Senate Approves More Free Lunches; Rhoden Can Boost Image by Signing HB 1082

The Senate yesterday approved House Bill 1082, and the Lieutenant Governor didn’t have to break a tie.

In her fourth year of fighting to fund more free meals for K-12 students, Representative Kadyn Wittman (D-15/Sioux Falls) secured a remarkable victory yesterday, as her HB 1082 passed its final Legislative hurdle on a 20–14 Senate vote. Wittman’s Senate prime sponsor, Senator Brandon Wipf (R-22/Lake Byron), gets the quote of the day with his call to Republican conscience:

Wipf said Monday that he understands the concerns of lawmakers who worry that paying for reduced-price lunches rewards families who are able to pay the lower price but don’t bother to, but that punishing kids and school districts in such situations amounts to a moral failure.

“If we are the kind of people who would inflict suffering on children just to make a point to their parents, we are a wicked people,” Wipf said [John Hult, “Fate of State Funding for Reduced-Price School Meals Rests with Governor,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.03.09].

Wicked rookie Senator Lauren Nelson (R-18.Yankton) persisted in her dodgy call to leave it to charity, and Senator Taffy Howard (R-34/Rapid City, who tried last week to kill HB 1082 without debate, put herself on the record by echoing Nelson’s buck-passing:

Sen. Taffy Howard, R-Rapid City, said schools that rack up debt from unpaid meal bills should get help from local churches, community groups or citizens, not the state.

“Schools can get donations, they can get contributions, they can cover that in some other way,” Howard said.

Yankton Republican Lauren Nelson said the bill robs communities of “the opportunity to give” to support their schools and children [Hult, 2026.03.09].

Only a wicked Republican would say that feeding kids is robbery. Lauren, will it ever occur to you that HB 1082 is the community’s way of saying, “Yes, we want to give, to kids across the state, and we’re going to do it through our government, with our tax dollars”?

Howard’s Neighbor rookie Senator Curt Voight (R-33/Rapid City) defended this giving and said there are still plenty of problems the state is leaving unaddressed for local charity to tackle:

But that’s not true, said Sen. Curt Voight, R-Rapid City. School is only in session for 185 days a year, Voight said, and families that struggle to feed their kids don’t stop struggling when the school year ends.

“That leaves another 180 days where those responsibilities are the community’s,” Voight said [Hult, 2026.03.09].

Now we get to see how Governor Larry Rhoden feels about feeding low-income kids. Rhoden has expressed a fondness for punching Democrats in the gut. But Rhoden appointed Wipf to the District 22 seat in July, so Rhoden made that effective Senate advocacy for more free school meals possible. HB 1082 will cost less than $600,000, less than one four-thousandth of the general fund, and as long as the schools don’t try sneaking any test-tube meat into the sloppy joes, why should Rhoden worry?

Politically, signing HB 1082 would be a plus for Rhoden’s reëlection campaign. Favoring free food for kids would prop up that nice-guy image he’s peddling. Any arch-conservative votes he might lose in the Republican primary are probably already going to the fringe radicals in the race; free-lunch defectors certainly wouldn’t shift allegiance to Dusty Johnson, since he loves school lunches, too, and is the most liberal (speaking very relatively) Republican in the race. And if Rhoden pulls off an upset and wins the primary, his signature on HB 1082 would deny his Democratic opponent an easy campaign issue.