Bluestem Prairie

MN Supremes slightly mute press freedom in Unicorn Riot DAPL subpoena case decision

Last May, I republished Unicorn Riot nets resounding win for press against oil corporation in MN Court of Appeals. It was a decision that rejected "the oil company Energy Transfer LP’s attempt to obtain newsgathering materials through a subpoena, blunting a three-year legal pressure campaign."

The case stems from Unicorn Riot's splendid coverage of the Standing Rock protests.

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded A23-1284.

With permission, I republish Dan Fiedt's article about the opinion from Unicorn Riot below.

Consider making a tax-deductible donation to Unicorn Riot so the nonprofit news collective can continue its work.

Minnesota Supreme Court Rules on Unicorn Riot DAPL Subpoena
By Dan Feidt

St Paul, MN — Unicorn Riot’s long legal battle in Minnesota to protect newsgathering materials from attorneys working for Energy Transfer reached yet another phase: The Minnesota Supreme Court released its ruling Wednesday about the subpoena in Hennepin County that has attempted to probe our organization. The court rejected Energy Transfer’s attempt to compel the release of newsgathering materials and reporter communications; it also ruled that a judge could order a complex document called a privilege log to be created.

On the road leading to Minnesota’s highest court, the case was briefed and argued by a team last December, including attorneys from the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union and the national American Civil Liberties Union State Supreme Court Initiative, with the help of appellate expert Ryan Simatic.

“The Minnesota Supreme Court made the right call: Those who seek to pry sensitive information away from newsgatherers cannot defeat the robust protections of the MFFIA [Minnesota Free Flow of Information Act] simply by alleging that the newsgatherers trespassed or jaywalked in pursuit of a story,” said Matthew Segal, co-director of the ACLU State Supreme Court Initiative, in a statement. “A free press demands that we protect journalists from attempts to misuse the law to strongarm them into compliance.”

In April 2021, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline started trying to force Unicorn Riot to hand over sensitive and privileged materials developed in the process of covering the controversial fracked oil pipeline and the massive, historic Indigenous-led resistance against it. (See our full-length documentary, Black Snake Killaz [2017], DAPL category, and Standing Rock and DAPL content archives for dozens of original stories.)

We are grateful that we could provide coverage from Standing Rock territory, where thousands of people mobilized in a huge movement against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe was also opposed to the pipeline due to its direct impact on the waters of Lake Oahe, on which they rely for spiritual practices and ceremonies. The pipeline endangers the health of Indigenous people and others downstream to this day, particularly members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who firmly opposed the pipeline project for years. It leaked five times in just its first half year of operation — part of an enormous spray of leaks from Energy Transfer’s poorly designed infrastructure.

Repression of Indigenous people is often a forerunner to expanded future campaigns. Much like today’s federalized National Guard operations against protests in California, the North Dakota National Guard took control of the protested pipeline construction area. The campaign to crush these protests included advanced tactics by private players, including an “Information War” by the National Sheriffs Association, and espionage by security firm Tigerswan in a “counterinsurgency” campaign. The FBI sent informants, and Customs and Border Protection deployed a Reaper drone for 281 hours over six months, similar to tactics recently seen against protests in Los Angeles.

2019 Report: Infrared Aerial Surveillance Used at Standing Rock to Monitor and Track Protesters

 

hanks to the nearly a thousand supporters who donated to our Legal Defense Fund we have been able to hang tough to protect our journalism from the multi-billion dollar oil company’s litigation campaign up to this point.

In December 2022, Hennepin County District Court Judge Joseph Klein ruled Unicorn Riot should produce a log of all privileged documents and answers. We appealed this privilege log ruling, while the DAPL attorneys appealed Klein’s finding that the MFFIA applied to our nonprofit media organization.

More than a year ago, in May 2024, Unicorn Riot won a strong ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals, rejecting the oil company Energy Transfer LP’s attempt to obtain newsgathering materials through a subpoena — the court affirmed that the Watergate era MFFIA “applies despite alleged unlawful conduct, exceptions must apply before district courts can order privilege logs from third parties.” The Minnesota Supreme Court decided to accept another appeal from Energy Transfer, which was argued in St. Paul in December 2024.

The ACLU added, “The court ruled today that the law does not contain an exception for journalists who are alleged to have engaged in illegal activity, but it did not categorically bar trial courts from ordering journalists to produce privilege logs in response to document requests – with notable caveats.”

The court recognized Unicorn Riot’s newsgathering activities were privileged under the MFFIA:

“We hold that the plain language of the MFFIA protects Unicorn Riot’s newsgathering activities during the Standing Rock Protests. Nothing in the statutory text leads us to believe that the privileged information that Unicorn Riot collected during the Standing Rock Protests should be excepted from the prohibition on disclosure under the MFFIA.”

Minnesota Supreme Court ruling in case A23-1284. (Energy Transfer LP (formerly known as Energy Transfer Equity, L.P.), et al., Appellants, vs. Greenpeace International (also known as Stichting Greenpeace Council), et al., Defendants, Unicorn Riot, et al., Respondents.)

“The Court’s decision is a welcome reminder that we value independent journalism in Minnesota,” said Teresa Nelson, legal director of the ACLU-MN, in a statement. “This win is particularly important as large corporations increasingly attempt to intimidate reporters through litigation and in the face of unprecedented attacks on the freedom of the press by the Trump administration and other government officials.”

The court gave some new direction to judges in Minnesota about privilege logs, a part of the discovery process that a lawyer called “time-consuming, tedious, onerous, beastly.”

“We find nothing in the text of the MFFIA that would prevent the district court from ordering production of a privilege log. With respect to many of Energy Transfer’s requests, we agree with the court of appeals that it is difficult to see how Unicorn Riot could produce a privilege log that would allow Energy Transfer to contest the validity of the privilege claims without identifying any privileged information. But we disagree with the court of appeals’ conclusion that the district court may never order a privilege log when a party claims privilege under the MFFIA. Producing a privilege log should not require a party to disclose privileged information in the log itself. And the MFFIA clearly protects parties from having to disclose privileged information to the district court. […] And district courts should be skeptical when reviewing a party’s request for information when the opponent claims privilege under the MFFIA, particularly when a party requests a vast amount of information that is very clearly privileged, as Energy Transfer did here.”

Minnesota Supreme Court ruling in case A23-1284.

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In March 2025, in the parent case, Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, a local North Dakota jury found Greenpeace liable for $667 million in damages, which the environmental NGO is appealing.

Back in 2021, Alleen Brown and Sam Richards at The Intercept described Energy Transfer’s legal project as a “series of expensive conspiracy lawsuits against a disparate range of actors, [through which] the pipeline company has sought to paint the Standing Rock movement as the product of a vast misinformation-driven conspiracy to damage Energy Transfer.”

Trevor Timm at the Freedom of the Press Foundation described the subpoena as “a menacing attempt to intimidate a news outlet whose only ‘crime’ is being critical of the company,” — adding, “It should be thrown out immediately.”

We are also thankful for the support of many media industry and press freedom supporters, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and early coverage of our case by The Intercept. Tony Webster played a key role in supporting the entry of amicus briefs into our appeal; The Forum for Constitutional Rights also filed to support our position.

