Though he didn’t credit the Biden administration by name, South Dakota’s top environmental official recently praised one of the administration’s laws for spurring a “water renaissance that was overdue” in the state.

Hunter Roberts leads South Dakota’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Its responsibilities include the regulation of drinking water and wastewater systems.

The office awarded $689 million to 200 water-related projects across the state during the last several years, Roberts told a legislative committee last week at the Capitol in Pierre. The money came from the American Rescue Plan Act, known by the acronym “ARPA.”

“It created an opportunity to make that investment and, I think, move our state forward long-term when we look at water-wastewater infrastructure, which is critical,” Roberts said. “If we don’t have safe, clean drinking water, what else do we have?”

Congress passed the ARPA legislation in 2021. Then-President Joe Biden signed it into law that March. It included a total of $1.9 trillion in funding to stimulate the national economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

South Dakota’s share was about $1 billion. Besides water and wastewater infrastructure, the money funded broadband internet expansion, infrastructure for housing, telemedicine initiatives, the construction of a new state public health lab, and more.

Roberts’ department used the water and wastewater money to make grants for local projects. The grants helped to pay for infrastructure such as storage reservoirs, tanks, water pipes, treatment plants, wells, pump stations, filtration systems and sewer lines.

Some local water systems had been diligent about upgrading and modernizing before the ARPA funds became available, Roberts said, but for the others, “those additional funds kind of spurred our utilities to get off their keister and make those investments that they maybe hadn’t made in 20 to 30 years.”

At another point in his presentation to the legislative committee — which included a broad overview of departmental activities — Roberts said he was excited about the end of the Biden administration. Roberts was appointed to his job in 2019 by then-Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican who’s since become President Donald Trump’s secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Roberts said the Biden administration enacted “overly broad, overreaching, unfounded” laws and regulations.

“It seemed like there was a lot of regulatory overreach coming from Washington, D.C., pushed down to the regions and the states that we didn’t like,” Roberts said.

He also acknowledged that Trump’s zeal for imposing tariffs could negatively impact international trade and industries that depend on it, including agriculture.

“That remains to be seen how that all works through the system, but it’s certainly something we’re watching closely,” Roberts said.

South Dakota voters aren’t particularly fond of ballot measures that seek to change the state constitution. They’re even less enamored of attempts to mess with the way that their constitution can be changed. That history of failure doesn’t keep legislators from trying.

The latest attempt is House Joint Resolution 5003 sponsored by Rep. John Hughes, a Sioux Falls Republican. Currently, constitutional amendments placed on the general election ballot are passed with 50% of the vote plus one. Hughes seeks to raise that benchmark to 60% of the vote.

The resolution has passed its first two hurdles, getting approval from the House State Affairs Committee on an 11-2 vote and passing the full House on a vote of 61-5.

According to Hughes, because South Dakota has a 50% plus one threshold, “We are a target for being used as a laboratory for the emergence of new values and new ideas that many, many, many South Dakotans do not share.”

Lawmakers consider higher bar for constitutional amendments and a trigger to end Medicaid expansion

Often during the testimony about HJR 5003, there were complaints about the millions of dollars dumped into South Dakota elections by out-of-state interests. It sounds naive to think that big-money interests would stay away from South Dakota elections if the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment were raised to 60% of the vote.

Many of South Dakota’s current crop of legislators weren’t around in 2017 when their brethren in the Legislature made quick work of dismantling Initiated Measure 22, an anti-corruption bill endorsed with 51% of the vote. IM 22 may have been as unworkable as it was unconstitutional, but instead of letting the courts decide on its demise, lawmakers acted fast to do the job themselves.

Their eagerness to enact some parts of the initiated measure and ignore other parts led some people — particularly those people who are interested in getting their ideas on the ballot — to believe that the Legislature was circumventing the will of the people. The Legislature’s fast action on an initiated measure made constitutional amendments, which can’t be messed with by lawmakers once the voters approve, all the more compelling for people who want to raise issues that the Legislature won’t tackle.

Resolutions like the one Hughes is backing don’t have a good track record with voters. In 2018, the mysteriously named Amendment X sought to raise the approval threshold on constitutional amendments to 55%. It garnered only 46% of the vote. In 2022, Amendment C sought to raise the requirement to three-fifths of the vote if the amendment in question required an increase in taxes or fees or the appropriation of $10 million over five fiscal years. Voters didn’t like that one either, with 67% of them voting against it.

Often during the discussion about HJR 5003, Hughes and the committee members asserted that voters are suffering from “ballot fatigue.” Their suffering will only get worse in 2026 when, besides ballot issues, voters will be faced with choices for governor, U.S. representative, state constitutional offices and the Legislature. The “ballot fatigue” argument leads to the realization that lawmakers are irony-impaired.

Prior to voting to put HJR 5003 on the ballot, members of the committee approved HJR 5001, a constitutional amendment that would ease South Dakota’s escape from paying for expanded Medicaid. There’s also a joint resolution in the Senate seeking to put yet another constitutional amendment of the ballot. If lawmakers themselves weren’t so eager to change the constitution, South Dakota’s ballots would be shorter.

In 2024, two of the constitutional amendments originated with lawmakers — a work requirement for Medicaid and a neutering of the language used in the constitution to get ride of male pronouns. The language amendment failed. Voters approved of the Medicaid work requirement, but if Hughes’ effort was in effect, it would have failed since it got only 56% of the vote.

South Dakota finds itself at a veritable Bermuda Triangle of election factors that attract out-of-state influence. It’s a state where it’s relatively easy to get on the ballot, media costs are cheap by national standards and campaign finance laws are hard to enact ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political spending is a form of free speech.

In the end, there’s not much that the Legislature can do to keep away out-of-state interests and their fat wallets. But lawmakers can help out voters by curbing their baser instinct to continually use their power to put even more constitutional amendments on the ballot.

This past week, I started out in a new job. After six years serving as your lieutenant governor, I had the opportunity to shorten my title. I’d like to take some time to share some things you might not know about me.

 I have a wonderful wife named Sandy who I have been married to for nearly 44 years. I wouldn’t be here today without her support and encouragement. Together, we have four sons, four daughters-in-law, and seven grandchildren: Jesse and Sarah and their children Ladd, Sully, and Gus; Cody and Liz and their children Tally and Josey; Reggie and Jennifer and their son Lincoln; and Tristen and Kalen and their daughter Birkin.

I’m a fifth-generation South Dakotan. My father’s grandfather, Allen Rhoden, came to a place in western South Dakota called Chalkbutte in 1907. My mother was a Murphy. Her family came west on horses and wagons and homesteaded in the Two Rivers area, about 20 miles west of Union Center. Some of the original foundations of my family’s homesteads still stand today.

My dad was named Allen after his grandfather. He and my mom, Mildred, raised five kids. My twin sister, Lorie, and I are the fourth and fifth. Mom and Dad taught us the importance of faith in Jesus Christ, and faith is still central in my life.

My parents also taught us the value of work. Hard work is part of life on the ranch. Even today, I’m still happiest when I’m working with my hands. There’s value in working to create something from start to finish.

Service in the military has always been a big part of my family. My great-great-great grandfather came to America with General Lafayette to fight in the Revolutionary War, and his four brothers all died in the Revolution. My grandfather, John, served in World War I and fought in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. My dad served in World War II and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Two of my brothers served in the Army, one of them in Vietnam. And my son Cody was a Black Hawk pilot.

So when I came of age, I signed up for the South Dakota National Guard and served for six years. As a former Guardsman, it is a great honor to serve as commander-in-chief of the South Dakota National Guard.

I’ve also been active in my community around Union Center. I’ve been a leader in our church. I served on the board at our local Cenex. For several years, I coached women’s softball and boys’ basketball. I still sing bass in a men’s quartet. And I served five years on the Meade County school board.

I got elected to the Legislature in 2001 and served there for 16 years, including in various leadership positions. In 2018, Kristi Noem asked me to be her running mate. We won that election and were reelected in 2022, so I served six years as her lieutenant governor before rising to the office of governor just a short time ago.

I promise you that I am prepared for this job and understand the gravity of the responsibility that has been placed on me. Serving the people of South Dakota in this capacity will be the great honor of my life. I promise to lead with civility, openness, responsiveness, and the common-sense conservative values that have made South Dakota so great.

I would like to make one request of each of you. Please pray for me and for my family. We all work hard and try to do our best, but we are nothing without the help of the Good Lord.

Thank you. May God continue to bless the great state of South Dakota.

Larry Rhoden is the 34th governor of South Dakota.

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons