Guest post: South Dakota Democrats are showing up!

Editor's note: in 2010 an ACLU lawsuit sought evidence of Indian Health Services (IHS) coercion in Pitocin-induced births on the Cheyenne River reservation. 

Military personnel love TRICARE, veterans mostly like the Veterans Health Administration and most Native Americans won’t support a copay because We the People are responsible for their medical care by treaty. This interested party likes the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TRICARE, Medicare, the IHS and the VHA together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax. 

South Dakota State Representative Eric Emery (D-District 26A) is Assistant Minority Leader. His column appears at the SDDP's Substack.

Háu mitákuyepi! Cante’ waste’ nape ciyuzapi yelo. Eric Emery emáčiyapi.

I serve as a proud Native American legislator and a Democrat in the South Dakota House of Representatives. Now, some people ask me what that’s like, being Native, being a Democrat, and being in one of the reddest states in the country. The truth is, it means carrying the voice of my people into a Capitol where those voices are too often absent. Native Americans make up about 8% of this state, yet our representation has never matched our population. For me, every time I stand up in Pierre, I carry the stories of Rosebud, of small towns, of rural South Dakota. Whether you live in a city or on a reservation, you deserve to have someone fighting for you.

Now, let’s be honest, the numbers aren’t in our favor. Democrats hold just a handful of seats in the South Dakota legislature. But what we lack in numbers, we make up for in determination. This past year, we showed that even a super-minority can deliver wins when we build coalitions. We stopped bills that would have criminalized librarians. We defended landowners from out-of-state corporations trying to use eminent domain for carbon pipelines. And we passed a budget that reflected not just one party’s priorities, but the values of South Dakotans across the board.

That’s how progress is made here by building relationships and finding common ground. Potholes don’t ask if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. And when an ambulance is needed, nobody cares what party funded it, only that it comes.

And that brings me to something I know deeply as a paramedic: our state is in a crisis when it comes to EMS. In too many rural communities, we are one broken-down ambulance or one burned-out volunteer away from having no emergency coverage at all. Entire regions risk being left without timely help in their darkest moments. This year, I introduced legislation to declare EMS an essential service, just like police or fire, and although it didn’t pass, it sparked something. It created an interim committee where Democrats and Republicans are working side by side, and it proved one thing: we all agree that when someone calls 911, help must come. And we will get there together.

This isn’t just about ambulances; it’s about rural healthcare as a whole. In Sisseton, moms now have to drive an hour to deliver a baby because their local birthing unit closed. On reservations, something as basic as a mammogram has been unavailable when staff shortages hit. And in Bison, it took nine months to replace a retiring doctor. One person leaving shouldn’t mean a whole community loses care.

But we are finding solutions. Telehealth is expanding, especially with new broadband investments that Democrats delivered through the infrastructure law. Medicaid expansion, something South Dakota voters demanded, has already brought coverage to nearly 30,000 people, many of them in rural towns and tribal communities. That means fewer unpaid hospital bills, stronger clinics, and healthier families.

So here’s the truth: Democrats are showing up for rural South Dakota. Broadband for farms. Healthcare for working families. Investments that keep small hospitals open. These aren’t just policies; they are lifelines.

I want to remind us all: being a Democrat in South Dakota isn’t about the size of our caucus, it’s about the size of our purpose. We are bridge-builders. We are truth-tellers. We are fighters for communities too often left behind. And we are proof that this party does not write off rural states.

So let’s keep standing up. Let’s keep building coalitions. Let’s keep telling our neighbors that we’re fighting for their schools, their healthcare, their safety. Because when Democrats speak to those values, the values of fairness, opportunity, and dignity, we win.

Being a rural Democrat, being a Native Democrat in South Dakota, is not a weakness. It is a strength. And together, with hope and grit, we can build a future where every South Dakotan, on the reservation, in the countryside, or in town, has a fair shot at a healthy and thriving life.