We are very thankful for the skills and persistence of our attorneys over the years fighting this case, including Chris Prozcko, Ryan Simatic, Teresa Nelson, Alicia Granse, Matthew Segal, and others who chipped in hours of research. We are also thankful for our current and former members who reported these stories from the front lines, sometimes injured and arrested, in cases that tested the boundaries of the First Amendment.

Consider lending your monetary support to help our small media org recoup approx. $55,000 we spent on this court battle for press freedoms.

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Legal Documents

2024-2025 Minnesota Supreme Court case:

• Energy Transfer LP v. Unicorn Riot: Respondents’ Brief (Oct. 21, 2024)
• ACLU Press release (July 16, 2025)
• Minnesota Supreme Court ruling (July 16, 2025)

Download the May 6 Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling here (PDF). Read the Amicus Briefs filed on Unicorn Riot’s behalf below:

• Forum for Constitutional Rights Amicus Brief (Nov. 6, 2023)
• Reporters Committee for a Free Press with Minnesota Newspaper Association (MNA), Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Sahan Journal, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN), E.W. Scripps Company Amicus Brief (Nov. 3, 2023)
• Tony Webster Amicus Brief (Nov 3, 2023)
• “Court Holds Information, Like Unicorns, Should Be Free: Unicorn Riot and the Minnesota Shield Law” By Christopher Proczko (June 2024 – Media Law Letter)

Read other court documents below:

• Read the original subpoenas against Unicorn Riot (and Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot journalist) (Mar. 17, 2022)
• Energy Transfer filed a Motion to Compel UR and Georgiades to Comply with Subpoenas Duces Tecum (June 24, 2022)
• Read Unicorn Riot’s Memorandum in Opposition to Compel Compliance (Sept. 7, 2022)
• Energy Transfer filed another brief arguing to enforce the subpoena (Sept. 14, 2022)
• Judge Klein denied Energy Transfer’s motion to compel UR to comply with their third-party subpoenas, but the court ordered UR to produce privilege logs. You can read the ruling in full here. (Dec. 16, 2022)
• Three months after a March 31, 2023 court hearing, Judge Klein denied UR’s Motion for Relief (June 29, 2023)
• Read Unicorn Riot’s appeal here (Oct. 27, 2023)
• Read Energy Transfer’s appeal here (Sept. 27, 2023)
• Energy Transfer filed Appellants – Cross-Respondents Response and Reply Brief (Nov. 27, 2023)
• Unicorn Riot’s Respondents_Cross-Appellants’ Reply Brief (Dec. 11, 2023)

Photo collage credit: Unicorn Riot.

Related posts

• Unicorn Riot nets resounding win for press against oil corporation in MN Court of Appeals
• Liberate Minnesota rally at Governor's residence: Unicorn Riot's exclusive livesteam interviews
• Dan Feidt: Remembering Sarah Janecek 

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South Dakota schools left ‘scrambling’ after feds withhold $25.8 million in funding

More sad news from Washington for kids in South Dakota.

From South Dakota Searchlight.

South Dakota schools left ‘scrambling’ after feds withhold $25.8 million in funding
by Makenzie Huber

Teacher contracts were signed in the spring and school district budgets were prepared months ago. But weeks before school starts, South Dakota schools are missing $25.8 million they planned to use for the upcoming school year, according to the state Education Department.

Distribution of congressionally approved funds were paused indefinitely by the U.S. Department of Education on June 30 for review. The department’s decision to withhold $6.8 billion in funds for education triggered alarms nationwide about how the lack of funding will affect hiring of staff as well as student enrichment, after-school and language-learning services.

The funding freeze affects several programs, including Title II-A (educator training and recruitment), Title III-A (English learner support), Title IV-A (student enrichment and after-school programs), migrant education, and adult education and literacy grants.

Sandra Waltman, director of public affairs for the South Dakota Education Association, said school districts are “scrambling” to figure out their budget without the federal funding. That could mean eliminating vacant positions ahead of the school year or dipping into reserves “as long as they can.”

“This undermines the trust the community has in their public schools. This ‘we’re going to give you money but not give you money’ situation makes families question whether their school is going to have the resources to provide an education,” Waltman said. “They might wonder if they should look elsewhere. Maybe that’s the point: to undermine the ability of the public school system to provide support to students who need them.”

Pause could lead to long-term, larger ripple effects

A coalition of Democratic attorneys general and organizations including the National Education Association and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are challenging the funding freeze in court. The organizations say the administration’s delay is an illegal “impoundment” — a violation of the federal Impoundment Control Act, which bars the executive branch from withholding appropriated funds without congressional approval.

Federal fallout

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act lets the president propose canceling funds approved by Congress. Lawmakers have 45 days to approve the request; if they don’t, it’s denied. Meanwhile, agencies can be directed not to spend the funds during that time.

South Dakota Education Secretary Joseph Graves said in an emailed statement to South Dakota Searchlight that the funding could continue “without further interruption” once the federal department completes its review.

“The funding pause means that some schools in South Dakota will need to remain flexible as they prepare for the 2025-26 school year,” Graves said. He added that schools still have access to $57 million in some Title I funds, which are primarily used to support schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families. That available funding is the “lion’s share” of federal K-12 education funding in the state.

Waltman said her organization urged South Dakota congressional delegates to “make it clear to the Trump administration that South Dakota schools need these dollars.”

She said the funding freeze will lead to larger consequences.

“If those dollars aren’t restored and we don’t see meaningful investment from the state and federal level, it’ll be difficult for our schools to sustain,” Waltman said. “They’ll look at reducing staff and cutting programs, and some rural schools will struggle to stay open.”

Huron Superintendent Kraig Steinhoff said that the fear, uncertainty and concern because of the funding freeze is “unfortunate and unnecessary.” 

“It makes people question whether or not education is going to continue to be supported,” Stenhoff said, “and whether teaching is an occupation people should consider staying in.”

How schools are handling the missing funds

Huron relied on more than $760,000 in what are now frozen funds last school year, Steinhoff said, making it one of the largest recipients in the state. Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Oglala Lakota County and Todd County also receive large amounts of frozen funding.

Oglala Lakota, Sioux Falls and Huron use many of their funds for teacher, counselor and instructional coach salaries.

Sioux Falls, the largest district in the state by number of students, has up to $3.5 million in federal funds affected by the pause.

That’s the equivalent of up to 40 full-time staff, said Kirk Zeeck, Sioux Falls assistant superintendent of academic achievement. About $1.5 million of that funding is used for instructional coaches providing professional development for teachers, including behavioral training and engagement strategies.

Most of the funding on pause at Huron goes toward salaries for extra teachers to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio and staff meant to assist and support students – such as migrant liaisons, summer school staff and paraprofessionals. The funding also goes toward transportation for elementary school students and other programs.

Since staff contracts have already been signed, schools are on the hook to pay for those even though the funding isn’t readily available, Steinhoff added.

For Oglala Lakota County, the paused funding is mostly used to support salaries of instructional coaches and counselors. That includes retention and recruitment bonuses for teachers in one of the most rural and impoverished districts in the state. The annual $1,500 retention bonus is paid out the first pay period of August, said Superintendent Connie Kaltenbach.

“Our district is going to do all we can to ensure we maintain all the funding as best as we can,” Kaltenbach said. “We’ll cinch the belt in other areas.”

