents District 17, lives in Vermillion, and served as the House Prime Sponsor on Senate Bill 155 (2025) that established new unclaimed property financial management practices. Erik Muckey represents District 15, lives in Sioux Falls, and co-sponsored Senate Bill 155. Both serve on the Joint Committee on Appropriations, which writes the state budget.

Attorney General Jackley Releases New State Policy On Constitutional Disclosure Requirements for Criminal Cases

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley announces that a task force he created in 2025 has developed a recommended model policy to help South Dakota prosecutors and law enforcement agencies address constitutional disclosure requirements in criminal cases.

“This recommended model policy furthers government transparency. It provides South Dakota prosecutors and law enforcement agencies with a consistent framework for addressing Constitutional disclosure obligations,”said Attorney General Jackley. “I thank the task force members for developing practical guidance that promotes fairness, consistency, and confidence in the criminal justice system.”

The recommended prosecutorial guidance addresses the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. United States. Those decisions require prosecutors to disclose certain evidence favorable to the accused, including information that may affect the credibility of government witnesses, such as law enforcement officers. The disclosure obligations help protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Attorney General Jackley created the task force to review Brady/Giglio disclosure requirements and recommend a practical framework for South Dakota prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. The resulting guidance provides recommended procedures for identifying potential disclosure information, reviewing credibility-related matters involving recurring government witnesses, and making case-specific disclosure decisions.

The recommended model policy is for guidance only. It does not establish a mandatory statewide process or limit the independent professional judgment of State’s Attorneys.

Task force members were:

• Ernest Thompson, Deputy Attorney General, South Dakota Attorney General’s Office;
• Matthew Glenn, Supervisory Special Agent and Law Enforcement Training Administrator, South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation;
• Lt. Brandon Akron, South Dakota Highway Patrol;
• Cory Borg, Deuel County Sheriff;
• Crystal Brady, Chief of Police, Vermillion Police Department;
• Lara Roetzel, Pennington County State’s Attorney; and,
• Tyler Larsen, Yankton County State’s Attorney

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The 4th Judicial Circuit: Fewer Lawyers, Bigger Questions
by Roger Baron

On August 26, 2026, the UJS held public meetings in Rapid City, Sturgis, and Lemmon to discuss the proposed merger of the 4^th and 7^th Judicial Circuits.  Issues related to the efficient allocation and distribution of judicial resources, as well as the practical ramifications of a merger, were the focal points of discussion.  These discussions bring to the forefront an issue that has long plagued our State: the delivery of legal services in rural South Dakota.

Diminishing Active Bar Members

For this column, I manually counted the active South Dakota Bar members listed by city in the State Bar directories for 2017, 2018, 2021, 2024 and 2026.  I counted the lawyers listed in the cities that are encompassed within the 4^th Circuit.  The tally does not necessarily reflect of the number lawyers actually practicing law in each city – but it reflects the number of lawyers who have paid “Active Status” dues to the South Dakota State Bar and have listed a business address in the designated city.  The lists include judges and some other judicial personnel such as law clerks.  Moreover, lawyers who reside outside of the circuit are known to travel for cases venued in other counties and circuits. The same counting methodology, however, was applied consistently to each city and each directory.

According to the 2026 State Bar Directory, there are 2,068 active members of the South Dakota Bar – and only 68 of them reside within the 4^th Circuit.  And, this is a substantial decrease from 2017, where there were 94 active State Bar members in the 4^th Circuit – a decline of 26 members, or nearly 28%.  Furthermore, the eight counties comprising the 4th Circuit encompass approximately 19,063 square miles— about 25% of South Dakota’s total 77,116 square miles.

South Dakota Bar Admissions

Since 2015, there has been a parallel development related to the admission of new attorneys in South Dakota, as dictated by the South Dakota Board of Bar Examiners and the South Dakota Supreme Court.  In 2015, substantial (and controversial) rule changes amended the bar examination requirements for applicants seeking admission to practice law in South Dakota. These changes were unsuccessfully challenged in a 2018 hearing before the Supreme Court.  The changes were challenged again via legislative efforts in 2022 (Diploma Privilege bill) and 2026 (Apprenticeship bill).  Both efforts were defeated after the UJS actively opposed each proposal.

The following data, compiled by the Legislative Research Council, show the percentage of first-time USD Law School graduates who successfully passed the bar examination:

• 2015 (50%)
• 2016 (63%)
• 2017 (39%)
• 2018 (41%)
• 2019 (data not available)
• 2020 (52%)
• 2021 (71%)
• 2022 (53%)

South Dakota has long faced difficulties in providing legal services in rural areas. In support of her Apprenticeship Bill in 2026, Representative Mary Fitzgerald argued that the post-2015 bar examination system made the problem worse rather than better. Opponents disputed that proposition. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court itself previously recognized attorney recruitment and retention and service to rural and urban communities as concerns. The shortage of lawyers and legal services in rural areas is a real problem for our citizens. Whether diploma privilege, an apprenticeship pathway, the traditional bar examination, or some combination of approaches would solve it remains a matter of debate.

The 4th Circuit encompasses approximately one-quarter of the state’s area but contains only about 3% of its active South Dakota Bar members. The discussion over judicial resources and the proposed merger should also include discussion about the availability of lawyers to serve the people who use those courts.

Note: In regard to the preparation of this week’s column, the author would like to thank Attorney Sarah Baron Houy and Claudia Baron for their assistance and input.

Anyone desiring to communicate with the Author, may do so by sending an e-mail to the author at rogermbaron@gmail.com .

Maps and Table (shown here on three separate pages, with introductory language for each):

The 4^th Judicial Circuit comprises approximately 25% of the total area of South Dakota.

Cities and Counties in the 4^th and 7^th Judicial Circuits

 

 

In five directory years, the number of active Bar members listed in the 4th Circuit fell from 94 to 68.

 

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About the author: Retired Law Professor Baron provides prompt summaries of new appellate court decisions to more than 330 lawyers and judges in South Dakota. This Column is designed to provide readers with similar summaries, in non-legalese language, of relevant legal issues — as well as occasional opinion or two.

(This column also appears in the Rapid City Post: The 4th Judicial Circuit: Fewer Lawyers, Bigger Questions – The Rapid City Post)

There’s a good article out there today explaining what brought Secretary of State Monae Johnson around from having doubts about election security to endorsing the Democrat, Terrence Davis, who is now running for the election:

But once Johnson became responsible for running elections herself, her views started to change. By 2024, she was publicly expressing confidence in tabulators and saying South Dakota’s election system had safeguards “built in throughout the process.” And this summer, Johnson told Republican convention delegates, “I trust the county auditors to do their jobs, and I fully support the use of secure, tested ballot tabulators.”

Former Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, said she has seen the same evolution play out among poll workers and county officials: People sometimes get involved in elections because they are skeptical of how they work. Then they discover that the problems they expected to find are not there and that some of the fixes they imagined are not workable.

“It’s a brave thing to admit,” Boockvar said. She said she could not recall another example of a statewide election official doing so.

and..

Many of the activists who helped elect Johnson in 2022 remained unconvinced. This summer, they backed state Rep. Heather Baxter, whose campaign had called for hand-counted paper ballots and eliminating machines, for secretary of state instead.

and..

In explaining her endorsement, Johnson wrote that she now knows “the difference between campaigning for this office and carrying the responsibility of leading it.” The job, she wrote, requires “the humility to listen to professionals” and “a willingness to review new information and change course when the evidence supports doing so.”

Read the entire story here.

I think it’s important to recognize the importance of Secretary of State Johnson realizing that the extreme line of election paranoia that groups like SD Canvassing are trying to sell is only for the benefit of their organization. If we’re not led to be paranoid about election security, then they have no purpose, and the false prophets lose their ability to raise influence and to raise money.

Had a note from someone who was attending the Fall River County Republican dinner this weekend:

I didn’t know if you had heard – Jim Eschenbaum announced he is running for re-election as state party chair during the Fall River LDD last night.

