PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — A majority of the South Dakota Senate’s incoming class of 32 Republicans decided in a secret vote on Friday night that Chris Karr, who’s never before been a senator, should be nominated to be in charge of their chamber when the new 2025-2026 term starts in January.
The nominee for Senate president pro tem must be still officially approved by the full Senate during a vote on the opening day the 2025 session. But that’s a formality. Karr, a Sioux Falls businessman, is already moving ahead. As to why he was selected, during a telephone interview on Monday he said, “There’s a mixture of reasons.”
Some of it was his experience. Karr will be moving over from the South Dakota House of Representatives, where he had been elected by voters to the maximum four consecutive terms that the South Dakota Constitution allows in a chamber.
For half of those eight years, Karr chaired the House Appropriations Committee. “I think I have a reputation for being fair minded and having integrity,” he said.
He began positioning last summer among Republican Senate candidates. He spoke with them about the need for lawmakers to treat one another with respect and to show respect for the institution’s processes, describing the Legislature as “an idea machine.”
That message, Karr said in the interview, resonated not only with new candidates but with some of those with legislative experience.
The 35-member Senate will look very different for the new term. Only 13 of its Republicans and two Democrats won re-election bids on Tuesday, and the rest aren’t a typical mix.
Ten will be serving their first terms as lawmakers: Glen Vilhauer, Watertown; Joy Hohn, Hartford; Lauren Nelson, Yankton; Mykala Voita, Bonesteel; Mark Lapka, Leola; Tamara Grove, Lower Brule; John Carley, Piedmont; Amber Hulse, Hot Springs; Curt Voight, Rapid City; and Greg Blanc, Rapid City.
Six are moving from the House to the Senate: Carl Perry, Aberdeen; Stephanie Sauder, Bryant; Ernie Otten, Tea; Sue Peterson, Sioux Falls; Kevin Jensen, Canton; and Karr.
And four are lawmakers who had sat out a term, or had lost a previous race for higher office, before winning election to the Senate last week: Paul Miskimins, Mitchell; Sam Marty, Prairie City; Taffy Howard, Rapid City; and Jamie Smith, Sioux Falls.
All are Republicans, except Smith. He was the Democratic challenger who lost to Republican Governor Kristi Noem in 2022.
Another issue that Karr said helped his candidacy for president pro tem was the Legislature’s passage of SB201 that would have changed how pipelines and power lines are regulated in South Dakota. He voted against it.
“201 was a divisive bill for the Republicans in the past year,” Karr said.
Opponents referred SB201 to a statewide vote. Many of the candidates who challenged Republican incumbents in the June primary elections also spoke against SB201. Voters on Tuesday rejected it, with 59% voting against it becoming law.
Karr acknowledged that generally, Senate candidates who ran against SB201 supported his bid for president pro tem. He said he still needed support from some returning senators. Asked what might be offered this year as a replacement for SB201, Karr said he didn’t know. He said he wasn’t involved as SB201 took shape during the 2024 session.
But Karr does know how he feels about the broader question of whether a CO2 carrier should be allowed to force its way through people’s property, a power known as eminent domain that other utilities and some pipelines have in South Dakota. While SB201 didn’t directly deal with eminent domain for CO2 pipelines, Karr stands with those who say that it shouldn’t be allowed.
“I don’t believe a carbon pipeline should constitute the use of eminent domain. They have to find willing landowners,” Karr said.
Karr will be back in Pierre for three days this week. He is a member of the Legislature’s Executive Board that governs year-round the lawmakers’ professional staff, known as the Legislative Research Council, and has other formal powers and duties set in state law. The Executive Board meets on Tuesday. He also is a member of the Appropriations Committee that meets on Thursday.
In between, Karr plans to sit down with LRC staff on Wednesday to talk about his new duties as president pro tem that are spelled out in the Senate rules adopted each session. Among them are deciding the committees where each legislator serves and deciding which committee hears each measure that a lawmaker introduces.
Karr will be succeeding Republican Lee Schoenbeck as pro tem. Schoenbeck didn’t seek re-election, and his legislation in recent years suggested that he wanted Democrats to hold no more power than their numbers supported.
In 2023, Schoenbeck introduced legislation that changed state law and reduced the number of Democratic lawmakers serving on the Legislature’s State-Tribal Relations Committee. In 2021 Schoenbeck introduced legislation that changed the law on how the committee’s chair and co-chair would be chosen. Also in 2021, he introduced legislation that changed how many Democrats could serve on the Legislature’s Retirement Laws Committee.
Democrats lost a Senate seat last week, reducing their number to three. Karr said he’s spoken with each of the remaining Democrats Liz Larson, Red Dawn Foster and Jamie Smith, saying he wants to work with them. However, he said there’s no way, with only three senators, that at least one Democrat can be on each of the Senate’s 14 committees.
“You can’t be two places at once, right?” he said about their physical dilemma. “I want to make sure they can sit in on the committees they want to.”
Karr noted that state government’s receipts are what he described as “soft” because, in total, they’re coming in below what the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee back in February had forecast. He said the return of Republican former President Donald Trump to the White House on January 20 should help restore consumer confidence, and that in turn should strengthen state government’s revenue stream. “Appropriations are still near and dear to my heart,” Karr said.
Two years ago, the Legislature chose Karr’s reduction of the state sales tax rate, from 4.5% to 4.2%, rather than Governor Noem’s proposal to lift the tax from most grocery items, but the Senate insisted that the final version of the tax cut also include a four-year sunset provision that causes it to expire on June 30, 2027. Karr pushed last year to make the 4.2% rate permanent, but the Senate refused.
On Monday, Karr proclaimed a clean slate now that he’s heading to the Senate. “I’m not going to drive any big policy,” he said.
Karr said he wants to identify legislative priorities with other lawmakers and the governor before the 2025 session opens on January 14. As for committee assignment, he’s still deciding.
“I want to look at it as a good baseball manager would,” Karr said. “I want to use everybody to the best of their abilities and where their interests lie.”
