Losses mount for bills and lawmakers seeking to rehash pandemic disputes in South Dakota

Pandemic-era political disputes may be fading in South Dakota after lawmakers who proposed COVID-19-related bills during the 2026 legislative session failed to enact their proposals, and some of the legislators who sponsored or supported the bills either lost their primary races or aren’t seeking reelection.

Six pieces of failed legislation would have shielded doctors and pharmacists from liability for providing prescription drugs unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration for COVID treatment, labeled blood donated by people who’ve received COVID vaccines so vaccine skeptics could avoid receiving it, banned employers and schools from requiring genetic-based immunizations such as some COVID vaccines, restricted the actions cities can take to fight a pandemic, and urged a lawsuit against China for its alleged role in causing the pandemic.

Four of the bills advanced from the House Health and Human Services Committee to a vote of the full House, where they were rejected. The two others failed in other committees.

The members who voted in favor of all four of the bills that advanced out of the House Health and Human Services Committee were Republicans Dylan Jordan of Clear Lake, Josephine Garcia of Watertown, Bobbi Andera of Sioux Falls, Tony Kayser of Sioux Falls, Brandei Schaefbauer of Aberdeen, Logan Manhart of Aberdeen, and Heather Baxter of Rapid City.

Jordan, Garcia, Andera, Kayser, Manhart and Baxter lost their primary races on June 2, which means they won’t be able to seek reelection in November. Baxter later secured the Republican nomination for secretary of state and is running for that post in November. Schaefbauer did not run for reelection.

Allie Alvine, founder of South Dakota Families for Vaccines, said the combination of legislative defeats and electoral losses could indicate that vaccine skepticism no longer carries the political strength it did during and immediately after the pandemic.

“But we’re not taking our foot off the gas,” Alvine said.

Her organization intends to continue lobbying lawmakers about the benefits of vaccination, such as preventing serious illness that could lead to hospitalization or death, reducing the spread of infections, lowering health care costs and strain on medical systems, and completely or nearly eliminating diseases such as smallpox, polio, diphtheria and measles.

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Schaefbauer said the bills she supported were meant to address an unresolved fight over who controls medical decision-making in South Dakota. She didn’t talk to hospital officials about the bills, she said, alleging they “made a lot of money off” the “COVID-scam-demic.”

COVID-19 has been listed as a cause of 3,190 deaths in South Dakota, including about 2,900 over a two-year stretch from 2020 to 2022.

Rep. Nick Fosness, R-Britton, serves on the House Health and Human Services Committee, works as a healthcare administrator and won his primary election. He opposed the four measures that came through the committee.

“They seemed like hangover effects from COVID,” he said.

Fosness said that after a few weeks on the committee, it became clear that testimony from medical and healthcare groups would not stop the four bills.

“Regardless of the facts and logic presented from the field, those bills were going to pass the committee and head to the floor,” he said.

The composition of House committees is selected by the leaders of the majority Republican Party. After 16 incumbent Republican South Dakota lawmakers lost their seats in June’s primary, new leadership is expected for the legislative session that begins in January.

In addition to the bills that passed the House Health and Human Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee rejected Schaefbauer’s resolution urging a lawsuit against China. The Senate State Affairs Committee rejected a bill from Sen. Tom Pischke, R-Dell Rapids, that would have restricted the actions cities can take in response to a pandemic.

Pischke is facing two felony counts for allegedly filing documents to get candidates for county party positions on the June 2 primary ballot without those candidates’ knowledge. He has pleaded not guilty, and lawyers in the case have said a potential plea deal is being discussed. In response, Pischke dropped his reelection campaign, leaving the Republican Party to choose a replacement candidate to run against an independent in November.