September Notes: Launch of We the People SD
- sodak350group
- Sep 23
- 5 min read
We begin the September 2025 Notes From the Chair with reference to an editorial published in the magazine Nature on September 10th.
Climate impacts are real — denying this is self-defeating
The US administration is attempting to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. It will ultimately leave that country, and the world, worse off.
Climate change increased the probability and intensity of more than 200 heat waves across the globe over the past two decades, according to a new study.
As reported in USA Today, the study linked carbon emissions from some of the world’s top fossil fuel producers including companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell directly to heat events.
The study examined 213 heat waves from 2000 to 2023. 55 or about one fourth of those heat waves would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change the authors said.
… and on and on and on.
As important as this and so many other articles are, what really matters is why all of this is happening - not just in terms of climate change and the transition to a sustainable future, but in every area of public policy and adherence to the rule of law.
The short, blunt, direct answer is that this democratic republic based on the rule of law and built on the foundation of the United States Constitution is under the greatest threat since the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia 238 years ago on September 17, 1787.
Benjamin Franklin famously said as he stepped outside after signing the Constitution on September 17, 1787, in response to a question asked by a woman waiting in the courtyard, whether this new nation would be a monarchy or Republic. Franklin replied, A republic madam, if you can hold it.
The challenge before us is whether we are able and willing to hold it.
Timothy Snyder in the prologue to On Tyranny, published in 2017 wrote,
The founding fathers debated our Constitution, they took instruction from the history that they knew. In founding the Democratic Republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the founding fathers sought to avoid the evil that they called tyranny. They had in mind the assertion of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit. That is precisely why they established three coequal branches of government - creating a system of checks and balances.
Tyranny requires silence, fear, and complicity.
Senator John Thune, however, in his role as Senate Majority Leader, rather than affirming the authority and responsibilities of Congress as defined in Article I of the Constitution, has instead remained silent and been complicit in the face of escalating un-American abuses of power by President Trump.
As examples, Senator Thune has:
Abandoned the Senate’s responsibility to review executive nominations and
instead 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 Cabinet and at key federal agencies like the CDC,
the NIH, the FBI, the EPA, and the NSC, and FEMA.
Failed to defend fundamental rights guaranteed by the First, Fourth, and Sixth
Amendments—including free speech, the right to assemble, freedom of the
press, and due process. He has remained silent as masked ICE agents wearing
no insignia without legal accountability mistakenly arrest US citizens and send
detainees in the dark of night to prisons around the world without due process
and with blatant disregard for injunctions from the federal bench prohibiting
their behavior.
Abdicated his responsibility to defend the Constitution when he remained
silent on April 18, 2025 as President Trump reviewed plans to suspend the
Constitution and declare martial law – exactly 250 years to the day that Paul
Revere road to Lexington to warn the colonialists of impending tyranny.
Rather than stand strong for freedom, due process, and the rule of law Senator
Thune has made no objection as President Trump escalates the use of the
Justice Department, the IRS, and the FBI to target critics, journalists, and
universities and now, most alarmingly, in an unprecedented way ignores the
Posse Comitatus Act and deploys active military forces targeting domestic
communities.
Failed his constitutional duty as defined by article 1, section 8 to provide for
the general welfare of the US and to regulate commerce and instead has supported the erratic use of tariffs to threaten other nations causing direct harm
to small businesses, farmers and ranchers while using of the power of his office
as Senate Majority Leader to pass President Trump’s July tax bill that transferred
billions of dollars to the most wealthy Americans while slashing Medicaid
funding - threatening access to healthcare and the existence of small community
hospitals across South Dakota and rural America.
Finally, Senator Thune has failed in his duty to protect the Constitution against
all enemies, foreign and domestic by remaining silent as President Trump
abandoned NATO and instead, aligned himself with an international war criminal
responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in his own country and in
Ukraine.
That is why a growing number of citizens of South Dakota have formed a nonprofit organization called We The People SD with the single purpose of demanding that Senator Thune honor the oath of office that he has now taken seven times and do his duty to protect and defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic.
We The People SD on September 17, 2025, launched a Call To Action using a website that allows South Dakotans and citizens from across the United States to demand that Senator Thune honor his oath of office.
The Call To Action reads:
In this defining moment in the history of the United States, it is now time for Senator Thune to honor his oath of office by reaffirming his commitment to the Constitution and to an independent legislative branch.
We the undersigned citizens demand that Senator John Thune stand firmly against the unconstitutional use of executive power by joining those who over the last 238 years have committed themselves to a government of the people and to the formation of a more perfect union.
We are asking every member of this organization to go to the website,
(https://www.wethepeoplesd.org/declaration), to sign the Call To Action, and to immediately reach out to 10 friends or neighbors or coworkers and ask them to do the same.
Our goal is 250,000 signatures in as short a time as possible.
Let me close with this: we are facing the greatest threat to this constitutional
democratic republic since its founding. In its simplest form, we are calling on Senator Thune to fulfill his obligations driven by values that South Dakotans cherish, that they have learned across the decades in their homes, their places of worship, and in their communities – among them to honor oaths, to keep promises, to stand strong for what is right, and to strive to secure to our posterity the blessings of liberty.
Michael Heisler
The South Dakota Green Project, Chair
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