Governor Larry Rhoden and Attorney General Marty Jackley both have elections to win in November, so they can’t accept their crushing legal defeat at the hands of Nancy Turbak Berry, Mayday Health, and lawyer JIm Leach in federal court last month. Yesterday, Rhoden and Jackley formally appealed Judge Camela C. Theeler’s injunction against 2026 House Bill 1274, their First Amendment-violating restriction on telling South Dakotans about abortion:
In court documents filed Monday, Jackley and Rhoden criticized Theeler’s ruling and Mayday’s advertising, which formerly included placards at gas station pumps in the state.
“The Court has legalized the solicitation and aiding and abetting of an illegal drug and erroneously broadened the scope of the term advertising,” the state said in its court filing, adding that the ruling “could just as easily protect the solicitation and aiding and abetting of online methamphetamine sales by groups who claim to simply ‘provide information’ about methamphetamine and offer consumers the ‘choice’ to commit an illegal act” [Meghan O’Brien, “Governor and Attorney General Appeal to Defend South Dakota’s Ban on Abortion-Pill Advertising,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.08.03].
Rhoden and Jackley aren’t saying anything there that wasn’t heard and rejected at the District Court in Rapid City. Either they’re just rolling the dice for more Trumpy judges at the appeals level, or they’d better come up with some new arguments to explain why they get to shut down even the mere mention of abortion pills in South Dakota.