With the South Dakota GOP set to elect its next Executive Team on January 14, Republicans have an opportunity to put to bed some of their personality-driven skirmishes and replace them with a robust South Dakotan-focused agenda. Republicans can learn from the example of the 1994 Contract with America and create a people-first plan for our time. Knowing that South Dakota must compete with many other states for both business and human capital, perhaps the first thing the new team can do is pull together a summit. Let me explain. 

A South Dakota GOP Summit could be geared toward crafting a forward-thinking strategic agenda with the aim of establishing a common vision for the state’s future in terms of economic policy and culture. It could seek to proactively lay out policies that support this vision, rather than reacting to the latest cultural challenges (where we are behind the curve) or being caught struggling to decide what to spend our large surpluses on. 

VIEWPOINT: The South Dakota Legislative Circus: Institutionalists versus performers