✅ Pillar: Land Sovereignty – Reclaim the Soil Beneath Our Feet

✳️ Why This Is Needed

South Dakotans are being priced off the land that built them.

Billionaires, banks, and foreign governments are buying up thousands of acres—not to live on, not to farm, but to control, to hoard, and to speculate. Meanwhile, our young families can’t afford to build. Our farmers are crushed by corporate buyouts. Our native lands remain tied up in systems that were never meant to return them.

This isn’t a free market. This is a quiet occupation.

And the deeper truth is this: if you lose the land, you lose the people.
You lose the vote, the voice, the future.

🌱 What We Could Have

A South Dakota where the land belongs to the people who live on it.

We could protect our soil for working families, tribal stewards, veterans, and new homesteaders—not Wall Street. We could expose who owns what, and why. We could break the back of absentee ownership and bring stewardship back to the local level—where land means life, not leverage.

We could create a new kind of prosperity—rooted in place, community, and care. A South Dakota where owning land means contributing to it—not flipping it for profit.

🛠 How We Achieve It

• Ban foreign and absentee ownership of South Dakota land.
  
• Launch a mandatory divestment timeline for mega-owners with no in-state presence or benefit.
  
• Create a Public Land Ledger—a searchable database showing who owns what, down to the acre.
  
• Define “land hoarding” in state law and tax it as a non-contributing asset.
  
• Allow exemptions only for landowners who provide verified jobs, housing, or long-term community benefit.
  
• Protect and expand tribal and veteran access to land through state-supported trust-to-title pathways.
  
• Establish a Land Reclamation Tribunal to return misused or fraudulently acquired land to public or citizen hands.
  

In South Dakota, we will not be tenants on our own soil. We will be stewards. And the land will serve the people—not the portfolio.

SECTION 1. TITLE

This Act shall be known as the "Land Sovereignty and Strategic Reclamation Act."

SECTION 2. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS

The Legislature finds that:

1. The preservation and stewardship of South Dakota’s land is a matter of vital public interest and state sovereignty.
   
2. Excessive acquisition of land by foreign nationals, foreign-controlled entities, and non-resident corporations poses a material risk to the state’s economic stability, agricultural independence, and constitutional principles of citizen self-governance.
   
3. South Dakota retains the constitutional authority to regulate, reclaim, and restrict land ownership and use within its borders in order to promote the general welfare, ensure economic access, and defend against strategic national threats.
   

SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS

As used in this Act:

• "Foreign Entity" means any corporation, trust, individual, partnership, or organization headquartered outside the United States or having more than 49% foreign ownership.
  
• "Non-Resident Corporation" means any corporation or LLC not registered and primarily operating within South Dakota.
  
• "Absentee Owner" means a landholder who does not reside in, develop, or contribute verifiable tax, employment, or community benefit to South Dakota.
  
• "Land Hoarding" means the continuous possession of over 10,000 acres by a single beneficial owner, with less than 20% of said land actively used for productive, residential, or regenerative purposes.
  

SECTION 4. PROHIBITION OF FUTURE FOREIGN AND ABSENTEE LAND ACQUISITION

(1) No foreign entity, absentee owner, or non-resident corporation shall acquire new real property or leasehold interest exceeding 160 acres in the State of South Dakota after the enactment of this Act.
(2) Any attempted acquisition in violation of this section shall be deemed null and void ab initio. Title shall revert to the State Land Bank without compensation.

SECTION 5. MANDATED DIVESTMENT

(1) All current land held in excess of 2,000 acres by any foreign entity or non-resident corporation shall be subject to a mandatory divestment timeline not to exceed 48 months from the effective date of this Act.
(2) Affected entities must file a divestment plan with the South Dakota Department of Land Management within 180 days.
(3) Failure to comply shall result in state reclamation proceedings and eminent domain under revised public benefit standards.

SECTION 6. EXEMPTIONS

Entities may petition for exemption if they:
(a) Employ more than 50 full-time South Dakota residents on the land annually;
(b) Are headquartered and registered in South Dakota and have contributed consistent community or agricultural benefit;
(c) Are verified as fulfilling Indigenous tribal stewardship or intergovernmental land trust responsibilities.

Exemption decisions shall be subject to peer review and made public.

SECTION 7. CREATION OF THE PUBLIC LAND LEDGER

A centralized South Dakota Public Land Ledger shall be established to:

• Record all landholders with acreage above 640 acres
  
• Classify land ownership by type (citizen, tribal, corporate, foreign)
  
• Make ownership data searchable and transparent to the public
  

SECTION 8. ENFORCEMENT

(1) The Attorney General of South Dakota is authorized to bring enforcement actions and initiate reclamation proceedings.
(2) Civil penalties for fraudulent ownership concealment or delayed divestment may include fines up to $50,000 per day and permanent loss of state contract eligibility.

SECTION 9. SEVERABILITY

If any provision of this Act is held invalid, the remaining sections shall remain in full force and effect.

SECTION 10. EFFECTIVE DATE

This Act shall take effect upon passage and shall be codified under Title 43 of the South Dakota Codified Laws.