Attorney General Marty Jackley may be to busy running for Congress to come up with any really good ideas for the Legislative Session. Among his ten mostly edge-frittering bills for the 2026 Session is Senate Bill 17, an unnecessary measure to ban South Dakota campaigns from taking foreign money.
SDCL 12-27-21 bans South Dakota candidates and political committees (parties, PACs, ballot question committees) from accepting contributions from the state, state agencies, political subdivisions, foreign governments, federal agencies, or the federal government. AG Jackley’s SB 17 adds “foreign nationals” to that list of forbidden sources of political money. It also adds loans to the help politicians can’t take from those sources.
SB 17 increases the penalty for taking foreign cash from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a Class 6 felony. Note that the penalty applies to the taker, not the giver. SB 17 also invokes the emergency clause, meaning SB 17, if passed, would take effect immediately, affecting candidates in this year’s June primary.
But would it really affect primary candidates, or anybody in South Dakota? South Dakota does not have and SB 17 does not create any campaign finance cops (which we’d have if the Legislature hadn’t repealed IM 22, the Anti-Corruption Act, in 2017!), so enforcement of SB 17 is dubious. Besides, foreign money isn’t streaming into South Dakota campaign coffers, in part because it’s already illegal. Federal law already bans foreign contributions in connection with federal, state, or local elections. A.G. Jackley knows this, because his own SB 17 cites that federal law for its definition of “foreign national”. And even that federal law doesn’t stop foreign interests from funneling money into American politics via “social welfare organizations” like the NRA.
Enacted, SB 17 would have zero effect on South Dakota campaigns. But don’t expect Jackley’s primary opponent Senator Casey Crabtree (R-8/Madison) to try making any political hay by opposing SB 17. Swept up in the same fawning over Trump to which Jackley has surrendered his reason and soul, Senator Crabtree will take the easy “foreigners are dangerous!” path instead of taking a more classical and consistent conservative position to point out that SB 17 is political grandstanding that will clutter the law books with a redundant, unenforceable, and unnecessary statute aimed at a problem that does not exist.
My daughter is married to an Aussie. She works for a consultancy that advises many worlkd-wide clients regarding trade and agriculture in China.. As an expert on agricultural trade If she came back to South Dakota to run for Thune’s Senate seat, I would expect she would want to reach out to her husband, her in-laws and her many worldwide friends for donations to her campaign. Why shouldn’t she be able to do that?
If an engineering professor at SDSM&T is from Isreal or Taiwan, but has an interest in building a business in South Dakota, should she not be able to plunk down a hundred bucks to support a candidate for mayor who has been helpful in helping her navigate city permitting?
I’m just asking. I generally support strict limits on campaign contributions. I would put $200 limits on total donations from one person to one campaign. I think it is more important to limit out-of-state donations. That’s traditionally been the way Republicans have been corrupted.