If funding isn’t resumed in time, Kaltenbach said the district would likely stop professional development travel and advertising for vacant staff positions. She said she’ll maintain and protect counselor positions in the district “as best we can so students don’t bear the brunt of that.”

Freeze impacts after-school programs: ‘We’re a tool to break the cycle of poverty’

Federal funding for some after-school and summer programs throughout the state is included in the $25.8 million freeze. Those programs, identified as 21st Century Community Learning Centers, are created to provide children, especially low-income students, with a safe place to eat and spend time outside of school areas.

Waltman said families depend on the programs to “fill the gap between after school and when parents can get off work.” 

Frozen federal funding accounts for about 40% of the Boys and Girls Club of the Missouri River, according to Executive Director Pat Breen. The award is $246,741 a year, based on fiscal year 2024’s grant documents.

The organization operates the summer and after-school care program for the Wagner Community School District and Marty Indian School. Students are offered afternoon snacks and a meal each day, and they can stay until 8 p.m. during the school year or between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays during the summer.

The programs serve a combined 160 students per day, with more than 1,000 students rotating in and out of those slots last year.

“This is a vital mission,” Breen said. “We’re all about personal accountability and academic enrichment. We’re a tool to break the cycle of poverty.”

Funding for 21st Century programs will be reimbursed by the state Department of Education through August, according to the department. That’s because, since the grant funds cover projects over a five-year period, the department reserved a portion of last year’s awards to cover existing projects.

There are 25 active centers in South Dakota, according to the department.

Sarah Hanson, managing director for children, youth and families at Volunteers of America Dakotas, said the organization’s Kids Campus Central in Sioux Falls is “operating as normal” through mid-August because of the remaining funding from last year. In addition to the program, the organization’s missing $197,309 grant funded a dedicated Science, Technology, Engineering and Math tutor and transportation home for students whose families can’t pick them up.

Hanson said staff are preparing for the possibility they won’t receive funds in time for the new school year. They’re helping families seek other tuition assistance to help the program replace the frozen funding, including state Child Care Assistance, or scholarships.

“Our hope is that by starting early and being proactive, we can limit the number of families who are impacted,” Hanson said in an emailed statement. “Still, the loss of a funding stream this significant will have real effects.”

Hanson said transportation will be offered during the school year regardless of federal funding, because without it, “many families won’t be able to attend at all.”

Keiz Larson, executive director and CEO of YMCA of Rapid City, said her organization was not granted additional funding through August for two after-school programs in Box Elder and Fall River County because the programs restart in August. The YMCA is missing $147,695 between the two programs, based on fiscal year 2024 grant documents.

The after-school program in Box Elder serves the Douglas School District and Ellsworth Air Force Base with care, homework support and enrichment for students. YMCA is the only licensed elementary after-school and summer care provider in the rural Fall River County area, serving Edgemont. 

If the frozen funding isn’t released by the end of the week, it could permanently jeopardize care for over 120 families in both communities.

“It’s hard to start something back up after you close it,” Larson said.

Searchlight Senior Reporter John Hult contributed to this article.

Photo: Students in the Sioux Falls School District play on a playground. (Courtesy of Sioux Falls School District/South Dakota Searchlight).

 

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

Related posts

• Medicaid cuts in federal budget could hit rural health hard in South Dakota
• Talk about the weather? Congress plans to scrap USDA Climate Hubs, following Trump guidance 
• SD Job Corps program under threat of closure
• South Dakota loses federal funds for prison rape elimination amid fears of national impact 
• 13,000 South Dakotans would lose Medicaid if ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ passes, research group says 
• South Dakota State Library secures full federal funding, will resume interlibrary loan deliveries
• Fewer eyes on the sky: NWS forecast reductions raise concerns in South Dakota
• South Dakota hunger relief group says it’s facing a $2.5 million budget shortfall due to federal cuts
• Cuts in federal funding for food will hurt South Dakota pantries and producers
• Grant that ‘would have fed thousands’ on Rosebud Sioux Reservation lost to Trump cuts

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

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Medicaid cuts in federal budget could hit rural health hard in South Dakota

This story illustrates the hardships that might face some of my neighbors here in South Dakota with federal budget cuts. And then there are the state cuts I posted about on Tuesday in South Dakota Legislative Rules Review Committee finalizes benefit cut for needy families.

From South Dakota News Watch.

Medicaid cuts in federal budget could hit rural health hard in SD
Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota News Watch

Wade Erickson doesn't want to seem like an alarmist.

But Erickson, CEO of Horizon Health Care in South Dakota, has serious concerns about how the Medicaid cuts embedded in the giant taxation and budget law signed by President Trump will affect the health of South Dakotans, especially in rural areas.

Horizon provides medical care to people across a 28,000 square-mile area of the state. Each year, about 26,000 patients are treated in 80,000 appointments at 19 Horizon Health clinics, dental offices and mental-health centers in South Dakota.

Details are still to come on the cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans. But early indications are that the law will cut federal aid to health care by $1 trillion over the next decade.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the law will remove 12 million Americans from enrollment in the Medicaid program, many due to new work requirements.

From Erickson's standpoint, that would impact rural health in two ways.

First, patients who lose Medicaid coverage and are not able to afford medical care from their own pockets will be more likely to delay preventive care or may avoid getting needed medical treatments altogether.

"If people are afraid to access health care because they can't afford to pay for it, or they stop taking care of their wellness and are no longer catching chronic diseases early to where they can be managed, there’s a very good possibility that it could lead to people being more sick, and also some more people dying before they would otherwise," Erickson told News Watch.

Secondly, health providers like Horizon, which already run on small or even negative profit margins on some procedures, will see less revenue and could be forced to reduce services.

About 65% of Horizon's annual budget is funded by the federal government, with roughly 20% coming from Medicaid, which sometimes does not cover the full cost of patient treatments and procedures. Other federal funding sources include Medicare and the annual payment made as part of the Federal Qualified Health Center program.

As a federally qualified center, Horizon cannot turn away any patients. If fewer people are covered by Medicaid, Horizon will have to ask them to pay on a sliding scale or simply provide unreimbursed coverage if the patients cannot afford to pay.

“Just because people lose coverage doesn't mean they stop getting sick or they should stop taking care of their wellness and chronic conditions,” Erickson said.

“That is super important, that we are able to continue to support that. But without insurance or without a payer source other than themselves, which honestly, people can't afford it if they're on Medicaid so they’ll be uninsured," he added. "That will just lead to more uncompensated care and make it really difficult for us to maintain services in rural communities.”

Erickson acknowledged that there are many unknowns about how the cuts to Medicaid will play out in the coming years. But he is concerned that reductions in coverage may put rural providers and patients into untenable positions.

"We already have patients who choose whether to get groceries or get their prescriptions, so it’s going to land on the most vulnerable people out there," he said. "And we have to figure out, how are we going to serve all these new patients who are uninsured?"

Law's goal is to cut fraud and waste

President Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have said the health care changes in the new budget bill will reduce fraud and waste and ensure that Medicaid is serving those it initially intended: pregnant women, people with disabilities and children.

Cuts in some programs were necessary in order to fund some of Trump's other priorities, such as increasing immigration enforcement, boosting defense and providing tax cuts.

