Tuesday evening will see the results of which officeholders will fill new positions after a change of government in North Sioux City, South Dakota.
North Sioux City is converting a commission, with four commissioners and a mayor. People have been able to carry out early absentee voting at city hall on weekdays since late March, up through the final day on April 8, when the winners will be determined.
North Sioux City, a town with a population of 2,500, and there are a combined 10 people running for the five positions.
*Additionally, the Nebraska Legislature on Tuesday will vote on switching to a winner-take-all system of allocating its five electoral votes in the presidential selection system.
Nebraska gives two votes to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes statewide. The other three electoral votes go to whoever wins each of the state’s three congressional districts.
Since the system went into effect in 1992, the Republican candidate has won every statewide vote. But Barack Obama in 2008, Joe Biden in 2020, and Kamala Harris in 2024 each snagged one vote for the Democrats from the Omaha-area 2nd Congressional District.
President Donald Trump has urged Nebraska to change back to the winner-take-all system used by every other state except Maine. Governor Jim Pillen on Monday said changing it is one of his priorities this session.
*In other news, South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden wants to give county governments the option to implement a half-penny sales tax to go toward property tax relief.
That proposal is something he’s asking an upcoming legislative task force aimed at reducing property taxes to consider. Rhoden said property taxes are too high in many counties, and actions in the already completed 2025 legislative session didn’t go far enough.
“We delivered a great first step to address property taxes with SB 216, and we are not done,” Rhoden said last week. “The people of South Dakota are looking for us to go a step further. They deserve a real property tax cut, and my proposal will deliver that for them.”
The governor’s proposal would let each county commission replace county government revenue now coming from property taxes, by increasing the optional sales tax.
The proposal would direct those sales tax dollars toward reducing agriculture and commercial property taxes. Rhoden’s proposal is that the optional tax would have to be renewed every five years.
*In other news, as Siouxland farmers begin planting crops this month, a new wave of tariffs are being enacted, with the potential to impact the price of farm inputs and access to export markets.
Last week, President Trump announced a baseline tariff of 10 percenton all foreign goods. Many countries face even higher “reciprocal tariffs,” meant to penalize them for current trade barriers. They include additional 34% tariffs on China, 24% on Japan and 20% on the European Union, which are all major export markets for U.S. agricultural goods.
Two days later, China responded by imposing its own 34% tariff on all U.S. goods beginning April 10.
Nebraska Farm Bureau President Mark McHargue said the escalating trade war hurts the state’s agricultural producers at both ends, with both exporting and importing. China will increase the price of fertilizer and other farm inputs
“Any products that we buy for the farm, that we are putting the tariff on, it's going to cost us more money,” he said. “Any product we sell internationally, which is 30% of our crops, they're going to have to pay us less.”
John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said tariffs can be both good and bad for U.S. agriculture, but it depends on how they are used.
Hansen said the loss of export markets creates a surplus of products in the United States. In a non-competitive market, which Hansen said describes the current agricultural economic system, the surplus lowers the value of commodities for all producers.
In South Dakota, the state’s lone congressman said he's not a fan of tariffs as a long-standing part of the American economy, but only when they ”are targeted and strategic.”
Congressman Dusty Johnson said what Trump is doing is laying out a strategic plan to reorder the American economy.
Johnson said the majority of South Dakotans will give President Trump some leeway, while adding that, “the breadth and depth of the tariffs were quite a little bit broader than people assumed they would be.”
China is a large market for South Dakota soybeans. Economists warn the taxes will result in higher prices and slower growth in the United States.
Said Johnson, “Hopefully we can get through this quickly. We can get more trade deals. We can get better treatment for American goods. That’s going to give us an opportunity not to have less trade, but to have more trade.”
