26-03-2025
South Dakota lawmakers talk 2025 legislative session
NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. (KCAU) — Though South Dakota's legislative session isn't officially over, most of the agenda is complete and no new bills will be considered in the last few days.
South Dakota started its legislative session on Jan. 14. A change of leadership in the middle of the session made it an interesting time at the state capitol.
'It was the 100th legislative session, which is kind of interesting,' said Representative Chris Kassin (R) from the 17th district. 'I thought it went well.'
'It was a battle, honestly,' said Representative William Shorma (R) from the 17th district.
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There were a few bills that took focus for lawmakers and residents this year.
'School choice voucher kind of program, it was reduction in property taxes, and it was really killing the (Carbon) pipeline,' Shorma said.
The school voucher program failed alongside two property tax bills, while a ban on eminent domain for the carbon pipeline and a five-year cap on resident property taxes was passed.
However, there was one bill a handful of legislators was hoping to get passed this session.
'There was a couple of hearings on the McCook Lake bill, and what it was, was a contingency fund to ensure that dollars are being available if what Game, Fish, and Parks is going to do, which is a cleanup effort for McCook lake, maybe wasn't substantial enough to clean up the lake and kind of restore it to where it was pre-flood,' Kassin said.
'Suppose a million and a half dollars isn't enough to go far enough on the lake reclamation,' Shorma said. 'We want to be able to expand the scope of that with this additional $2 million.'
The bill was killed in a 7-2 vote by the House Appropriations Committee.
'There are 105 legislators, 70 of them in the House,' Shorma said. 'So out of 70, Chris Kassin [and I] are two of us out of the 70. In the House, it was a fairly close vote.'
'So McCook Lake is a priority for me as a legislator in district 17, along with Representative Sharma and Senator Sidney Davis,' Kassin said. 'This is a mainstay within this entire district and within this community. You know, I think maybe other legislators didn't feel that it was a priority, maybe in east, eastern, you know, in the western part of the state or the northern part of the state, the northwestern part of the state.'
On top of this year being the 100th legislative session, former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem resigned to join President Trump's cabinet, making former lieutenant governor Larry Rhoden the 34th Governor of South Dakota.
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'It's the first time it's ever happened that a governor has taken over during the legislative session,' Kassin said. 'The interesting part was trying to understand if his priorities were different than the previous governors. Obviously, he's, you know, he's a different person.'
'Governor Noem picked him to be lieutenant governor because they agreed on 90% of the issues,' Shorma said. 'He has his own opinion about a couple of issues that may be different, may not go as deep into the conservative mode as Governor Noem did, but he's still conservative on those same issues. So we'll have to see how that all works out.'
South Dakota legislators will return to the capitol on March 31 as lawmakers address bills vetoed by Governor Rhoden.
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