The bill includes a $50 billion new fund to help rural hospitals offset revenue losses. But the nonpartisan KFF research institute estimates Medicaid spending in rural areas will fall by $155 billion under the new legislation.

“It’s very clear that Medicaid cuts will result in rural hospital closures,” Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization, told KFF in July.

A $1.65 billion program in SD

Medicaid in South Dakota provides medical, dental, vision and pharmaceutical insurance coverage for qualifying low-income adults and children.

The cost of the Medicaid program in South Dakota in calendar year 2024 was about $1.65 billion, according to data from the Department of Social Services, which administers the program.

DSS officials did not respond to an interview request from News Watch.

Medicaid enrollment and costs in South Dakota rose significantly in July 2023, when voter-approved expanded guidelines kicked in, and both metrics have continued to rise since then.

In June 2025, about 144,300 people were enrolled in Medicaid in South Dakota, with 78,500 children and 65,800 adults covered by the insurance plan. The cost of the program was $155.5 million that month, with the state paying about 40% and the federal government paying around 60%.

While cuts to Medicaid will affect all health care providers across the state, including large health groups in bigger cities, rural providers and patients have fewer options to adapt to changes and as a result may see more acute impacts.

Worries arise for long-term care industry

Providers in the long-term care industry in South Dakota are also trying to determine how the recent budget law will affect their ability to provide care or even remain financially viable, said Mark Deak, executive director of the South Dakota Health Care Association.

The association represents about 170 nursing homes, assisted-living and senior-care homes as well as about 90 vendors and suppliers to the long-term care industry in the state. Many of those facilities, particularly in rural areas, have experienced financial challenges in recent years, leading 10% of nursing homes to close during the early 2020s, Deak said.

While the budget bill does not contain direct cuts to long-term care funding, anticipated reductions in Medicaid funding could squeeze revenues for facilities that on average receive 54% of income from Medicaid enrollees, Deak said.

As a result, care facilities could be hit with revenue challenges, especially in rural areas where workforce is limited and costs can be higher, he said. Meanwhile, potential residents with limited financial resources could find it harder to obtain long-term care.

“Given how tight the margins are, and how tight the budget could get, it just ratchets up the level of anxiety,” Deak said. “Given the overall fiscal pressures, we’re just thinking about what the impacts could be.”

Another less-prominent piece of the legislation, Deak said, will shorten by a month the time period long-term care facilities have to process and be reimbursed for new residents, which also could make it less likely they will take in new low-income residents.

The bill did include one big win for long-term care facilities.

It paused a federal staffing level requirement that Deak said would have forced facilities in South Dakota to hire 300 new nurses. That was an expensive and potentially impossible directive to meet given the lack of available workforce, he said.

Waiting and watching in Winner

Brian Williams, CEO of Winner Regional Health, said it’s too early to know how the Medicaid cuts in the federal budget bill will impact his facility and its patients. But he's staying abreast of funding developments to be prepared if bad news does arrive.

“We do not fully understand how these cuts may or not impact us. But we’re very concerned and we’re keeping a close eye on how this is going to be implemented,” Williams told News Watch. “It  could have a negative impact on our ability to get reimbursement for a lot a services we provide.”

The small, independent health group that includes a hospital, clinic and long-term care facility in south-central South Dakota's Tripp County has been forced to make tough choices already this year due to revenue challenges.

In February, Winner Regional ended its birthing services, forcing expectant mothers to drive an hour or more to give birth with a doctor present.

Erickson, of Horizon Health Care, said he plans to contact members of Congress to urge them to modify or soften the cuts to Medicaid.

"That’s why we really have to tell our story of the impact of what it’s going to do to people across the country, and in our case, the people of South Dakota."

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they're published. Contact Bart Pfankuch at [email protected]

Photo: Horizon Health Care Faith Community Health Center in Faith, South Dakota. Via South Dakota News Watch.

This South Dakota News Watch article is republished with permission.

Related posts

• Talk about the weather? Congress plans to scrap USDA Climate Hubs, following Trump guidance 
• SD Job Corps program under threat of closure
• South Dakota loses federal funds for prison rape elimination amid fears of national impact 
• 13,000 South Dakotans would lose Medicaid if ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ passes, research group says 
• South Dakota State Library secures full federal funding, will resume interlibrary loan deliveries
• Fewer eyes on the sky: NWS forecast reductions raise concerns in South Dakota
• South Dakota hunger relief group says it’s facing a $2.5 million budget shortfall due to federal cuts
• Cuts in federal funding for food will hurt South Dakota pantries and producers
• Grant that ‘would have fed thousands’ on Rosebud Sioux Reservation lost to Trump cuts

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

South Dakota Legislative Rules Review Committee finalizes benefit cut for needy families

A 10% cut  in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) .Lovely.

Republished from South Dakota Searchlight.

Legislative committee finalizes benefit cut for needy families
by Makenzie Huber

Starting in August, low-income South Dakota families participating in a welfare program will receive less money to spend on necessities such as gas, groceries, utilities and rent. The benefit cut is the beginning of more reductions planned in the next few years.

Lawmakers on the legislative Rules Review Committee voted 4-2 on Tuesday in Pierre to support the state Department of Social Services’ plan to reduce Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits by 10%. Recipients will lose anywhere from $32 to $136 a month in benefits, depending on the size of their family. The average household will lose $51 a month.

The state will save about $1.5 million annually. It distributed $15.3 million in TANF benefits last fiscal year.

TANF is a federal-state program most commonly used to provide financial assistance to low-income families with children, on the condition that the caregiver searches or trains for a job. 

The two Democrats on the committee, Rep. Erik Muckey and Sen. Liz Larson, both from Sioux Falls, voted against the cut. They argued lawmakers were not aware of the reduction in benefits when they prepared the state’s budget earlier this year, and that the plan was a misrepresentation of legislative intent. Muckey said he and other legislators on the budget committee believed the $5.3 million state funding cut would be replaced with unspent TANF funds from previous years.

Instead, the department’s plan is to use $3.8 million of unused TANF funds and the 10% benefit reduction to cover the $5.3 million cut. The department plans to gradually reduce benefits each year, said Department Secretary Matt Althoff, cushioned by some unused TANF funds, until South Dakota reduces benefits to the minimum state contribution needed to receive federal funding.

“A 35% reduction all at once is a lot more devastating to a household than is the 10% on a strategic glide or slope,” Althoff said.

Gradual cuts until the state reaches a 35% reduction add up to the average household eventually losing $180 a month in benefits.

Republicans on the committee approved the plan, saying it was up to the department how to deal with the reduction in state funds.

“In appropriations we do not get down into the most minutia of running programs,” said Sen. Taffy Howard, R-Rapid City. “We have to leave those to the agencies to a certain degree.”

Althoff told lawmakers many TANF recipients receive other support: 99% of TANF households are enrolled in Medicaid, 97% receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds, 57% live in subsidized housing and 15% are enrolled in the state Child Care Assistance program.

“TANF is not something that makes households whole,” Althoff said.

Two people spoke against the benefit cut Tuesday, including Cathy Brechtelsbauer. She opposed the proposal during its earlier public hearing in Sioux Falls as well.

“We don’t go through the whole budget process during the state Legislature and then show up in the summer and say, ‘Oh, we want to cut money and take it from children,’” Brechtelsbauer said.

