South Dakota Senate Republicans have selected their leadership team for the 2027-28 legislative term. Senator Casey Crabtree of Madison will return as senate majority leader, while Senator Tim Reed of Brookings has been selected as president pro tempore and Senator Amber Hulse of Hot Springs will serve as assistant majority leader.
Casey Crabtree, who represents District 8, previously served as senate majority leader in 2023-24, before being succeeded by Senator Jim Mehlhaff of Pierre in 2025. Crabtree’s return is historically unusual. Since the legislature first designated official party floor leaders in 1955, only one other person has served two nonconsecutive stints as senate majority leader: Alfred D. Roesler of Deadwood held the position from 1955-57 and again from 1961-66. (His tenure was interrupted by Democratic control of the Senate in 1959.)
Crabtree is one of three legislators from Madison to serve as a party floor leader, joining former Senate Majority Leader Russell Olson, who served from 2011-13, and former House Majority Leader Jerome Lammers, who served from 1987-92.
Tim Reed of Brookings, who represents District 7, will succeed Sen. Chris Karr of Sioux Falls as president pro tempore of the Senate. Reed previously served six years in the State House, from 2017-22, before being elected to the Senate in 2022. He is a former mayor of Brookings and former CEO of the Brookings Economic Development Corporation.
Reed will be the second president pro tempore from Brookings, following Arnold M. Brown, who served from 2001-04.
The president pro tempore is the Senate’s highest-ranking elected member, responsible for appointing committees and assigning bills to committee. Although formally elected by the full Senate, the position is traditionally determined by the majority party caucus.
Amber Hulse, an attorney from Hot Springs, represents District 30, which includes Custer and Fall River counties and part of Pennington County. She was first elected to the Senate in 2024 and will be entering her second legislative term. Hulse will be only the second woman to serve as assistant senate majority leader. The first was Barbara Everist of Sioux Falls, who held the position in 1999-2000 before becoming the first woman to serve as Senate Majority Leader in 2001. At age 28, Hulse is the youngest person to serve as assistant senate majority leader, breaking the record set by Corey Brown, who was 36 when he served in the role in 2011-12.
Rounding out the leadership team are majority whips: Jim Mehlhaff of Pierre, who served the past two sessions as majority leader; Stephanie Sauder of Bryant; Randy Deibert of Spearfish; and Helene Duhamel of Rapid City.
