The South Dakota Democrat Trying to Save GOP Lawmakers From Themselves
Six Republican lawmakers tested positive in four days. But only a Democrat seems willing to do something about it.
Rep. Jamie Smith
At the end of a week in which four fellow members of South Dakota's House of Representatives tested positive for COVID-19, Minority Leader Jamie Smith presented Speaker Spencer Gosch with a letter calling for a mask mandate in their chamber to match one in the state Senate.
“He said, ‘Thank you, I’ll read it,” Smith later told The Daily Beast.
Smith then departed the state Capitol building in Pierre and began the three-hour drive home to Sioux Falls. He received a text on the way informing him that two more House members had just tested positive. All six are Republicans. And Smith figures only about a third of the 62 GOP House members wear masks in the Capitol.
