Party unity 53%, in the bottom quarter of the South Dakota House (average 76%). 324 roll calls in the SD 2025–26 session.
Party unity counts only party-line roll calls, where most Democrats and most Republicans voted on opposite sides, and is the share of those where Fosness voted with the majority of South Dakota House Republicans; it is ranked within the South Dakota House. The count covers every roll call where Fosness voted opposite that majority.
At a glance
3 measures against the South Dakota House. Fosness sits at +0.31 on the CSIP scale, more liberal than 58% of State House Republicans.
The measures on which Fosness sits furthest from the middle of the South Dakota House, each against the same group, with the CSIP score when there is one. Every number is explained in its own section below.
Party unity
South Dakota House average 76% · ranks 56th of 69 · 36 votes against the majority of South Dakota House Republicans
Attendance
South Dakota House average 96.6% · ranks 28th of 70 · 324 roll calls
CSIP ideology
More liberal than 58% of State House Republicans · ± 0.08
Statements
Roll calls
Compared with South Dakota House
Bills sponsored
and 0 cosponsored
Peer group: South Dakota House. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Fosness, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Fosness is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Fosness says
No statements for the SD 2025–26 session.No classified statements (posts, press releases, newsletters, floor speeches) in this time window.
Policy
No policy statements for the SD 2025–26 session.No classified statements (posts, press releases, newsletters, floor speeches) in this time window.
Ideology
Fosness sits at +0.31 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more liberal than 58% of State House Republicans. Approximate range +0.23 to +0.39, which understates the uncertainty; from 0 donors and 156 roll calls.
CSIP, the lab’s Common-Space Ideal Point, places every official, federal and state, on one left–right scale, estimated from roll-call votes, who gives money to whom, and the text of statements. Negative is left of 0, positive right of it; 0 is the centre of the scale, not a definition of “moderate”.
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.23 to +0.39. From 0 donors and 156 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Fosness, coloured by its side of 0 (blue left, red right, deeper further out); the bar through it is the approximate range (±1.96 standard errors), which understates the uncertainty; the grey ticks below are the medians of Fosness’s groups. 0 is the centre of the scale, not “moderate” by definition.
What this means, and what it doesn’t
The score summarises how an official votes, who funds them and how they talk, relative to everyone else. It does not grade positions as good or bad, and two officials with the same score can differ on any single issue. The ± range is 1.96 standard errors, which understates the uncertainty: scores whose ranges overlap may not differ at all, and even scores whose ranges do not overlap may not differ.
Where Fosness sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Fosness |
|---|---|---|---|
| State House Republicans | 2917 | +0.4 | 42% |
| South Dakota House | 70 | +0.1 | 89% |
| All State House | 5324 | +0.1 | 68% |
How to read the strips
Every small dot is one official on the same scale, coloured by its own score (blue left of 0, red right of 0, grey at 0, deeper further out) and spread up and down only to keep dots apart; where a group is crowded the dots overlap, and darker patches mean more officials. The large outlined dot is Fosness in every row; the rule is each group’s median. The table under the figure gives the share of each group to the left of Fosness.
Money
No campaign-finance data.No campaign-finance records are matched to this official.
Votes
Fosness voted with the majority of South Dakota House Republicans on 53% of party-line votes and missed 0.3% of 324 roll calls. South Dakota House on average: 76% party unity, 96.6% attendance. Across all roll calls, Fosness voted against the majority of South Dakota House Republicans 36 times.
324 roll calls Fosness could vote on in the SD 2025–26 session, compared with South Dakota House. Attendance is the share with a vote recorded. Party unity counts only party-line roll calls, where most Democrats and most Republicans voted on opposite sides, and is the share of those where Fosness voted with the majority of South Dakota House Republicans. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
votes against the majority of South Dakota House Republicans
Party unity 53%, South Dakota House average 76%, ranks 56th of 69. 324 roll calls in the SD 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Fosness, the thin grey bar the South Dakota House average. The scale runs from 50% to 100% to show the gap.
Show the data
| Row | Fosness | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 99.6% | 96.6% |
| Party unity | 53% | 76% |
What this means, and what it doesn’t
A missed roll call has many causes, from illness to campaigning, so attendance says how often, not why. A vote against the majority can be on procedure as well as substance, and many fall on roll calls where both parties split; the key votes below show the ones that decided something.
