Tamara Grove

Senator Tamara Grove is South Dakota's first African American Indigenous female elected to the SD Senate in SD legislative history. In the 2024 South Dakota Senate election, she became the first Republican to represent the 26th district in nearly two decades.^[3] Tamara Grove, who is representing Lower Brule, beat incumbent Democratic Senator. Shawn Bordeaux of Mission on Election Night 2024.  She defeated him with a tally of 57%-43%.^[4]

Grove was adopted as a baby by Leo and Delores Istas of Miller, SD, in August 1970 during the Indian Adoption Project. Grove's history is connected to the Nigerian slaves of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to warriors like Bob "The Bench" Benge of the Eastern Band of Cherokees, to Tecumusah of the Shawnee, and to a hardcore German woman named Wilhelmina "Minnie" Buchholz, who came by herself from Germany to farm and raise cattle. Tamara's own story began as a secret hidden by her mother. Spared from abortion, her Aunt, a nun with the Presentation Sisters in Yankton, offered a safe place to hide in the days when pregnancy outside of marriage was a horrible fate.^[5] Her biological mother then gave her up for adoption.^[6]

After 30 years in Sioux Falls, she and her husband moved to Lower Brule. Together, they took on leadership roles at the Hope Center of Lower Brule. Grove and her husband have collaborated with community members on issues like drug and alcohol recovery, children's educational programs, and food sovereignty. They also serve on the Lower Brule Health and Wellness Board, which works to improve the health of Native people in Lower Brule and across the state. Seeing the desperate need for quality leadership in State leadership, Tamara ran for office.^[4]

Tamara is an advocate of drug reform and rehabilitation for those most impacted by substance use disorders. In her first session, Grove worked to end the state's archaic ingestion law, which penalized first-time offenses as felonies. Grove worked tirelessly to get it repealed, make it a misdemeanor, and demand rehabilitation for those arrested.^[7][8]

Prior to her time in office, after the 2016 United States presidential election she was a researcher for the First Step Act and worked directly with President Donald Trump’s Urban Revitalization Coalition and was the lead co-author for his 13-Point Urban Revitalization Plan.^[9] Locally she worked for the anti-cannabis group Protecting South Dakota Kids in 2024 legislative session.^[10]

In 2025, Senator Grove passed a resolution calling for the rescission of the Dakota Removal Act. A law that currently banishes Dakota/Lakota from Minnesota.^[11] She also brought a bill that would require Native history be taught in SD schools (like it is in neighboring states). When introducing this bill, Grove said, "This is a step towards a reset that tribal leaders have called for in the wake of strained relations with former Gov. Kristi Noem."^[12] She also brought a parental rights bill that aligned with the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause. Sadly, the bill was defeated https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S1-5-8-1/ALDE_00013775/ https://www.keloland.com/news/capitol-news-bureau/uncompromising-sponsor-sees-parent-rights-bill-die/

• Tamara Grove at the South Dakota Legislature