Week 5 - Legislative Update

Representative John Shubeck | District 16

South Dakota Legislature

House of Representatives

Originally Posted on Facebook: February 16, 2026

This week I was very proud of the work we got done. We have the most bills filed since the 1990s, so our plate has been overflowing. With that said, I’ll talk about a few bills that are going through the pipeline that I’d like to highlight. In this weekly update I’ll talk property taxes, streaming advertising, and data collection on minors.

For property taxes I’ve been talking to people from across the district in order to get a good handle on the property tax issue. There is a very real issue for many homeowners and Pierre isn’t short on proposed solutions. Currently there are 28 proposed solutions to the property tax issue. Narrowing those 28 solutions down to just one proposal that we can all get behind is a tough task. With that said, on Tuesday February 17th we will be holding a meeting in order to begin coalescing around the best solutions. I will keep our district updated and hopefully we will have a better consensus by the end of the week.

Along with discussing taxes last week, we also voted on regulating inappropriate ads on streaming services. My bill HB 1116 made it through committee, but ultimately did not get passed on the house floor. The opposition’s arguments mainly centered around enforcement.

While overseeing advertising content is normally a federal responsibility, the federal government is not acting fast enough and we need better content controls for children. I couldn’t standby while more ads that were sexual in nature interrupted my children’s viewing. We had this saying in the Marines “in the absence of direction, take charge” and that’s where I was at on this issue. I’m not going to wait around for the federal government to address issues that are directly affecting kids now, so I took action. With all of that said, I had conversations with the motion picture association and google. With many issues like this, tech companies take notice of parents’ complaints and start doing something about it after legislation is attempted or passed. If I don’t see movement by next year, you can rest assured that I will polish this bill up and try again.

Going hand in hand with HB 1116, I’ve also got HB 1309 awaiting committee hearing and that bill deals with data collection on minors. As it stands right now tech companies can collect the data of a minor if they opt in. Opting in means they check a pop-up box and that gives tech companies permission to track every move of a minor on the internet. I believe that this is totally wrong. No one should be looking over the shoulders of our children, collecting their internet data, and then selling it to various companies. I believe that a minor is too young to opt into a data collection agreement. I am going to try to ban these tech companies from preying on our children and I think this is another fight worth having. Please support me on this bill.

Finally, thank you for all the messages with questions and also support. I am happy to say that due to overwhelming constituent engagement the governor will be signing HB 1064 (provision for sale of producer raised meat). Again, thanks for all the support this legislative session and if you have comments or questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Representative John Shubeck

South Dakota District 16