The Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 508 yesterday with one vote to spare. With his GOP mainstreamers and Democrats divided on nixing the Lieutenant Governor’s role as Senate President, prime sponsor Senator Steve Kolbeck (R-2/Sioux Falls) had to rely on the radical right fringe to win a slim 19-vote majority and send the proposed constitutional amendment to the House. If Senator Kolbeck can find 36 anti-LG activists in the House (psst! Steve! Tell those House radicals your resolution is the anti-Lieutenant Governor Breaks Ties amendment! Give those House mugwumps the abbreviation, and some of them will fall for it!), SJR 508 will go to the voters for their decision in November.
I ought to appreciate Senator Paul Miskimins (R-20/Mitchell) for standing with the minority against this unnecessary abolition of the Lieutenant Governor’s already minuscule constitutional authority. But he had to couch his opposition to this change in Senate management in clubby disdain for direct democracy:
Asking voters to change the constitution is too rash a response to the oddity of 2026’s functionally 34-member Senate, though, Mitchell Republican Sen. Paul Miskimins said.
He praised Venhuizen’s work as the chamber’s presiding officer and questioned the wisdom of putting questions on Senate operations in the hands of the electorate.
“Just reading my emails over the last few days, I really question the judgment of our public at this moment,” Miskimins said. “I think our founders and our constitution put a lot of thought into this process” [John Hult, “South Dakota Senators Endorse Resolution Asking Voters to Rein in Lieutenant Governor’s Authority,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.02.24].
Yo, Paul, the founders put enormous faith in the judgment of the public. Isn’t the state motto “Under God, the People Rule”, not “Under God, Paul and the Club Rule”?
Hasn’t the public shared your wisdom and, as the South Dakota Supreme Court noted in its advisory opinion on this matter last week, rejected attempts to repeal the Lieutenant Governor’s tie-breaking power in 1974, 1976, and 1986?
And, Paul, aren’t those voters the same ones who exercised their judgment to elect you?
Senator Miskimins and his Republican colleagues have remarkably refrained from waging their war on direct democracy this Session. Senator Miskimins’s derogation of the people who elected him and his fellow Senators reminds us advocates of direct democracy not to let our guard down.