I would promote less regulations, cutting government expenses to lower taxes and promoting a healthy economy, providing more and better paying jobs. I believe that would support access to support access to afford housing.
I support public education, but I believe in promoting alternative education's giving parents more control over their kids education. It would also create competition, giving more equitable and quality education.
The referendum process in South Dakota does give the citizens a voice in direct government, but I believe we need to increase the threshold of passing laws in the constitution
I'm confident with recently passed laws for providing, citizenship, and voter ID will maintain our security integrity in our elections.
I don't believe it's the government's rule to get involved in childcare
Getting control of our yearly budget, continuing to cut property taxes and recidivism in our prison system.
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To make housing accessible we need to focus on the underlying reasons that cause the affordability issues. Families are struggling with the rising prices of groceries, gas, and daily expenses.
When we have inflation rising at a rate much greater than wages there will be issues with people thriving in South Dakota. We need to focus on strengthening our labor force and providing our citizens with their best chance at the American dream.
We continue to talk about the rising cost of property taxes and have yet to make measurable relief to homeowners. We must find a commonsense approach to lowering this burden without an increase in sales tax that simply offsets the savings by transferring it to another expense.
One of our largest expenses as a state is public education and that is money well invested in our future. However, we’ve seen multiple attempts in recent legislative sessions to divert public funds to private school tuition. Every family should have the freedom to choose where their child gets their education, but public funds must remain within the public school system. If parents choose to home school or send their children to a private institution, they are responsible for that additional cost. We need to focus on compensating our public school teachers to allow them to live well and keep them in our state for years to come.
The citizen led initiative process is a building block of democracy here in South Dakota. In a state held by a supermajority it is often the only path to make progressive change on issues that affect citizens. I would like to see a safeguard put in place to protect the decision of voters from being so easily overturned by legislature or the Governor. I appreciate the will of the people in our state and believe all legislators should work hard to uphold the decisions made by their constituents.
Prior to the implementation of these changes in 2026, South Dakota already required a picture ID to vote. We have had very few instances of fraudulent voting in our state, and these new regulations are unnecessary. Providing proof of citizenship requires additional paperwork and cost to voters that will make registering to vote inaccessible for some. The recently implemented bill allowing for any citizen to question another's citizenship will undoubtedly cause fear to some when they arrive to vote and brings the possibility of confrontation at our polling locations. I have concerns that these laws will impact the willingness of citizens to volunteer, making voting harder and a longer process for all of us.
Erin Healy’s HB 1132 from last session would have been an excellent start to narrowing the supply and demand gap in childcare. To support our working families and build a stronger economy with working parents we need to provide safe spaces for children in full time daycare and after school programs. The state should explore opportunities to encourage interested high school graduates to pursue early education training and education paths. We could identify the students that are interested in working in childcare or owning a childcare facility and offer scholarship or business incentives to continue the education with an agreement to stay in the state for a predetermined amount of time.
I would love to see more moms, tradespeople, teachers, and healthcare workers elected. We need to elect people that know the challenges the middle class faces and appreciate the impact legislation can have on working families. The school choice battle that continues to threaten funding to our already underfunded public schools, legislators overruling and silencing the voice of the people, and the daily affordability crisis affecting our working families are at the top of my mind right now.
