SJR 1: Republicans Want to Limit Legislators to Eight Consecutive Terms

Remember how back in September I noted that South Dakota’s Republican legislators tend to put constitutional amendments on the ballot that restrict rights? Well, here they come again!

Senator Michael Rohl (R-1/Aberdeen) and three Republican co-sponsors—Senators Casey Crabtree (R-8/Madison) and Glen Vilhauer (R-5/Watertown) and Representative Aaron Aylward (R-6/Harrisburg) have filed Senate Joint Resolution 501, which would put on the 2026 ballot a constitutional amendment tightening term limits for legislators.

Right now, Article 3 Section 6 of the South Dakota Constitution prohibits legislators from serving more than four full consecutive terms—eight years—in either the House or the Senate. Voters approved these term limits as part of an initiated amendment limiting terms for legislators, state constitutional officers, and (unconstitutionally) members of Congress. These Legislative term limits ushered in an era of chamber-hopping, as Representatives who reach the four-term limit in the House run for Senate and fourth-term Senators run for House.

SJR 1 would keep the four-terms-per-chamber limit but add a new restriction: we couldn’t elect anyone to either chamber who has served eight consecutive terms—16 years—in Pierre.

SJR 1 wouldn’t change much about the membership of the Legislature. The only current legislator who would be affected by SJR 1 is Representative Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen), who despite my best efforts is in his 12th consecutive term in the Legislature, having sat in either the House or the Senate since 2003. He could run for reëlection in 2026, but if voters approve SJR 1 and it takes effect on July 1, 2027, Novstrup would have to sit out the 2028 election and focus on go-karts for two years before trying to return to the Capitol. The next-closest legislators threatened by SJR 1 would be seventh-termers Senator Kyle Schoenfish (R-19/Scotland, currently third term in Senate after four terms in House starting in 2013) and Rep. Aylward’s seatmate Rep. Ernie Otten (R-6/Tea, third term in House after four terms in Senate starting in 2013). Otten and Schoenfish could run for eighth terms in 2026, but if they run and win, SJR 1 would prevent them from running for either chamber again in 2028. SJR 1 would next push out Rep. Larry Zikmund (R-14/Sioux Falls), who is in his sixth term and, if he insists on hanging around, would hit the SJR 1 eight-term limit in 2030.

Given that SJR 1 would affect only four members of our 105-seat Legislature in two election cycles, SJR 1 is far from a toothy term limit. It imposes no lifetime cap on Legislative service; it just requires that, every 16 years, really successful candidates take a two-year break. Sorting through the Legislature’s historical tenure reports, I find only 99 out of 4054 listed legislators have served 16 years or more (and that’s total service—I haven’t dug through all of the records to determine how many of those long-timers served all of their years consecutively, without interruption, but I see two of the five legislators tied for the longest service at 30 years had gaps in their tenure). So far, death, fatigue, and the wisdom of voters and legislators have kept 98% of legislators serving more than the 16 consecutive years that SJR 1 would enforce as the max.

But term limits are term limits, and term limits are bad, because they ultimately restrict the rights of citizens to elect the people they think are best for the serious work of representative democracy. Voters don’t need term limits to address poor performance; every two years, voters have the opportunity to replace any legislator who isn’t doing the people’s work. The voters of 2028, 2030, and however many more free and fair future elections may occur in our grand Republic deserve the right to cast their votes for whomever they want for whatever office they want and not have that decision made for them by the legislators or voters of 2026.

With SJR 1, Senator Rohl and his colleagues are trying to restrict the rights of future voters. On principle, we should reject SJR 1 and trust the voters to exercise good judgment in choosing their legislators at every election.