Strong Families.
Strong South Dakota.

I grew up an Army brat. My dad served, I did not. We moved several times before my family settled in Cheyenne, Wyoming the summer before I started 7th grade. By then I had already lived a dozen years and a handful of places.

Cheyenne is where I came of age. I played college baseball back east, came home to Wyoming, graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 2004, and spent the next 13 years selling real estate in Cheyenne.

In 2018 a family court case brought my son to Rapid City. I bought a house here that same year. I was in Rapid City through COVID. In 2022 I moved my life here for good. That is eight years of South Dakota now, and it is home.

I will not turn this campaign into the story of my case. I will tell you this much. What I lived through is the reason I went back to school. I earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 2022 and founded Kids Deserve Dads. Since then I have heard from tens of thousands of parents, moms and dads, caught in the same system. They do not agree on everything. They agree on this: a system that promises to serve the best interest of the child is failing too many of the children it touches.

For the last two years I have taken that work to Pierre. I have fought to pass Shared Parenting in both the 2025 and 2026 sessions, alongside Sen. Tom Pischke and Rep. Bobbi Andera. The Senate passed Sen. Pischke's SB 172 (2025) twenty to thirteen. The Senate passed his SB 224 (2026) twenty to fourteen. Rep. Andera carried HB 1067 (2026) on the same fight in the House. Both times the bill came closer than ever. Neither time it got over the line.

The next session has to be the one that does. Six states currently have a strong equal Shared Parenting presumption: Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, Missouri, and Mississippi (which passed HB 1662 this year and takes effect July 1, 2026). When we finish the work in the 2027 session, South Dakota becomes the seventh.

That work is the foundation under the eleven-bill Martin Family Court Reform Stack. It is not theory. It is not partisan. It is what I have lived, sharpened by the law degree and by the stories of thousands of South Dakota families. It is one of fifteen pillars in a platform built to govern, not just to win an election.

Pierre has drifted. An $80 million general bill with 26 new state FTEs. A vote against the constitutional amendment that would have protected landowners from eminent domain for private gain. A parental rights bill that should have protected South Dakota parents and kids, struck down on the floor of the legislature. Slipping accountability scores across the board. The record tells the story.

The heart of Rapid City is worth fighting for. South Dakota is worth fighting for. Strong Families. Strong South Dakota. That is the line. Let's go.