The rule change also removes TANF eligibility for families who take in child relatives in situations when they’re removed from their homes by the state’s child welfare system. 

That change incentivizes caregivers to become licensed kinship caregivers with the state, Althoff said during an earlier public hearing. The current foster and kinship subsidy rate for a child in South Dakota is between $22.85 and $27.43 a day, depending on their age. That would be roughly $685.50 to $822.90 a month, per child.

Lawmakers approved rule changes in May to create the licensed kinship foster care pathway, as required by the federal government. Caregivers must meet training requirements to become a licensed kinship home, similar though less intensive than traditional foster care requirements. There are no such requirements for TANF money.

According to the department, 184 cases per month managed by the department involving families eligible for TANF could be eligible for kinship subsidies.

Families who take in kin and apply for TANF use the “side door” to receive state and federal support, Althoff said. Eliminating TANF eligibility encourages families to “come in through the front door.”

 

Photo: An application for economic assistance from programs managed by the South Dakota Department of Social Services. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

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Two carbon pipeline lawsuits against Summit, North Dakota PSC merged

Meanwhile, back in the struggle against ethanol carbon pipeline federal tax credit profiteers, a new development.

From the North Dakota Monitor.

2 carbon pipeline lawsuits against Summit, North Dakota PSC merged
by Jeff Beach

Two lawsuits involving pipeline company Summit Carbon Solutions and the North Dakota Public Service Commission have been combined. 

The PSC, which approved a route permit Iowa-based Summit last year, requested that the two lawsuits be merged. 

One lawsuit is led by Burleigh County, the other by a group of landowners who oppose Summit’s proposed five-state carbon capture pipeline that would end at an underground storage area northwest of Bismarck. 

In requesting the consolidation, attorney Zachary Pelham, representing the PSC, said “the two appeals are a mirror image.”   

Attorneys for Burleigh County and Summit Carbon Solutions did not object to the consolidation. 

Among the issues raised in the cases is a challenge to the PSC’s ruling that states zoning rules trump county zoning ordinances on pipelines. Plaintiffs also argue the agency did not give enough consideration to the safety of residents along the pipeline route. 

Another pending lawsuit involves a landowner challenge to the North Dakota Industrial Commission’s approval of permanent underground storage permits for Summit. 

Summit plans to gather carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants in five states, including one in eastern North Dakota, and use pipelines to send the CO2 to a sequestration area in Oliver, Mercer and Morton counties

In another case, the North Dakota Supreme Court heard arguments in April in a challenge to a state law related to underground storage of CO2.

Summit describes its project as the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project. It would take advantage of federal tax credits that promote reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Supporters say it would help ethanol producers compete in the low-carbon fuel market and benefit farmers who supply the ethanol plants with corn. 

In addition to North Dakota, Summit has obtained a state pipeline permit in Iowa and approval for a short section of the route in Minnesota. Summit has so far been unsuccessful in South Dakota. Nebraska has no state agency that handles CO2 pipeline projects.

 

Photo: Clint Feland of Bismarck sits next to a sign opposing the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline ahead of a hearing April 22, 2024, in Mandan. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor).

This North Dakota Monitor article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

South Dakota District 1 long hot white boy summer continues as former South Park writer launches RepLoganManhart.com

I live in South Dakota District One, where my remaining representative is Manhart Logan. We're waiting for the governor to fill a seat vacated by Christopher Reder, who found he had residency issues. (In South Dakota, state representatives are elected at large in senate districts).

We'd last left Manhart in the July 7 post,  Republican South Dakota lawmaker removes ‘white boy summer’ social media post after criticism, but lately, Representative Manhart been attracting national attention. 

On Monday morning, Pat Powers posted on conservative blog South Dakota War College in Logan Manhart critic puts up website at RepLoganManhart.com declaring “A White Boy Life is Within Reach”:

Toby Morton, a former South Park writer and voice talent for one of the characters, has a second calling, according to his Instagram profile. Morton is also the creator of what he deems to be anti-fascist websites, taking on such groups as Moms for Liberty.

Recently, after District 1 State Representative Logan Manhart’s post to Instagram declaring that it’s “White Boy Summer,” Manhart found himself as the newest subject of Morton’s satire.

A new website was born in the last couple of days featuring South Dakota’s summertime representative at RepLoganManhart.com with a headline blaring “A White Boy Life is Within Reach,” attributing it to Logan Manhart, and making note of many items on the Manhart record. Several of which you’ve read here before, such as the Manhart pledge to take military action against airplanes someone thinks are leaving chemtrails:

Hi there! I’m Logan Manhart.
South Dakota Rep, and full-time white grievance cosplayer. ...

Read the rest at the War College. Worth the laughs.

RepLoganManhart.com includes such gems as this under Meet Logan Certified White Nationalist Expert:

Hi, I’m Logan Manhart! South Dakota legislator, truth speaker, fitness enthusiast, and accidental poster child for white grievance politics.

Some say I’m controversial. I say I’m misunderstood, mostly by people who read. I built my career the old-fashioned way: by ignoring residency laws, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. out of context to ban healthcare for trans kids, and crying publicly after a “White Boy Summer” meme went sideways.

What makes me different from other politicians? I’m not afraid to say the quiet part out loud, post it on Social Media, delete it, re-post it with worse grammar, and then claim I’m being silenced.

I believe in strong borders, weaker science, and aggressively vague Christian values. I don’t “do” nuance. I do vibes. And if those vibes happen to align with fringe Facebook groups that want to shoot down planes and police gender identity in schools, so be it.

I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make masculinity fragile again.

Welcome to my world. No apologies. No accountability. Just Logan.

Heckova guy.  There are Stories.

Image: From  Meet Logan Certified White Nationalist Expert on RepLoganManhart.com by Toby Morton.

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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

Midwest farm economies suffered while some Sun Belt states kept rolling in early 2025

Economic news from Stateline, via Minnesota Reformer.

Midwest farm economies suffered while some Sun Belt states kept rolling in early 2025
by Tim Henderson

Global clashes and trade wars hammered Midwestern states’ agricultural economies early this year, while a continuing boom in Southeastern states’ housing and tech jobs kept their economies humming along.

Some Southeastern states were seeing a strong agricultural economy because of still-rising poultry and egg prices, though small row-crop farmers there were still caught in the crunch of high costs and low profits, and many declared bankruptcy. And the area benefited from gains in real estate and tech.

Overall, 39 states and the District of Columbia saw drops in gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of this year — well above the 22 states and the District of Columbia seeing drops during the same time in 2024, according to a Stateline analysis of preliminary U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics released June 27.

National numbers released late last month show a rare decrease in economic output for the first quarter, the first since 2022, partly because of increased imports as suppliers sought to stock up on imported goods ahead of tariff increases. GDP is calculated by subtracting imported goods from national economic output.

There’s widespread agreement that row-crop farmers are suffering economic pain, especially in the Midwest where the industry dominates the economy. Meanwhile, the booming housing and tech sectors in the South are on a continued winning streak even as storm clouds gather over tariffs and immigrant labor.

Nationwide, more farms filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy from January through March than in any full year since 2021, driven by higher costs for supplies and lower prices paid for row crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat.

