END of SESSION My take on this year’s Lawlapalooza. By: Chris J. Larson

As another SD legislative session wraps up, the grassroots conservatives (GC’s) would benefit from, I think, a short synopsis of what we are to make of what was a gnarly adventure to observe. And since I had nothing better to do, I guess I’ll take a whack at it.

Speaker Hanson offered a nice wrap up from his perspective here –

Legislative session wrap-up: 10 great wins from the historic 100th South Dakota legislative session. By Jon Hansen, Speaker of House of Representatives.

And here’s one from Rep Karla Lems>>>

Overview—100^th Legislative Session

We appreciate Jon, Scott, Karla & Marty’s efforts – along with some very solid fellow legislators in the House & Senate- this year in what was the very 1st session that was led by members of the Patriot movement in SD.

In this year’s session, our side did indeed enjoy some key victories in areas that some of our friends have been working tirelessly, for years. Election integrity, protecting children from porn (yes, there was considerable opposition to that!) and the fortification of Property Rights, particularly in the misuse of Eminent Domain by the massive Green New Scam oligarchs. For these, and others, we should be genuinely grateful to the folks who fought for them, and our Lord’s blessing in seeing them through.

But there were also crushing defeats in this legislature’s session, we must admit. For those observers who at least tried to follow along with the daily journeys of the bills (after all, there were over 600 of them!), it became a familiar ritual of trying to convince a few undecideds, through emails, phone calls and texts, to PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE vote yes/no on a particular conservative bill. Some days provided us with high drama that was reminiscent of this past election night Nov 5 2024. I am fortunate to be part of a group that helped to keep us all educated and up-to-date on the definitive Conservative bills that came on the docket every week. On certain days, as some of the Big Ones were being debated, it felt a lot like watching a sudden death playoff game. Exciting, but stressful.

Listening to and watching the arguments, both in committee and on the floor, provided equal helpings of hilarity and outrage, as we tried – and often failed – to follow the illogical bellowings that some of the more befuddled TransR’s would often burp out. I want to say something nice about Rep Weems here. For all of her terrible Unconservative votes – & there were many – she did provide plenty of comedic relief with her penache for being unintentionally funny. One Meems joke heard around the capitol: “If Weems was my Uber driver I’d get out & walk”.

I really do think that more Normies would find this whole experience quite entertaining, and worth following, if it were presented the right way. Like, with humorous commentary by a knowledgeable host or two. Think John Madden & Pat Summeral. Something to work on for next year, perhaps….

Now for some Bad News:

Two of the biggest disappointments coming out of this session are the failure to make any real gains on : School Choice/Education rebates & Property Tax relief.

The governor did manage to get his preferred bill passed, which limits increases to 3%, but only for homes worth up to $500k. This doesn’t help the retirees – or anyone else for that matter -who still have to pay the State a lot more “rent money” than they did 5 years ago, even though they may not have done any improvements whatsoever. Now Larry is going around making statements about the need to “make up” the “lost revenue” through new “revenue sources”, which we in the grassroots call BullShift. I don’t really want to get into the weeds here, so let me just make my position clear: NO NEW TAXES. Ever. Like George H.W. Bush said, but I actually mean it. If it means cutting spending, well then gosh darnit I guess that’s what you’ll have to do. Some people are OK with shifting the burden of tax collecting to retailers, but I am not one of them. It may make sense if property taxes were completely eliminated, but we know that’s not going to happen. So NO, I will not be negotiating in that manner. No increase in sales tax. Reduce or eliminate property taxes. And NEVER even think about implementing a state sales tax. Let’s encourage our political friends to think bigger, outside the box. For example, it makes no sense for enormous companies – yes, they are companies not charities- like our huge hospital systems to be exempt from paying property taxes. I don’t care what they claim as their “status”. Any organization that spends tens of million$$$ in advertising dollars each year is to be considered a BUSINESS ENTITY. And no I don’t care about the federal law. This is South Dakota. Figure it out! Furthermore, why in the world do they need to advertise so much? All they do is drive up the cost of advertising for all of the small businesses. Shoot, I can’t even afford to be in the 6 o’clock news anymore, not that that many people even watch it.

Meanwhile, the most powerful lobby in Pierre remains the government school paid lobbyists, including all of the paid staff that enjoys the privilege of paid trips to Pierre to testify against the People, in furious defense of the Status Quo. One big theme that became obvious to me was that Big Ed will fight to the death ANY attempt to reduce their money, or influence their policies in any meaningful way. Perhaps it’s time we outlaw public sector labor unions. They don’t seem to be doing the kids much good. For you fans of Big Ed who might be reading this, “the kids” are those little noisy humans that fill your buildings every day that you are in charge of turning into intelligent young adults. The kids are the reason we collect SO MUCH property taxes. The schools were never meant to be a jobs program.

The school choice/ESA is way too complicated to rehash, so I’ll just repeat what I said before: We need to deal Big Ed some defeats. We failed to do it this time, but hopefully Team Patriot can find a way to bring the different (warring) factions together for next years’ fight. I would suggest finding someone like Jessica Polema to lead the group of homeschool, private & micro school advocates to increase their chances of success, if that person exists. I actually DO think they exist, because like the election integrity warriors, the anti-government school coalition is filled with passionate believers. And passion is the fuel that powers the Patriot locomotion.

My biggest takeaway from observing this session is that our number 1 priority for the GC’s is to marshall our forces against the TransRepublicans’ Cabal that absolutely exists as nothing more than a foil for conservative bills. Their mission, besides serving their money god, was on display for all the world to see and it was frustrating to watch. I mean, many of the bills are not easily categorized into “conservative” boxes, like the Ingestion Bill for example. So there is ample opportunity for legislators to use their judgment, and place their votes in the spirit of what hey think is best for the people of our state. No one is expecting our allies to vote in lockstep on every bill. But on the ones that are clearly “conservative” in scope, we rightfully expect those legislators who ran their campaigns as self-identified “Conservative”s to vote the right way. The Cabal voted as an unthinking herd against the conservative bills every single time, and those of us who’ve been paying attention are SO OVER IT. Honestly, I have way more respect for Peri Pourier (D) than I do any of the TransRepublicans who are incapable of critical thinking.

I think that we need to start a PAC <right now!> which will specifically target Rehfeldt & Mortensen, to name just the ringleaders, but could use a volunteer to run it. I will make the first donation. Please comment below.

Lastly, I want to touch on what I see as the two main drivers of the passion in the grassroots movement: Anger and Distrust.

The goals will be to expose corruption and fraud, fight for transparency at all levels, and to change the narratives around how we view subjects like Labor Trafficking (bringing in migrants to work as indentured slaves for companies like Smithfield), tax breaks as incentives for new businesses, Economic Development schemes, NGO’s getting massive amounts of money for spurious reasons, and any

of the other public/private partnerships we’ve turned a blind eye to our whole lives.

Stay tuned, stay thirsty, pray incessantly, and please go talk to your Normie friends. We could use their help!