The Brookings Register
BROOKINGS — Voters in districts 7 and 8 seem to have an affinity for familiar faces in the South Dakota House, deciding to return three Republican incumbents to Pierre along with one Republican …
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BROOKINGS — Voters in districts 7 and 8 seem to have an affinity for familiar faces in the South Dakota House, deciding to return three Republican incumbents to Pierre along with one Republican newcomer.
In District 7, Republican incumbents Roger DeGroot and Mellissa Heermann overcame their Democratic opponents, Fedora Butler-Sutton and Blake Stevens. With all 10 precincts reporting in Brookings County, the vote breakdown as of 11:45 p.m. Tuesday was:
DeGroot and Heermann were, understandably, ecstatic in phone calls with the Brookings Register.
“The whole election was all about grassroots, working with the people, listening to the people what they wanted me to vote for, and that’s what I did,” DeGroot said. “I’m extremely excited about tonight … people came out and they voted for who they thought would best represent Brookings in the House next year, plain and simple.”
Heermann shared similar sentiments.
“Being in Pierre and being able to have the opportunity to represent our district — which is so full of vitality and loves the arts and education and so diverse and such a beautiful district — it’s an honor, one of the greatest honors in my life,” she said. “I’m very tickled to have the opportunity to go back to Pierre, represent District 7 and get back to work.”
They also talked briefly about what they’re looking forward to in the upcoming legislative session, with focuses on education and building relationships.
“I’m all about education (and) I really want to be the chair of the House (Education) Committee next year,” DeGroot said. “We’re excited about what happened tonight — I’m all about education and Brookings, and what we can do to move Brookings forward.”
Meanwhile, Heermann noted that, “I think there’s going to be a lot of relationship building because we are once again going to have a pretty significant turnover of legislators. (It gives) the opportunity to maybe even help mentor some other first-time legislators.”
She pointed out that some challenges await as well.
“We know that there was, I think, a 15% drop in revenue for the state in September and so there are some questions around what that budget is going to look like and the budget discussion,” Heermann said. “I think there’s a lot of things to look forward to and a lot of good legislation to bring, but I think there’s also going to be some challenges as we look ahead to the budget.”
Sutton-Butler and Stevens took their losses in stride, with both planning to stick around.
“I will keep my eye on the (South Dakota) House. I will keep tabs on the incumbents … because there are a number of issues that I thought would have worked against them,” Sutton-Butler said. “They both were against (Referred Law 21), and I thought for sure that that would have taken votes away from them because neither of them considered the danger — health and safety conditions, you know. They both talked about it more like it will bring jobs, and that to me is very problematic, and we got to keep our eyes on that.”
RL 21 was a ballot issue that dealt with CO2 pipelines in South Dakota, one that ended up on the ballot thanks to the Legislature, but was being rejected on Tuesday night by voters to the tune of 119,942 against the issue and 73,217 for it as of 12:15 this morning. That was with 403 of 691 precincts reporting across the state.
With the election decided, Stevens said he plans to focus on his degree work at South Dakota State University, where he’s a non-traditional junior majoring in political science, and finish that with a 2026 graduation planned. That said, politics are a sure part of his future.
“I love Brookings. I love the district. I don’t see myself leaving right away,” he said. “The opportunity is still there. I feel like I, given the amount of time I had, I felt like I did a pretty good job. (I had) close to 3,000 votes and I only had about a two-month campaign — I’d say that’s pretty good going up against the incumbents.”
All in all, 18,433 District 7 votes were cast in Brookings County — with 7,597 of those going to Sen. Tim Reed, a Republican who was unopposed after Democrat Patty Bacon dropped out of the race earlier in the year.
Meanwhile, voters in District 8 voted to return incumbent Republican Tim Reisch of Howard to the state House in Pierre, along with another Republican, newcomer Tim Walburg of Madison. The breakdown of there was, as of 12:15 this morning, with 28 of 33 precincts reporting:
Greg Zimmerman, a Libertarian candidate, was the third hopeful in District 8. He brought in 1,370 votes, or 10% of the total.
Reisch and Walburg offered their post-win thoughts to the Register on Tuesday night.
“I appreciate very much the support that the voters have shown and look forward to working hard for them in the next two years,” Reisch said.
Walburg said, “It is an honor and a privilege to be able to represent the folks of District 8 and throughout Lake County, Kingsbury, Miner and Brookings County. I will work extremely hard to represent them to the best of my ability.”
As for the upcoming legislative session?
“Passing the budget I think is going to be a big thing — I think revenues are down. It doesn’t look like the tax on consumables is going to be rolled back, so that’s a good thing,” Reisch said. “I got a couple of ideas for bills surrounding some constituent issues that they brought to me. Just kind of back to work and (I) look forward to getting back out there.”
Walburg’s thoughts were similar.
“We need to operate with a balanced budget and knowing potentially that this could come back in the future and this is something that some of the citizens in South Dakota obviously wanted and … we need to be prepared for that to happen again,” he said.
— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.