“Crop prices and commodity prices are significantly lower, and fertilizer and equipment prices are higher, so we’re seeing a bit of a struggle right now in the farm economy,” said Abygail Streff, an economist and policy analyst at the Nebraska Farm Bureau.

Meat prices are one of the few bright spots in Nebraska’s farm economy, Streff said. “For a lot of producers who have cattle, this has been a really good year for them.”

Still, Nebraska, along with Iowa, suffered the biggest drop in GDP, according to the analysis. Each state fell 6.1% from the same time a year ago.

Fertilizer supply has been disrupted by sanctions against Russia, and it’s gotten worse this year with the bombing of Iran and the trade war with China, two countries that are also important fertilizer suppliers to American farmers, Linville said.

“We tend to think of the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz [a shipping channel under threat by conflict] from an oil-slash-energy perspective, but 1 out of every 2 tons of urea fertilizer that gets shipped to the United States comes from the Middle East,” Linville said.

Despite being a drain in the Midwest, agriculture was a positive driver of economies in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi, according to Stateline’s analysis.

That’s because Southeastern agriculture includes more poultry and eggs, currently more profitable than the row crops that dominate in the Midwest, said Wendiam Sawadgo, an extension economist at Auburn University. The divergence is expected to last, he said, with row-crop prices continuing to fall and meat and egg prices continuing to rise this year.

But even in the Southeast, row-crop farmers suffered.

Arkansas saw a near-record number of farm bankruptcies this year, for example. And climate change has contributed to lower soybean prices as low water levels in the Mississippi River make barge transportation more difficult and expensive, according to reports this year by the University of Arkansas’ Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness Department.

Farm bankruptcies nationally came to 259 in the first three months of this year. That was more than any full year since 2021, when there were 276, according to cases compiled by Ryan Loy, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas. Arkansas saw 15 farm bankruptcies in the first quarter, almost as many as in all of 2024, when there were 16.

“We’ve already outpaced all of last year on a national scale,” he said.

Large farms can ride out struggles, but smaller farms are more likely to go bankrupt from increases in costs and lower market prices, a pattern that started in the early 2010s and got sharply worse in the past year, Loy said.

All five of the states with the fastest-growing economies were in the 12-state Southeast region defined by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Even there, though, the percentages were slight: South Carolina (up 1.7%), Florida (up 1.4%), Alabama (up 1%), North Carolina and Arkansas (each up .8%) had the largest increases in the nation.

The largest drivers in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina were real estate and tech, while increases in Alabama and Arkansas were mostly in agriculture.

The Carolinas have been magnets for new movers, said Matthew Martin, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based regional executive for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The influx has driven more housing and infrastructure work to supply newcomers, he said.

“Employment in South Carolina is on fire right now and North Carolina is doing well also. They’re places that people want to be,” Martin said. “Employers want to be there, too, and so there’s been population growth. Then you’ve got to have all the retail and health care. That has got to follow it.”

Business owners are uncertain about future federal policy in the Trump administration, Martin said, according to conversations he’s had.

They worry about tariffs, whether they’ll have to raise prices or accept lower profits, and eventually whether those factors could cause job growth to stall. And some businesses that depend on immigrant labor say they’ve lost workers despite using the national E-Verify system to make sure employees have legal status to work, Martin said.

Martin hasn’t heard of many workplace raids in the Carolinas, but there have been some federal audits of employee forms to check for false statements.

“Some of the workers won’t show up from that day forward,” Martin said.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at [email protected].

Like Minnesota Reformer, Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].

Photo: Machinery harvests corn in Scotts Bluff County, Neb., last year. Low prices for row crops and high costs for fertilizer are squeezing Midwest row-crop farmers while the Southeast is still on an economic winning streak, according to a Stateline analysis of federal economic data for the first quarter. (Photo by Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension/Courtesy of University of Nebraska-Lincoln).

This Minnesota Reformer/Stateline article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

Related post

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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

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Former VEEP candidate, MN Governor Walz calls Noem ‘antithesis of the South Dakota I know’

In this best of all possible worlds, I had to miss this event since my tomato plants keenly needed intervention. I spent a good part of the day trimming suckers from the patch. When a friend called to offer a ticket, I was sad that I'd already stained my hands for the day. A pointed reminder to wear my garden gloves.

Fortunately, South Dakota Searchlight was on the spot.

Former vice presidential candidate calls Noem ‘antithesis of the South Dakota I know’
by John Hult

SIOUX FALLS — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz regaled about a thousand people at a South Dakota Democratic Party fundraiser Saturday night with jabs at the state’s former and current governors, advice for winning back rural voters and blue collar workers, and pride in liberal ideals.

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee — who was on the losing ticket with presidential nominee Kamala Harris — delivered the keynote speech to a sellout crowd at the 2025 McGovern Day dinner at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. Reporters were allowed into the event, but not to take photographs once it started.

It didn’t take long for Walz to criticize the actions of U.S. Homeland Security secretary and Republican former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. 

“If you had to pick somebody who’s the antithesis of the South Dakota I know, it would be that,” he said.

The two served in Congress, cosponsoring bills together before 2018, when each was elected to lead their respective states.

Their relationship soured during the COVID-19 pandemic when they took divergent approaches, and further deteriorated when Noem described Walz as a “radical” in her role as a Trump surrogate during last year’s presidential campaign.

Walz, speaking of his preparation to appear in South Dakota, said “I had to decide what I was going to wear.”

“When you’re a governor and you’re in South Dakota, do you dress as a fireman? You dress as a cowgirl?” he said.

The joke was a dig at Noem. She donned firefighting gear at a U.S. Coast Guard training facility, for example, and wore a cowboy hat for an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I know it’s petty, but some people just bring out the petty,” Walz said.

Advice for SD Democrats

He laid out his connections to South Dakota once the laughter died down. He grew up nearby in Nebraska. He hunted pheasants in Winner, saw drive-in movies in Lake Andes and “spent too much time” at a bar called the Longbranch in Burke.

Walz also prodded current South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, who recently signed a bill that will allow the concealed carry of pistols on college campuses by gun owners with enhanced permits. Walz described that as one of the Republican talking points about South Dakota being “the freest state in the nation.”

“I think some of you may have a difference of opinion in that. I ran into an OB-GYN that says that’s not true,” Walz said, referencing South Dakota’s near-total abortion ban.

Walz told Democrats that Republicans who paint them as “elites” are cutting taxes for the wealthy and reducing support for student aid programs and Medicaid while “tearing apart” rural communities and mass-detaining undocumented immigrants.

“Is our immigration system broken? Yes. But our moral system sure as hell should not be with throwing people in camps,” he said, a reference to a detention center for migrants in the Florida Everglades that President Trump calls “Alligator Alcatraz.”

“The people building prison camps are never the good guys in history,” Walz said.

He urged Democrats to work on issues of importance to rural and working class South Dakotans, like Medicaid and Medicare, and to work with labor unions. 

“There’s a direct correlation between the strength of the middle class and economic security with the number of people who are in labor unions,” he said. 

He also suggested the national Democratic Party should pay more attention to places like South Dakota if it expects to build a coalition durable enough to compete outside of its traditional strongholds and battleground states. “A few million dollars” could make a difference and help South Dakota build the Democratic bench, he said.

