SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – We The People South Dakota have started a petition calling for Senate Majority Leader John Thune to uphold his oath to the Constitution.
The nonprofit organization claims Thune has failed to uphold his oath by supporting President Donald Trump’s recent actions, which have been deemed by some– including the National Constitution Center and US appeals court– as unconstitutional.
“Senator Thune, in his role as majority leader, rather than affirming the authority and responsibilities of Congress as defined by Article One of the Constitution, has instead remained silent in the face of escalating un-American abuses of power by President Trump,” said Michael Heisler with We The People SD.
The organization is hoping to get 250,000 signatures on the petition before November 2026, when they plan to turn it over to Thune and the Secretary of the United States.
“While Thune is our senator, he’s also the leader of the most deliberative body in the world, the United States Senate, and so every citizen in this country is impacted by what he does and what he doesn’t do,” said Rick Knobe, former Sioux Falls Mayor who now runs We The People SD.
KELOLAND News reached out to Sen. Thune’s office for comment, but did not hear back before the time of publishing. We will add his statements to this story once we receive them.
We The People SD claims Thune is blindly supporting and voting for Trump’s 21 cabinet picks without any review.
“Sen. Thune has abandoned the Senate’s responsibility to review executive nominations and instead has confirmed all 21 of Trump’s cabinet or cabinet-level picks, all chosen for loyalty over competence, leaving the American people in harm’s way because of dangerous incompetence in the Capitol and at key federal agencies,” Heisler said.
On September 9, a press release from Thune’s office said Senate republicans are in the process of changing the rules to make appointing the Trump-nominated cabinet members, which democrats have blocked, easier and faster.
Democratic Senators have blocked nearly all of Trump’s nominees, AP News reported September 8, which has led to a standstill in the Senate and positions in the executive branch unfilled.
They also claim Thune has remained silent or supported issues like ICE raids and arrests, tariffs, medicaid funding cuts and Trump threatening to pull out of NATO.
“He has failed to defend the fundamental rights guaranteed by the first, the fourth and the sixth amendments, including free speech, the right to assemble, freedom of the press and due process,” Heisler said.
We the People SD launched the petition on September 17, exactly 238 years after the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in 1787. About 60 people attended the press conference in Sioux Falls about the petition.
Sioux Falls resident Cathy Scaturro was at the meeting. She hopes that through this petition, more people will understand the consequences of the current administration’s actions.
“There are so many people there who are just not informed, and they’re just believing what they hear on the right wing media, and they don’t understand what the damage that’s going to be done to them personally, whether it’s farmers, low income people, rural people who want access to medicine and hospitals and doctors and students,” Scaturro told KELOLAND News. “That’s my hope that more people wake up and realize, ‘Oh, my God, they’re hurting us.’”
During an interview with KELOLAND News, Knobe said the emphasis on Thune and not the other South Dakota delegation, like Sen. Mike Rounds or Rep. Dusty Johnson, is due to his position as majority leader.
“Senator Thune sought the leadership of the United States Senate, and he got it,” Knobe said. “Now, he is the leader of the most deliberative body in the world. That carries some responsibilities and, in our opinion, he’s not living up to them.”
