Session Thoughts week of Feb 1

A Dispatch from the Arena-The Fight Over HB 1005 The bill I brought forward – HB 1005 – got deferred to the 41st day in State Affairs. It’s straight-up tax policy, but it landed in the wrong committee and took a hit. Still, huge thanks to everyone who showed up to testify, whether you backed it or pushed back. Some of you drove hours in winter weather to have your say. That’s the real deal – regular people stepping into the ring, speaking plain truth face-to-face. That room felt alive with something deeper: the timeless clash between building something new and letting fear shut it down.

I’ve been working the halls this week, talking to lawmakers from every corner of South Dakota. Solid people, some cautious, some now fired up, are starting to see the bigger picture. That’s why I’m seriously considering a smokeout on Monday. Not ego – duty. A smokeout pulls the bill out of the graveyard and puts it on the floor where we can debate it, fix it, and make it stronger if we’ve got the guts. This isn’t just procedure. It’s the core human battle: do we face the chaos together and create order, or do we let another good idea die quietly in committee?

What’s Happening to Rural South Dakota I’ve watched rural South Dakota lose ground my whole life. I’m not okay with it.

I grew up on a farm southeast of Hazel – still my home. Hazel school, Bryant, Hayti, graduated Hamlin in ’84. I remember packed churches, full classrooms before consolidation, main streets that actually had life. Now a bank closes, a grocery store boards up, another sharp kid leaves for a city job. We wish them luck – and we lose another piece of ourselves.

Half the state’s economy now runs through the Sioux Falls area. They get it: big employers keep communities breathing. Watertown locked that in with manufacturing and ethanol. Brookings did the same. Those towns aren’t fading – they’re holding because they’ve got anchors.

Data centers and AI infrastructure can be that anchor for the rest of rural South Dakota. Tiny land use, high-paying tech jobs, major property tax revenue going straight to counties and schools. They don’t eat farmland – they help pay for it.

We all say we want to protect farming for the next generation – and I’m 100% there. But what about the kid who wants a different future? Do we keep telling him there’s no place here unless he farms? Saying “no” to everything new is the easy way out. We used to freak out over a Lutheran marrying a Catholic or warn Hazel kids not to hang out in Henry. We moved past that small-minded stuff – time to move past reflexively killing every fresh opportunity too. We’re stewards of this place, not just owners. Turning away real investment isn’t protecting rural life – it’s managing a slow decline.

The Charge Roosevelt would ride hard for less than this. Dostoevsky would call it the moral drama of suffering turned into meaning through bold choice. Jung would say we’re facing our shadow – the fear of change that threatens the old order. Peterson would tell us to speak truth, own the responsibility, and build the competence to handle what’s coming. I’m choosing to fight. Not angry – focused. Speak straight, amend smart, and bring the conviction.

My HB188 & HB1189 bills advanced smoothly out of Transportation Committee with good support and are headed to consent calendar next week – practical help for working folks on the ground.

But HB 1005 is the bigger fight. If we bring it back, we choose life over slow fade.

If we leave it buried, we accept rural South Dakota quietly slipping away.

Tell me what you think. Call, email, come to Pierre. The floor is open. Grateful to serve District 4,

Rep. Kent Roe