“I hear people say ‘there are no Democrats in South Dakota,’” Walz said. “But there’s a hell of a lot in this room.” 

Party expects more candidates in 2026

The McGovern Day dinner is the state party’s largest annual fundraiser. Regular tickets cost $125. Meet-and-greet tickets cost twice that.

“We haven’t had a McGovern Day dinner this big at least since I’ve been around,” said Shane Merrill, chair of the state party.  

The party leaned into Walz’s fame for more than ticket sales. Vermillion brewery XIX whipped up a batch of “Walz on Tap” blonde ale, sold by the can at cocktail stations and by the four-pack in a silent auction.

The enthusiasm was tempered by reality. South Dakotans registered as independents or without any political affiliation outnumber Democrats. Republicans have the most registrants and hold every statewide office, all three of the state’s congressional seats, and all but nine of the seats in the 105-member Legislature.

Democrats have faced criticism during recent South Dakota election cycles for not fielding candidates, sometimes for offices as high as Congress. Before the speeches started Saturday, state party Executive Director Dan Ahlers said that won’t be a problem in 2026.

“I need two of me to interview all the people who want to run,” he said. 

The party already has candidates for U.S. Senate (Julian Beaudion), secretary of state (Terrence Davis) and U.S. representative, although Ahlers said that candidate won’t announce until the fall. Nineteen-year-old Robert Arnold has announced his candidacy for governor, and Ahlers said he expects another hopeful to announce for that race, as well.

Later, speaking from the stage, Ahlers declared “we can no longer be content with a few seats at the table. We need to run the table.”

“It shouldn’t be enough to field a good Democratic candidate,” he said. “We need to elect Democratic candidates.” 

State Sen. Liz Larson, D-Sioux Falls, said she’s proud to have been the first female state Senate minority leader, but told the audience that it took time to get there. She lost in her first run for office in 2020, but “knocked on thousands of doors” and won on her second and third go-rounds.

Democrats believe, she said, “that you’re no better than anybody else, and we’re all in this together.”

“That is a politics worth showing up for,” Larson said.

Photo: A crowd gathers to hear Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at the 2025 McGovern Day dinner on July 13, 2025, in Sioux Falls. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

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• Commentary: Kristi Noem's 2024 South Dakota flood response foreshadowed Texas tragedy
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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

Many medical treatments could be affected by Supreme Court transgender ruling

An overview from Stateline, via Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Many medical treatments could be affected by Supreme Court transgender ruling
by Nada Hassanein ǀ Stateline

The justices’ reasoning in the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Tennessee’s ban on youth gender-affirming care could have much broader implications, perhaps opening the door to state restrictions on health care for other groups of people, experts say.

The ruling could give states leeway to make rules on any other sex-related treatment — potentially affecting people of all genders, according to legal and health policy scholars.

In U.S. v. Skrmetti, three families and a physician argued that a Tennessee law barring the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. They asserted that the law discriminates on the basis of sex, since the state allows the use of similar treatments for cisgender boys and girls with other medical conditions.

The court weighed the argument of whether the law treats people differently, subject to what is called heightened scrutiny. Under this higher level of judicial review, the state must identify an important objective for a law and demonstrate how it helps accomplish that goal.

But the court’s conservative majority last month ruled that the Tennessee ban doesn’t merit such scrutiny because its restrictions are based on age and the medical uses of certain drugs, not sex. Twenty-six other states, including Iowa, have similar laws to Tennessee’s.

The Tennessee law “prohibits healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers and hormones to minors for certain medical uses, regardless of a minor’s sex,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “The law does not prohibit certain medical treatments for minors of one sex while allowing those same treatments for minors of the opposite sex.”

Justice Elena Kagan disputed that view during oral arguments.

“The whole thing is imbued with sex. It’s based on sex,” Kagan said. “You might have reasons for thinking it’s an appropriate regulation and those reasons should be tested and respect given to them, but it’s a dodge to say, ‘This is not based on sex, it’s based on medical purpose,’ when the medical purpose is utterly and entirely about sex.”

Tennessee’s law says the state has a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex.”

Some legal and policy experts say the court’s reasoning in Skrmetti could allow states to enact further restrictions on abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization or other health care, particularly sex-specific treatment, sidestepping previous protections.

Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor of transgender history at Johns Hopkins University, called the ruling “consequential.”

“The court has basically decreed a new form of legal and political vulnerability that did not exist before the Skrmetti case,” she said. ”Everyone has a sex. Everyone is now much more vulnerable to sex discrimination in this country, even if it hasn’t taken place yet.”

She added that women, especially, could see rollbacks.

“It will greatly advance people’s ability to discriminate against women,” she said. “This case really kind of now altered the legal landscape in a pretty significant way.”

The ruling marks “a deeply concerning direction,” said Kellan Baker, executive director of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at Whitman-Walker, an LGBTQ+ health nonprofit in the Washington, D.C., area.

“At any time and for any reason, a state legislature could decide that any medical indication is suddenly not politically palatable, and move to ban access to any type of care that legislature wants to target,” Baker said.

He added that the decision is likely to have “serious political ramifications” for more than just transgender people.

Eric Neiman, an attorney at Epstein Becker Green, a law firm focused on health care and employment cases, agreed the ruling “could allow states to regulate all kinds of medical procedures for children and adults.”

Ultimately, Neiman said, the decision indicates “deference to states in decision-making about care that can be provided to children.”

Sex-based protections

The decision builds on the 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, said Katie Keith, the founding director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at the O’Neill Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.

“I don’t know that we would have seen this decision in the same way if we hadn’t had the Dobbs decision three years ago and the erosion of sex-based protections,” she said.

Keith pointed to state actions that followed Dobbs, such as a decision by Iowa’s attorney general to halt funding for emergency contraceptives for sexual assault victims. The policy drew significant outcry, and the office eventually resumed funding.

Leah Litman, a University of Michigan law professor, wrote in a recent essay in The Atlantic that Roberts and the other conservative justices revived “an outdated case” when they cited the 1974 decision in Geduldig v. Aiello, in which the justices ruled it was permissible to deny certain benefits for pregnancy-related disabilities.

“If the Republican appointees plan to revive this older case, they will take the law and the country back to a time when the government used the existence of ‘biological differences’ between men and women to excuse all kinds of discrimination against women,” Litman wrote.

Also at stake are previous appellate court decisions out of West Virginia and North Carolina that protected transgender adults’ access to public insurance coverage for transgender care. The Supreme Court threw out those rulings and ordered appellate judges to reevaluate in light of the Skrmetti decision. Another case involving gender-affirming medical care out of Idaho will also have to be reevaluated.

‘Scientific and policy debates’

Critics of gender-affirming health care for youth hailed the Skrmetti ruling, citing recent research that calls into the question the efficacy of such treatments. The decision was “a monumental victory, for children, science, and common sense,” Kristen Waggoner, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in an emailed statement.

But dozens of leading U.S. medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, have stressed that gender-affirming care for minors is safe and essential.

“Denying patients access to this care not only undermines their health and safety, it robs them of basic human dignity,” Dr. Susan J. Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement following the decision. “The ruling also sets a dangerous precedent for legislative interference in the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship that is at the core of our health system.”