That was not something I had heard. And it was not something I had expected.

It also really begs the question why does Jim Eschenbaum think he’s earned another chance at bat?

• The Republican party might be the most divided it has been in the last century. What has the chair done to bring the party together?
• Fundraising might be at the most abysmal level in modern history – in last FEC report, $20 was raised. Democrats raised over $24,000 in this period.
• When was the last state party sponsored event you heard of? Conventions don’t count. I’m talking actual events for fundraising or media attention.
• AI slop on Facebook has become the communication tool of choice. When was the last time the party issued a press release? (Hint, it was the chair facilitating an attack on Senator Thune)
• How many times has the chair attacked our statewide elected officials during his tenure?
• How much candidate assistance has the party provided under Eschenbaum? Has he reached out to help new candidates?
• How has the party promoted the GOP slate of candidates up and down the ticket? Besides occasional posting on facebook.
• Where is the SD Republican Party headquarters?  Because last I checked, there isn’t one anymore. Not in Pierre. Not in Sioux Falls.
• Does the SDGOP have actual employees at this point? There aren’t any “staff” noted on the website.

It really begs the question of what function the South Dakota Republican Party serves at this point? What has it become over the course of the last two years?

If the Republican State Central Committee truly believes that this is a direction that they’re happy with, then by all means they should return leadership to the hands of Eschenbaum, a former 32-year Democrat who claimed at the onset of his tenure that he didn’t “need any more money thrown to the state GOP.”  How has that worked for us?

But if party leaders think we can do better than the slow desiccation of the State Republican party that we’ve watched, one where fewer and fewer South Dakotans find commonality with, they should recruit someone to lead the organization back to functionality.

Freedom and Fresh Air
By: Gov. Larry Rhoden
September 25, 2026

There are many reasons to visit the Black Hills. The towering pillars of granite would be plenty enough on their own, and that’s before you factor in the amazing monuments of Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. But one of my favorite reasons to head for the hills happens once a year in late September: the Buffalo Roundup at Custer State Park.

Every year, a few dozen parks staff lead brave volunteers as we chase roughly 1,500 buffalo through the hills of Custer State Park. The thundering hooves, cracking whips, and the wild spirit of the American buffalo makes the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.

The spectacle is truly one-of-a-kind, and word has gotten out. Every year, 20,000 visitors join us to watch the display. We round up the herd so that we can tend to their health, brand the new calves, and auction off a portion to maintain the herd’s stability. And the visitors come from across the country and around the world. This brings South Dakota’s two biggest industries, agriculture and tourism, together.

Every year when I’m breathing in the crisp morning air at Custer State Park, I stop to think about what makes this event so special. I go back to our state’s western heritage. Most of us are descended from the homesteaders – or at least the tough few who were able to eke out a living on the untamed South Dakota prairie. Our state still reflects the American Wild West in many regards. Tourists come to Deadwood to get a glimpse into Wild Bill’s life, hike through the wilderness trails in the Black Hills, and swing through 1880 Town along the way.

I think there’s something about all those experiences that is so attractive to the 21^st Century traveler. In a world that is increasingly online, it’s nice to get our faces out of our phones for a few days and get back to our roots. And that’s why they keep coming back to South Dakota. My wife, Sandy, has made it her mission to get South Dakotans of all ages off their phones – and I know the phone-free fellowship that happened at the Buffalo Roundup this year made her proud.

Our state is the freest state in a nation founded on the principle of freedom. And those Wild West experiences hearken back to a day when our nation was just a bit freer.

The late September Buffalo Roundup marks somewhat of a conclusion to the annual tourism season – though the orange jacketed pheasant hunters will be here in just a few short weeks. But it does not mark the conclusion of what makes South Dakota special. Our freedom and fresh air remain a tremendous draw year round.

Moments like the Buffalo Roundup are both a great opportunity to take a break from the daily grind and remember why I do what I do: to keep South Dakota the greatest, freest state in America – and to keep our future strong, safe, and free.

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