SD Senator Michael Rohl

Today the Governor signed my bill SB 111, The South Dakota Digital Choice Act. This is a ground breaking bill in the social media space. It requires social media companies to be transparent on how they use customer data and requires interoperability for that data to be given to the user at their request. Competition is good and this promotes an environment that encourages that. South Dakotans should own their own digital data stored with social media sites and now they do. This is a real model for other states to follow and I expect they will.

Voters may weigh in on term limits as resolution advances from Senate committee SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – The Senate State Affairs Committee has recommended passage of a measure that would ask voters to further limit the number of terms a lawmaker can serve in the South Dakot…

My next bill (SB 5) provides better clarification to voters when they cast their ballots. I strongly support the rights of citizens to vote, and I believe they should have as much information in front of them as possible. Currently our ballot measures don’t tell the public how the issue got on the ballot. SB 5 will require the AG to specify in his disclosure statement on the ballot whether the measure was place on the ballot by collecting citizen signatures or whether it was vetted and placed on the ballot by the legislature.

I have prefiled several bills for the 2026 Legislative Session with several more to come in the weeks ahead. While some of the bills are lengthy and rather complex; others are rather short and straightforward. Over the next couple weeks I’d like to share them with you.

The first bill is attached below (Senate Bill 7) and it is a tax increase on corporations that mine Gold in the state of South Dakota. The state’s current tax structure was last adjusted in the 1990’s. It charges an income tax on the Net Profit these corporations show on paper (after expenses, salaries, bonus, dividends, etc) and it charges a severance tax based on weight of what they take out of the ground. The severance tax was set at $4 per ounce (gold was roughly $400 at the time) and it stated if gold ever reached $800 an ounce the state can charge $8 per ounce. Today gold is over $4,400 an ounce! My bill would change the static “$4/$8” tax to a 1% the value of Gold tax.

Gold is a limited commodity that isn’t found everywhere. Our state hasn’t updated our taxes on gold to accurately reflect its increase in value over the decades and I believe my bill will generate millions of dollars in ongoing revenue for the state moving forward. These South Dakota goldmines are owned by publicly traded companies that are taking advantage of South Dakota’s resources without fair compensation to the taxpayers of the state. My bill puts the taxes back on par to what the 90s legislature that created them envisioned by removing the static number and making it a percentage of value that is equivalent to the original ratio.