But in his opinion, Roberts insisted that the case carries “scientific and policy debates.” “The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best,” he wrote.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor said the majority’s arguments mirror those made in defense of banning interracial marriage in the Loving v. Virginia case. The Supreme Court struck down the ban in 1967.

“In a passage that sounds hauntingly familiar to readers of Tennessee’s brief, Virginia argued in Loving that, should this Court intervene, it would find itself in a ‘bog of conflicting scientific opinion upon the effects of interracial marriage,’” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

Advocates say the narrowness of the Skrmetti decision could make it possible to challenge state bans on health care for trans youth on other grounds.

“[The ruling] is not a blanket endorsement of the various state bans on medical care for transgender youth. It is a tortured and narrow upholding of Tennessee’s,” said Baker, of Whitman-Walker. “The court sidestepped the actual question about equal protection.”

For example, a plaintiff could argue that parents have a constitutional right to make medical decisions for their children. Supporters of transgender rights also noted the decision did not take aim at equal protection rights for transgender adults, but other obstacles remain amid an onslaught from the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order recognizing only biological sex and not gender identity. The administration has also frozen federal grant money dedicated to LGBTQ+ health and issued warnings for gender-affirming care for minors.

And the administration last month finalized a rule barring health plans offered on Affordable Care Act exchanges from covering gender-affirming care — defined as surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone treatment — as an essential health benefit. The decision means that payments for such care cannot be applied toward deductibles.

“[The court] signaled that perhaps some of the kinds of protections, or maybe just backstops, people had been hoping existed, they’re just not there,” Gill-Peterson said.

Photo: Attendees of a Transgender Day of Visibility rally at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on March 30, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance).

This Iowa Capital Dispatch/Stateline article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

Related posts

•  MN & SD stories: news about transgender and non-binary people couldn't contrast more
•  SD Searchlight: Transgender employee at center of contract controversy pledges to fight on
•  Will Governor Kristi Noem have a sad over latest South Dakota transgender drama?
• Update: Transformation Project calls termination of state contract ‘unwarranted’

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Jeepers: Wyoming financial planner ‘pausing’ TikTok deal he says would benefit South Dakota

Back in mid-June, I republished Rhoden BFF: Man who says he can move TikTok to South Dakota is a bust in Wyoming politics.

An update from the South Dakota Searchlight.

Wyoming financial planner ‘pausing’ TikTok deal he says would benefit South Dakota
by John Hult

Reid Rasner says he’s paused his efforts to purchase TikTok for $47.45 billion and possibly place some of its operations in South Dakota.

South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden had thrown his support behind the bid from Rasner, a financial planner and failed 2024 U.S. Senate candidate.

Rasner Media’s website posted a press release Thursday saying the bid’s on pause “unless China makes substantial changes and demonstrates a genuine commitment to a transparent and lawful divestiture.”

The bid to buy TikTok “remains fully funded,” it said.

The press release blamed China for the pause. It said ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, “is attempting to spin off a diluted U.S. version of TikTok” that would keep the app’s core algorithm under Chinese control.

That “likely obfuscates what they have been doing to manipulate and spy on Americans,” Rasner said in the press release.

Rasner sues state lawmaker over social media slights

He’s also blamed a Wyoming state lawmaker for the TikTok deal’s troubles. Rasner filed a defamation lawsuit this week in Laramie County, Wyoming, against former state Sen. Anthony Bouchard for his alleged efforts to “jeopardize a major business acquisition” through disparaging social media posts.

Rasner told the Cowboy State Daily that the language in the lawsuit is a reference to the TikTok bid. 

In May 2024, Bouchard took to Facebook to call Rasner a “phony” and accuse him of misconduct during his college days, according to the lawsuit and screenshots provided in a press release from Rasner on the case.

Rasner “has suffered irreparable damage to his personal and professional reputation, which has now been forever diminished and tarnished,” the lawsuit said.

Bouchard declined to comment Friday.

Rasner Media born in February

In 2024, President Biden signed a bill into law that would either force the sale of TikTok to a U.S. owner or ban the app in the U.S. The Supreme Court found the law constitutional in January. President Trump has now twice extended the deadline for its sale, which is set for Sept. 17.

Rasner launched Rasner Media a month after the Supreme Court ruling. He’s since made the rounds in interviews on the app, calling his bid the “most Trumpian” and pledging to pay content creators dividends on the occasion of a TikTok sale if they invest in it through Rasner’s FoundersTok website.

Rasner also drew the support of Gov. Rhoden after offering to locate some of TikTok’s operations in South Dakota, calling the state the leading contender for a headquarters. The governor appeared alongside Rasner for a press conference in May at Dakota State University, a school that trains students in cybersecurity and data science.

Shortly after that visit, Rasner told a group of Wyoming business leaders that he’s always wanted Wyoming to host the company.

Financial questions

Like several of the content creators who’ve interviewed Rasner on the short-form video platform, the press release for Rasner’s South Dakota visit referred to him as a “Wyoming billionaire.”

A South Dakota Searchlight investigation called that claim into question. Rasner would not answer the question directly when asked.

The Cowboy State Daily asked Rasner about the article. He told the outlet he has “considerable wealth.”

“I’ve had very, very good success in business since high school, and I’ve built a really great life for myself,” he told the outlet.

Rasner’s financial disclosures to the Federal Election Commission for his unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, showed that he’d earned a little more than $100,000 the year before that 2024 contest as a financial planner. 

He’d also earned more than $60,000 selling goods on eBay, owned a few pieces of property in Natrona County that brought him less than $50,000 of rental income, and had taken out a loan of more than $1 million from a family trust. 

He raised less than $35,000 in donations for his Senate campaign, excluding the money he loaned himself.

Rasner has yet to file the required paperwork to show that his campaign paid back the $1.2 million loan he made to his 2024 campaign. 

Rasner now has another U.S. Senate campaign committee — Wyoming’s junior U.S. senator is up for reelection in 2026 — that’s raised $105 in donations and lists $188,500 in loans Rasner’s made to his own campaign.

Rhoden response

Rasner has not disclosed the names of any financial backers to the TikTok bid. In a response to questions sent prior to the publication of Searchlight’s investigation, Rasner accused the outlet of liberal activism and bias.

Prior to the publication of Searchlight’s story on Rasner’s finances, Rhoden told the Scouting Report podcast that Rasner was “ready to go” to buy TikTok.

When asked last month after a tour of a Baltic-area dairy if he still has that level of confidence in Rasner’s bid, Rhoden told South Dakota Searchlight that he’s “yet to have anybody tell me that there’s anything illegitimate about what he’s told me.”

“We haven’t offered him anything, and he hasn’t offered us anything,” the governor said, save the opportunity to talk about the possibility of locating the headquarters in the state.

“I’d certainly hope for that,” Rhoden said. “That’s a no-lose for South Dakota.”

Rasner did not immediately respond to a South Dakota Searchlight request Friday for comment on the pause of his TikTok bid.

Photo: From left, Dakota State University President José-Marie Griffiths, Wyoming financial planner Reid Rasner and South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden participate in an event on May 23, 2025, in Madison. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight).

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Related posts

• Rhoden BFF: Man who says he can move TikTok to South Dakota is a bust in Wyoming politics
• Kristi Noem’s TikTok ban kills tourism account, leaves other state entities mulling options

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

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