Tribal relations · District 32
In the room before January.
Not after the votes.
Rapid City's Native community lives in this district: North Rapid, downtown, and the neighborhoods around Oglala Lakota College's He Sapa Center on Knollwood Drive. This page is what I will carry to Pierre for you, who I will carry it with, and how to grade me on it.
Where I stand
Eight years ago a family court case brought my son to Rapid City, and I followed him here. I learned what it is to face a system that was never built for the family in front of it. Many Native families learned that generations before I did.
The Rural Ethnic Institute put District 32's candidates in front of Native voters at Oglala Lakota College's He Sapa Center in May and again on October 16, 2026. I was at that table both times. The commitments below are the ones I made there, in writing, so they can be checked.
I will not promise what a state legislator cannot deliver. What a state representative can do is show up before the session, carry the bills that keep dying in committee, and come back to be graded. That is what this page is.
What I will carry to Pierre
Seven commitments. Each one with a receipt.
Nothing here is a slogan. Every item names a bill, a vote or a date, so you can check it against the record and against me.
- 01
Meet first. File second.
Before the 2027 session opens, I will sit down with tribal leaders and with the Native organizations that do the work in Rapid City. The bills I file in January will have your fingerprints on them. That is a schedule, not a speech, and you can hold me to the dates.
Receipt The 102nd South Dakota Legislature convenes in January 2027.
- 02
A state and tribal consultation commission.
In 2026 Rep. Eric Emery asked the House to create a South Dakota and tribal consultation commission: the Governor, the Secretary of Tribal Relations, one representative from each of the nine tribes and one lawmaker from each chamber, meeting at least every three months, with the Governor reporting every state initiative that touches the tribes before it lands. HB 1190 had seven sponsors and died in House State Affairs, 8 to 4, without a floor vote. I will co-sponsor it and work the committee, not just sign the sheet.
Receipt HB 1190 (2026). Deferred to the 41st legislative day in House State Affairs, February 9, 2026.
- 03
A yearly report to tribes on the taxes collected on their land.
The state collects sales and other taxes on reservation land under agreements with the tribes, and the tribes cannot see the numbers. Twice in two sessions a bill asked the Department of Revenue to send each tribe a yearly estimate of what was collected in its agreement area, split between remote and in-person sellers, with a back report for the prior six years. HB 1018, with fifteen sponsors from both parties, died in House Taxation in 2025, 12 to 1. SB 241, carried by Sen. Tamara Grove, died in Senate Taxation in 2026, 4 to 3. Neither got a floor vote. I will co-sponsor it a third time.
Receipt HB 1018 (2025), House Taxation, 12 to 1. SB 241 (2026), Senate Taxation, 4 to 3.
- 04
ICWA, written into state law.
The Indian Child Welfare Act is federal law, and Pennington County is where South Dakota was taken to federal court over it. A federal judge in Rapid City found in 2015 that the county's emergency custody hearings violated the law. That ruling was later set aside on procedural grounds, not because the facts changed. The next Legislature should write state law that puts South Dakota ahead of the federal floor, not behind it. I will write that bill with tribal child welfare leaders, not for them.
Receipt Oglala Sioux Tribe v. Van Hunnik, D.S.D. 2015; vacated by the Eighth Circuit in 2018 on abstention grounds.
The family court reform stack - 05
Reentry that starts on day one, and treatment people can reach.
Native people are 39 percent of South Dakota's prison population and Native women return to prison at a rate of 66 percent, which is why reentry planning has to start the day a sentence begins and treatment has to be reachable from the reservation and the rural county. That is not a statistic about a people. It is a report card on a state. The state's own reentry report said the same thing in August: nobody should leave prison without an ID, a Medicaid card and a place to sleep. The women's prison in Rapid City has 96 treatment beds and a mother and infant unit. The state built the model here. I will hold the $650 million men's prison to it.
Receipt South Dakota Searchlight, December 17, 2025, Department of Corrections figures. CSG Justice Center reentry assessment to the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force, Rapid City, August 20, 2026.
Tough on violent crime. Smart on the rest. - 06
Tax fairness for the people who rent.
More than four in ten households in District 32 rent. In 2026 Pierre cut property taxes for homeowners and will pay for it by letting the sales tax go back up next July. A renter pays the sales tax at the register and the property tax inside the rent check, and gets none of the relief. I will carry a renter's rebate so the people paying the tax finally see it, and a rule that the property tax share of a unit is disclosed to the tenant.
Receipt US Census ACS 5-year, table B25003: 42.2 percent of District 32 households rent. SB 245 (2026), sections 2 and 6.
The affordability agenda - 07
Every legal vote counts. Every legal voter gets a straight answer.
I support proof of citizenship to register, and the 2026 law already counts a tribal ID as that proof. I want a tribal ID accepted everywhere a driver's license is. Then the part the state is failing at: nearly six thousand South Dakotans are now on a federal-only list that lets them vote for Congress and nothing else, and the state's own voter portal does not tell them. Nobody should lose a state ballot without a letter that says why and how to fix it. I will carry that fix.
Receipt SB 175 (2026), House 64 to 3, signed March 30, 2026. South Dakota Searchlight, October 13, 2026: 5,735 federal-only registrants.
Elections and voting integrity
The record
Tribal bills in Pierre, 2025 and 2026.
On every tribal bill that reached the House floor these two sessions, both of District 32's current representatives voted yes. I would have too. The bills that mattered most at He Sapa never got a floor vote. Those are the ones I will carry.
- HB 1007 (2026)Tribal officers count as law enforcement officers under state law.House 67 to 0. Signed March 9, 2026.Law
- HB 1175 (2026)Division of Criminal Investigation cooperation with tribes.House 66 to 0. Law.Law
- HB 1232 (2026)Principles a state agency must follow for a program that affects tribal members on a reservation.House 63 to 3. Law.Law
- HB 1233 (2026)Tax collection agreements with tribes.House 63 to 2. Law.Law
- HB 1006 (2026)Task force on Indian Medicaid managed care.House 60 to 7. Law.Law
- HB 1002 (2025)Every certified educator takes a South Dakota Indian Studies course.House 54 to 12. Law.Law
- HB 1190 (2026)State and tribal consultation commission.Died in House State Affairs, 8 to 4. No floor vote.Died
- HB 1018 (2025)Annual Department of Revenue report to tribes on tax collections.Died in House Taxation, 12 to 1. No floor vote.Died
- SB 241 (2026)The same report, Senate version.Died in Senate Taxation, 4 to 3. No floor vote.Died
- SB 196 (2025)Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings in public school curriculum.Failed in the Senate, 7 to 28. Never reached the House.Died
Roll calls read from the South Dakota Legislature's own records (sdlegislature.gov) on October 15, 2026.
How to grade me
A schedule, not a speech.
Trust is not something I can ask for in ninety seconds at a forum. It is something you can measure in January.
- Before January
I sit down with tribal leaders and with Rapid City's Native organizations. You set the agenda.
- January to March
The bills above are filed with co-sponsors and with your edits in them. I report back on each one, including the ones that die.
- After the session
I come back to He Sapa and take the questions. Grade me on what passed, not on what I said.
Join the team
Vote Zac Martin
Door by door. Neighbor by neighbor. Yard sign by yard sign. This is a grassroots campaign for the heart of Rapid City, and that is exactly what it takes to win District 32.