“I think it was a good first showing for a lot of new legislators. And that is exciting because it means there’s a bright future. I mean, if we stay the course, if we keep electing good people, if we keep the people we got in there. Then I think we’ve got a bright future.” - Logan Manhart
HB1052 - prohibit the exercise of eminent domain for a pipeline that carries carbon oxide.
Transcript:
Dave Roetman: This is the Making Waves Podcast. My name is Dave Roetman. We're here with Logan Manhart, representative of District 1. Welcome, Logan.
Logan Manhart: Hey Dave, thanks for having me.
Dave Roetman: Thanks for being on. Tell us a little bit about your background, your district, where you're from, and how you got involved in politics.
Logan Manhart: Yeah, sure thing. So I do represent District 1, which is basically all of rural Brown County outside of Aberdeen, then Dane Marshall County, and then most of Roberts County. So I've got a pretty rural district overall.
My family's been here, gosh, for 25, 26 years, basically my whole life in the Aberdeen area. We own some real estate here in Aberdeen. I spent the last year working in construction, and this is my first year in the legislature.
So the 2025 session, the 100th legislative session was my first session, and it's been exciting. Yeah, it's been an adventure, it's been a journey. And why I got involved in politics, I mean, I grew up around it, and I always heard about all the problems going on on the national level, and then on the state level, on the news, and on the radio.
And eventually you just say, well, how can I fix it? I mean, how can I get involved, and how can I be a part of that process that we're always hearing about on the news? And eventually I decided to pull the trigger and hop in.
Dave Roetman: That's great. I tell people that people tend to fixate on the big races, the senator race, the presidential race. But if you really want to be involved, you have to start at the bottom. At the bottom you have your local races, your school boards, your city councils, your legislative races, and that's how you really change America.
Reagan once said, all great change in America starts at the dinner table.
Logan Manhart: Oh, absolutely, yeah, definitely. And that has definitely been a spotlight for, I think, the conservative movement over the last couple years, especially since President Trump got in office. I think there's been just a general awakening or people are paying attention.
I mean, they want to know, well, who actually is on your school board? Who actually is on your county commission? And as you've seen with some of the fights you've had in the legislature, that actually matters, who's on the local level.
Dave Roetman: What do you think of the first legislative session that you had?
Logan Manhart: I think it was a mixed bag. I think there were a lot of good ideas that we worked on.
I mean, obviously there was House Bill 1052. We were able to stop the CO2 pipeline from getting put in, and that was definitely a major victory. On the other hand, yeah, huge victory, absolutely.
And that was something I had ran on and many other people had ran on. So we saw a big victory there on that front. Now, when you get to other things like education or tax reform, I mean, we didn't fulfill President Trump's agenda on the state level for reforming education.
I know we tried to pass a few things and they didn't make it through, so we didn't succeed on that front. And we were not able to get tax reform the way we wanted it done. And obviously that leads into a much broader conversation as to where we're spending money in this state, because we can reform the tax system all we want, but if our spending is just as crazy, then it doesn't really do a whole bunch.
So it's a mixed bag. We definitely saw some good victories, some things to work on next session, and even after that. I mean, there's still plenty of work to be done.
Dave Roetman: Politics is a long game, and you're never going to have the perfect solution to anything. And you also, of course, over time, you learn more about what's going on, and you just have to take your time and make things happen incrementally. I mean, the way we got here is over a century, is how we got here. And I think that it's gonna take a while to set things right.
So do you think the legislative session was a success overall?
Logan Manhart: I guess generally, yeah, I think it was. I think we got a lot more done than maybe expected in some ways, because we did have a lot of good, conservative legislators get elected.
But back to maybe the end of my last question, there's still so much work to be done. I think it was a good first showing for a lot of new legislators, and that's exciting, because it means there's a bright future. I mean, if we stay the course, if we keep electing good people, if we keep the people we've got in there, then I think we've got a bright future.
Dave Roetman: I'd agree. Do you think the fight for property rights is over?
Logan Manhart: You know, I don't think so, and I think we've seen some news about that coming out recently on the federal level. I think they're now trying to step in and try to undo all the work we've done on the property rights front.
We've managed to enshrine in our state, for the most part, what the state can do when it comes to taking or not taking someone's property. But there was always a concern, well, even if we win on the state level, what happens if the people at the federal level want to come in and override it? And that's, it sounds like things are starting to turn in that direction. I know a bill was just brought up on the federal level to basically prevent the states from being able to stop these type of projects on the state level, which is not good.
So, to answer your question, the fight is still ongoing, and we just gotta keep at it.
Dave Roetman: The government that governs best, governs least, and is most local. So, thank you for taking on that fight.
Logan Manhart: Yeah, absolutely.
Dave Roetman: What are your plans for the next legislative session? What do you plan on tackling?
Logan Manhart: Well, probably the biggest thing, and maybe we'll get into this as we go on, is when we're bringing up legislation, we often hit a bottleneck from the establishment. And that can be seen sometimes from the governor's office, whether it's from the current governor or not, doesn't really matter.
I mean, it's just historically how it's been. The next session, really getting on with education, getting some serious tax reform done, trying to flesh out some of those ideas, I suppose. I know we're kind of covering the same things, but that's really the nuts and bolts of it.
And that's gonna boil down to, I think, as we move forward, who's gonna be the executive of our state for the next two and four years after this next election. I think that's really gonna set the tone for how much we can accomplish in the near future.
Dave Roetman: The governor does have a great deal of influence, but the legislature has its place, too. Do you have any specific legislation that you're planning on bringing, education, tax reform, and property rights? Is there anything that you wanna tackle, and specifically, especially property rights?
Logan Manhart: Well, I think we have to tackle spending, and a large portion of that spending is on education. So we need to make sure that our spending on education is actually, we're seeing positive results from that. So I don't personally plan on bringing any bills on the property tax front and the education front, though I know those things will come up.
We gotta cut property taxes. I mean, that's the biggest thing. We can't just shovel the money around. We've gotta stop the bleeding. When it comes to specifics, I don't have anything particularly, but those things will for sure come up, and we need to make sure our spending is going well. We're spending efficiently and effectively, and we're gonna have to eventually cut taxes.
Dave Roetman: Property taxes are a big deal. I hear this from a lot of people, and it hurts most is the lower-income and fixed-income people, little old ladies on fixed income who can't afford property tax increases like they've been getting. And I think it's a very complicated issue, and there's got to be a solution to this, but we have to look at this very carefully.
Maybe shift taxation to another source, and possibly just cut spending. Honestly, government is dependent upon taxes, and maybe if it loses less tax revenue, they need to do with less.
Logan Manhart: Absolutely.
I heard a stat the other day. South Dakota has the most state employees per capita than almost any other state in the country, which is wild when you think about little, humble, old South Dakota. You don't realize that, for example, in a town of Groton, if you do the math, that's like 20 state employees for a town of 1,500 people.
I mean, it's just crazy. We've got a bureaucracy that needs to be cut. We've got inefficiency everywhere.
There's a world, I would love to see it, where we have the leanest and most efficient state government in the country. That's the world that I want to get to, and it's gonna mean cuts. Nobody wants to talk about cuts.
Does everybody want to pay less to the government? Absolutely, I'm all for it. That also means you've got to cut the spending. We've got to cut the bureaucracy.
Dave Roetman: I think there's a lot of movement along that line, especially with this last legislative session, your passing of the new powers and authority for a State Auditor. I think that'll help a lot, and the reform that Marty Jackley has pushed for.
Logan Manhart: Absolutely, that's exactly what we're talking about here.
I didn't realize how little power the state auditor had until this last year, where most of the power had lied with the executive branch to basically do their own auditing of themselves, which, I don't know how you can be a state auditor and not have the ability to audit the state, and that's basically what we were trying to do. This session was to let the auditor have the ability to audit the state, and that's one of those weird examples of things where, wow, with South Dakota, is that really how we've been running things this whole time, and everybody just kind of shrugs and says, yeah, we all knew about it, but we couldn't do anything about it, and that's the type of corruption that I don't think we can let slide anymore.
Dave Roetman: Final thoughts?
Logan Manhart: Well, I know this big, you know, the governor's race will be coming up here, and that's gonna be certainly exciting.
It sounds like there'll be a packed field. I know I've heard anywhere from, there might be three people in the race to as much as five people in the race. I know I've, you know, I've personally encouraged my friend Toby Doeden here in Aberdeen to potentially run for governor, and I know he's got a big announcement coming up here in the next couple weeks, so I'm looking forward to that.
At the end of the day, moving forward, we're gonna need an executive in the state that can get the job done, that can actually work with the legislature to pass true conservative legislation, and I think that's gonna be a big priority for a lot of people moving forward, because we've had a lot of same old, same old, and I know maybe a lot of people are not thinking about the governor's race right now. I think they will be soon, and at the end of the day, it comes down to, well, who can win the race, and that's how things are gonna go. I'm looking forward to the next session.
I'm looking forward to getting things done, and honestly, I'm looking forward to two to four to six years from now to see where we can go as a conservative movement, people who have kept up the fight for property rights, and we're now gonna keep up the fight to lower taxes, keep up the fight to cut out corruption in this state. I'm excited. I'm excited to see where we as a movement can go, as a legislature, where we can go, and hopefully continue to make a good future for South Dakotans.
Dave Roetman: I think we're going in the right direction, and thank you for your service. This has been the Making Waves podcast. My name is Dave Roetman.
We've been here with Logan Manhart, District One. Thank you, Logan.
Logan Manhart: Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.
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