South Dakota House fails to override child care subsidy veto from governor
South Dakota House Minority Leader Erin Healy, D-Sioux Falls, speaks to members of the press on March 6, 2025, at the Capitol in Pierre. Healy sponsored a child care assistance bill that was vetoed by the governor. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
The South Dakota House of Representatives failed to override the first veto of Gov. Larry Rhoden's administration on Thursday morning at the Capitol in Pierre.
Lawmakers in the House spent around half an hour debating the possibility of reviving House Bill 1132's attempt to expand child care subsidies for child care workers and overruling the governor's Wednesday veto.
In the end, the vote to overturn the veto failed 27-43. Because of its failure in the House, there was no need for the Senate to consider it. Thursday was the final day of the annual legislative session, except for a day on March 31 to consider any further vetoes from Rhoden, who is still considering bills.
HB 1132's backers took issue with Rhoden's characterization of the bill as an unfair expansion of a social safety net program to people in a specific field.
With governor's veto, all three child care proposals stymied during 2025 legislative session
Parents in South Dakota with incomes at 209% or less of the federal poverty level are eligible for child care tuition assistance. The bill vetoed on Wednesday would have bumped that eligibility figure up to 300% for full-time child care workers.
Child care workers who can't afford their own child care bills, the reasoning goes, cannot stay on the job and watch the kids of parents who can't work without child care.
The hope would be for South Dakota to keep more child care workers on the job.
'When child care workers leave the workforce, the crisis deepens,' said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Erin Healy, D-Sioux Falls.
Opponents said they agreed with the governor. They didn't see the subsidy as fair to other families, worried about a permanent subsidy the state couldn't afford, and suggested that the bill would tip the scales in favor of one approach to child care.
Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls, argued that lawmakers can't simultaneously be conservative and supportive of subsidies for a specific type of worker.
'That's why I respect the governor. I think he's well-stated the answer,' Hughes said. 'Don't buy into this. Don't buy into this idea that we're going to start subsidizing a group of, God bless them, child care workers. It's just a bad precedent.'
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