The calendar has recently flipped over to 2024 and that means the 99th Legislative session has started on January 9th. As your District 25 Senator, I will be writing a weekly column to keep you updated on important legislative items.
Our first week of the new session has been filled with information gathering and speeches. On Tuesday, January 9th, we heard the State of the State address from Governor Noem.
Her speech highlighted her Top Ten List of things we are doing here in South Dakota to ensure that Freedom Works Here. If you haven’t heard her speech yet, you can visit https://listen.sdpb.org/politics/2024-01-09/read-noems-full-2024-state-of-the-state-address to read it. On Wednesday, January 10th, we listed in on the State of the Judiciary delivered by the Chief Justice Jensen and the State of the Tribes address. The State of the Tribes address was given by Santee Sioux Tribal Vice President Cynthia J. Allen-Weddell. The vice president of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe encouraged our State Government to welcome more opportunities to collaborate with the Tribes.
This will likely be another eventful legislative session that has its unique issues. Along with budget decisions that need to be made, there will also be discussions on CO2 / eminent domain reform, education choice, election integrity and many other issues. At this point in time, I only have one piece of Legislation out on www.sdlegislature.gov and that is SJR 503 which is an application for a convention of states under Article V of the Constitution of the United States, to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and to limit the terms of office for members of Congress and other federal officials. While I’d love to encourage everyone to reach out to members of the Legislature to encourage them to vote for this resolution, the simple fact is that many members of our super-majority Republican legislature simply don’t care about reigning in our out of control federal government.
If you are interested in following along with any of our committees or chambers this session, there are two great ways to do that. First, visit www.sdlegislature.gov as this is the Legislature's home page where you can find any information about session that you are looking for. On the front page you will find a schedule of committees and when the House and Senate will be meeting and what's on the agenda for each meeting. You can also find listings of all the bills that we will be working on this session. Additionally, if you want to listen into a committee or chamber you can click on the South Dakota Public Broadcasting icon next to that scheduled meeting to listen live. The Second way to listen and watch is to visit www.SD.Net where you can find all the live audio from the committees and the live audio and video streams from the House and Senate Chambers.
Finally, if you have any questions about how to find information about a bill or committee, or any questions at all about session please contact me. I can be reached most anytime by phone at 605-999-2948 and by email at . If you do call and I’m unable to answer, try sending me a text and I will text or call you back later. Additionally, if you email please include that you are from District 25 and what town you're from. We get 100s of emails a day and I simply cannot reply back to them all, but if I know that you are from our district, I will get back to you! Lastly, if you are planning a trip up to the Capitol for a visit during session please let me know so that we can find a time to meet up while you are here! Have a great week and God Bless!
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Senator Tom Pischke
SD Senate – District 25
Senate Education Committee
Senate Local
Government Committee
Senate Tribal-Relations
Committee
Cell: 605-999-2948
Email 1:
Email 2:
