South Dakota's term-limit 'loophole' targeted

Sen. Brent Hoffman says he's assembled statewide team to put proposal on 2024 ballot

Sen. Brent Hoffman, right, is pushing to reform South Dakota’s legislative term limits. (The Dakota Scout)

A first-year lawmaker from Sioux Falls doesn’t think he or anyone else should be able to serve more than eight years in the South Dakota Senate or House of Representatives — ever.

Sen. Brent Hoffman has begun the process to initiate a public vote in 2024 that would overhaul the state’s current limits on the number of terms that lawmakers can serve in the South Dakota Legislature. 

South Dakota is one of just a handful of states that impose term limits on its state legislature. Right now, legislators here cannot serve more than four consecutive two-year terms in either chamber of the Legislature. But that leaves the door open for a state representative or senator to switch chambers when they term out and then do it again eight years later. 

And that’s why the Sioux Falls-area senator is taking aim at the current term limit rules, proposing instead that South Dakotans shouldn’t be able to spend more than eight years in each chamber, regardless of whether their terms were consecutive.   

“With a few complicated exceptions, term limits have never failed when put before the voters,” Hoffman told The Dakota Scout Friday. “However, they fail nearly every time that they are brought to a legislature. You can see the obvious disconnect.” 

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