Key votes
25 roll calls the lab flagged as key in the SD 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 12, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 5–0 · R 46–15 · O 1–0Democrats 5 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 46 yea, 15 nay; Others 1 yea, 0 nay | became law · party crossover | |
| Mar 12, 2026 | HB 1051 revise property tax levies for school districts and to revise the state aid to general and special education formulas. Do Pass Amended | Yea | With majority | pass | D 5–0 · R 60–1 · O 1–0Democrats 5 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 60 yea, 1 nay; Others 1 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Mar 12, 2026 | HB 1326 appropriate money for the ordinary expenses of the legislative, judicial, and executive departments of the state, the current expenses of state institutions, interest on the public debt, and common schools. Do Pass | Yea | With majority | pass | D 5–0 · R 44–17 · O 1–0Democrats 5 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 44 yea, 17 nay; Others 1 yea, 0 nay | became law · party crossover |
| Mar 9, 2026 | SB 219 require that a state agency consult with the Aeronautics Commission prior to purchasing, transferring, or disposing of a state owned and operated aircraft. Do Pass Amended | Yea | With majority | pass | D 5–0 · R 61–2 · O 1–0Democrats 5 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 61 yea, 2 nay; Others 1 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Mar 9, 2026 | SB 245 create the homeowner property tax reduction fund, and to transfer moneys to the homeowner property tax reduction fund. Do Pass Amended | Nay | Against majority | pass | D 1–4 · R 40–23 · O 1–0Democrats 1 yea, 4 nay; Republicans 40 yea, 23 nay; Others 1 yea, 0 nay | became law · party crossover |
How key votes are chosen
Automatically: a final-passage or override vote where the measure became law, the margin was under 10%, at least 10% of either party voted against its majority, or the bill was among the 25 most mentioned in officials’ own statements. Up to 25 per window, most recent first; five are shown. Bars show yea on the left, nay on the right, per party.
Votes most often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Fosness most often
- Mike WeisgramR313 shared votes96%
- Kent RoeR323 shared votes96%
- Steve DuffyR307 shared votes96%
- Keri WeemsR323 shared votes96%
- Roger DeGrootR301 shared votes96%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Fosness least often
- Tina MulallyR265 shared votes41%
- Phil JensenR319 shared votes45%
- Dylan JordanR322 shared votes47%
- Tony RandolphR315 shared votes50%
- Aaron AylwardR274 shared votes53%
How to read the agreement lists
The share of roll calls both members voted on where they voted the same way, among colleagues sharing at least 50 such votes. High agreement with members of the other party is common on routine votes.
Full voting record
SD 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
Fosness sponsored 3 bills in the SD 2025–26 session; 2 became law. Cosponsored 0 others.
The bills Fosness sponsored and cosponsored in the SD 2025–26 session, from the official bill records, and how far each got: introduced, referred to or acted on in committee, passed one chamber, passed both, became law. A bill counts at every stage it has reached, so the blocks only shrink to the right.
Bills by stage
Counts for the SD 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Cosponsored | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Fosness sponsored, ochre blocks bills Fosness cosponsored; the figure above each block is the count. Most bills in any legislature never leave committee, so a short staircase is the norm.
No effectiveness score.Too few sponsored bills to score (at least 5 are needed).
Cosponsorship partners
Colleagues who most often cosponsor with Fosness, by number of shared bills in the SD 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Mike Weisgram2
- Kevin Van Diepen2
- Tim Walburg2
- Jim Mehlhaff2
- Kent Roe2
What this means, and what it doesn’t
The score is the share of sponsored bills that a committee reported out or a chamber passed, with at least 5 sponsored bills, ranked within the peer group. Members of the majority party and committee chairs move more bills, so the rank reflects position in the chamber as well as effort. Cosponsorship partners are the five colleagues who share the most of Fosness’s bills; the toggle shows more.
Bill list
Sponsored and cosponsored, with status and policy area; five are shown, the toggle shows the rest
| HB 1034 | increase fees for decals and license plates mailed to vehicle owners. | Sponsor | Jan 13, 2026 | Became law | Transportation and Public Works(model) | Signed by the Governor on 2026-02-23 H.J. 400 Feb 23, 2026 |
| HB 1005 | provide a sales and use tax exemption for goods and services related to data center operations. | Sponsor | Jan 13, 2026 | In committee | Taxation(model) | State Affairs Deferred to the 41st legislative day , Passed, YEAS 9, NAYS 3 Feb 4, 2026 |
| SB 2 | provide that a firearm silencer is not a controlled weapon. | Sponsor | Jan 13, 2026 | Became law | Crime and Law Enforcement(model) | Signed by the Governor on 2026-02-11 S.J. 240 Feb 11, 2026 |
Online
The lab crawls Fosness’s official and campaign websites (weekly for Congress, monthly for the states) and keeps every page’s text, so changes can be read later; it also records social accounts and describes the images Fosness posts with a vision model.
Websites
No websites are tracked for this official.
How to read the counts
“Pages crawled” is the size of the site at the last crawl; “changes in 90 days” counts pages whose text differed from the previous crawl. Sites change for many routine reasons, such as new press releases, so a high count is not by itself notable.
Social accounts
No social accounts on file.
Images Fosness posted
No images from Fosness’s posts have been described.
