PIERRE — The South Dakota Senate voted 18-17 on Tuesday at the Capitol to advance a bill mandating public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom and teach their historical significance.

The bill now heads to the state House of Representatives.

Sen. John Carley, R-Piedmont, proposed the legislation. 

“These are historical principles that have been used in the tradition and founding of America,” Carley said. 

Opponents characterized the bill as a violation of the federal First Amendment constitutional principle of separation of church and state, and as a burdensome, unnecessary mandate. 

Sen. Jamie Smith, D-Sioux Falls, a former public school teacher, said schools already have the option to display the commandments. They are also required to display the national motto, “In God We Trust,” due to state legislation adopted six years ago. 

“I’m sitting here in a room full of people that believe in smaller government, less government,” Smith said, referring to the Republican-dominated state Senate. “And we’re making a mandate.”

The bill would require 8-by-14-inch posters with “easily readable font.” Schools would have to additionally display a three-part, roughly 225-word statement near the posters containing information about the commandments’ historical significance. 

The legislation would replace existing language in state law allowing local school boards to choose to display the Ten Commandments.

The bill would also require the Ten Commandments to be taught as part of history and civics classes three times during a student’s education — at least once during each of the elementary, middle and high school years. Additional provisions in the bill would require instruction on the state and federal constitutions, the federal Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

The bill would require the Ten Commandments to be presented “as a historical legal document, including the influence of the Ten Commandments on the legal, ethical, and other cultural traditions of Western civilization.”

Carley said displaying and teaching the commandments would instill a moral grounding in students.

He pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which he said upheld public religious displays rooted in tradition. The ruling upheld a football coach’s post-game prayer as protected free speech and religious expression, emphasizing it was personal, voluntary and non-coercive. 

Sen. Lauren Nelson, R-Yankton, said the South Dakota bill is not coercive.

“It’s not about forcing people to believe a certain way, but about understanding where we came from as a country,” Nelson said.

Video of a Jan. 28, 2025, debate in the South Dakota Senate about legislation that would mandate the teaching and display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. (Courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting)

Sen. Red Dawn Foster, D-Pine Ridge, unsuccessfully proposed an amendment that would have allowed schools to substitute a list of Native American values for the commandments. 

She said many Native Americans view the bill as perpetuating the historical policies of federal boarding schools, where Indigenous children were forced to speak English, convert to Christianity and forsake their own cultural practices.

Carley replied that he didn’t see any documentation that the list of Native American values proposed for inclusion by Foster had an “influence on the foundation of America.”

Sen. David Wheeler, R-Huron, is a lawyer. He raised the specter of lawsuits, pointing to ongoing litigation against a similar law in Louisiana. That state became the first to enact a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. 

“It’s a guaranteed lawsuit,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler did not vote in favor of the bill, but he did convince senators to add an amendment that would require the state attorney general to defend any lawsuits arising from the legislation at the state’s expense, rather than burdening local school districts.