About the descriptions
Written by a vision model and may be wrong. Open the post to see the original. Five are shown; the toggle shows the rest.
State floor speeches
No transcribed state floor speeches are matched to this legislator yet.
Floor speeches
Transcribed from chamber video or captions by the lab. They are not classified for kinds of statement.
Methods and sources
How this page was made. Profile built Oct 28, 2026; site last built Oct 28, 2026. Every number on the page is computed from the sources listed here, by the same rules for every official; nothing is written by hand.
The headline
The headline is the measure on which Fosness is most unusual among South Dakota House, chosen by one rule for every official of every party. The candidates are the rate of each kind of statement and of extreme labels, party unity, attendance, the small-donor share, the in-state share and total receipts of the latest cycle, the share of sponsored bills that got out of committee, talk-to-bills agreement, and the CSIP score’s place within the party group.
The builder ranks every measure within the same peer group the page compares it with, and writes each official’s percentile: the share of the group below the value, ties counting half, so 0.5 is the median and a value shared by many never ranks first. A measure’s score is how far that percentile sits from the median (0 in the middle, 0.5 at either end), and the highest score leads if it is above 0.25, outside the middle half of the group. Scores within 0.03 of each other are a tie, broken in this order: votes against the party majority, kinds of statement, ideology, roll calls missed, small donations, in-state money, legislation, agreement, extreme labels, receipts.
A measure counts only with at least 200 statements, 100 roll calls or 5 sponsored bills behind it and a peer group of at least 10. Two things never lead: high party unity or attendance, where most members sit, and a high rate of a kind of statement backed by fewer than 10 statements. When nothing qualifies, the headline is a neutral fact instead: statements classified, or years in office. The wording always names the direction (“in the bottom 5% of …”, “votes against the majority of …”).
Identifiers
- Profile id
- 1f9d8833-6a73-4985-b33e-635b6bc194b7
- Open States
- ocd-person/1f9d8833-6a73-4985-b33e-635b6bc194b7
Bulk files with the same data for every official:
Freshness of this profile’s data
- What politicians sayOct 27, 20261 days agoMembers of Congress: tweets since 2017; press releases, newsletters and floor speeches since 2022. State legislators: tweets since May 2024. Governors: tweets since January 2025. Labels from an LLM classifier.
- Roll calls (state)Oct 21, 20267 days agoOpen States floor roll calls, 2019 on (none for AK and MO).
- Bills (state)Oct 28, 2026todayOpen States bills and sponsors, 2019 on; stages from roll calls.
- Campaign money (state)no dateState campaign-finance agencies, 2019 on; aggregates only.
- Ideology (CSIP)Oct 25, 20263 days agoCommon-Space Ideal Points (CSIP), current validated run.
- WebsitesOct 25, 20263 days agoWeekly crawls of federal sites since April 2026; monthly state crawls since June 2026.
- State floor speechesOct 21, 20267 days agoState floor speech turns (published transcripts and captions), 2020 on; not LLM-classified.
How the measures work
- What politicians say
- Every post, press release, newsletter and congressional floor speech is read by a language model and marked for personal attacks, policy criticism, policy discussion, bipartisanship and credit claiming. A statement can be in several. Rates are shares of statements in the window. The methods paper.
- Extreme labels
- A statement has an extreme label when it calls a politician, party or policy “far left”, “far right”, “MAGA”, “extreme”, “radical”, “woke”, “fascist” or “communist”. The target is who the label is aimed at.
- Policy areas and agreement
- Statements and bills share 25 Congressional Research Service policy areas (state bills are assigned by a language model). Agreement is 1 − Jensen–Shannon distance between the two distributions, shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
- Ideology (CSIP)
- Common-Space Ideal Points place federal and state officials on one left–right scale, estimated jointly from roll calls, campaign contributions and the text of statements, with standard errors. Only a validated run is shown. The methods paper.
- Campaign money
- Campaigns report by name only donors who give more than $200 in a cycle; smaller gifts are reported as one total. Federal totals and the small-donor share come from the FEC’s financial summaries of each campaign committee. Donor counts, donor states, employers and occupations cover itemized donors only. State filings report no small-gift totals, so state figures are itemized only. The lab never publishes donor names.
- Votes and key votes
- Attendance, party unity and the count of votes against the majority of an official’s own party come from roll calls (Voteview for Congress, chamber records for the states). Key votes are final-passage or override votes that became law, were decided by under 10%, saw at least 10% of a party vote against its majority, or concerned one of the 25 bills most mentioned in officials’ statements.
- Peers and ranks
- Comparisons are with the same party, chamber and level (for example House Democrats); state legislators are compared within their state and chamber for votes. Every comparison names its group. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; tied values share the average of their ranks, and the percentile is the share of the group below the value, ties counting half.
America’s Political Pulse · Polarization Research Lab