Jess Tjeerdsma (July 25, 1907 – August 20, 1977) was an American politician and farmer from South Dakota. Born near Running Water, he served as the country treasurer of Bon Homme County for 14 years, beginning around 1959. In 1974, he was elected to the South Dakota Senate as a member of the Republican Party. He served until August 19, 1977, when he resigned due to ongoing health problems. The following day, Tjeerdsma died at a hospital in Tyndall.
Life and career.
Jess Tjeerdsma was born near Running Water, South Dakota, on July 25, 1907. He is a graduate of Southern State College. On June 15, 1928, he married Johanna Odens; together, they had 7 children. According to a 1976 biography published in "The Daily Republic", Tjeerdsma taught at a rural school for three years and was a farmer for 22 years.
Circa 1955, Tjeerdsma became the register of deeds for Bon Homme County. In 1959, he announced his campaign for the Republican Party nomination for county treasurer of Bon Homme County. He defeated his Democratic Party opponent Steven Schneider; Tjeerdsma received 2,390 votes compared to Schneider's 1,570 votes. According to the "South Dakota Legislative Manual", Tjeerdsma served in the position of county treasurer for 14 years. Tjeerdsma was selected to the pulpit supply committee of the Emmanuel Reformed Church in Springfield in January 1967. In April that year Tjeerdsma was elected as vice president of the St. Michael's Hospital lay advisory board. Two years after in October 1969, he was selected as chairman of the board.
In 1974, Tjeerdsma was elected to the South Dakota Senate, representing its 16th district. In February 1975, Tjeerdsma introduced a bill—alongside Arlo Leddy, Charles Flyte, Billie Sutton, and Harold Anderson—that proposed a 6.5% corporate income tax within South Dakota. The tax money would be used to "replace revenue lost to local governments by an accompanying repeal of property taxes on cattle, sheep and hogs." The bill was one of three corporate income tax bills introduced in the 50th session of the South Dakota Legislature. The measure was first proposed by Richard Kneip, the governor of South Dakota. The measure was later amended by House Majority Leader Walter Dale Miller, who proposed decreasing the 6.5% corporate income tax to just 3% and adding a 1.5% tax on federal taxable income from individuals. The House voted against the bill 42–26 on March 14. A similar bill which proposed a 4% corporate income tax narrowly passed the House in a 37–33 vote earlier on March 12. Tjeerdsma and James Dunn, a fellow Republican, broke party lines by voting to discuss the bill; most Republicans were in opposition against the bill, calling it "discriminatory". In December 1975, Tjeerdsma and representatives Robert Lyons and Lyle Mensch sponsored a bill that would allow Charles Mix County to receive $56,800 in state funds to pay the expenses of prosecutions resulting from a takeover of a pork plant near Wagner on May 2; the takeover resulted in seven people being charged.
Tjeerdsma was one of 20 legislators in January 1976 that co-sponsored a bill that would allow landowners in areas of Brown, Day, Marshall, Spink, and Sully counties to vote on future of the Oahe Irrigation Project. The bill's primary sponsor was Representative Kenneth Stofferahn. Later in the month, an act introduced by Tjeerdsma and 5 other senators was unanimously passed by the Senate State Affairs Committee that permitted compliance with the 1975 amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to provide specialized assistance for minority voters in specific counties. Following the Senate elections in 1976, Tjeerdsma was appointed as chairman of the health and welfare committee at the Senate.
On August 19, 1977, Tjeerdsma resigned from the South Dakota Senate; in his letter to Kneip, Tjeerdsma cited health issues. The following day, he died at a hospital in Tyndall. In October, Democrats in Tjeerdsma's district submitted five names to Kneip, a fellow Democrat, in order to replace Tjeerdsma in the Senate. He ended up selecting Robert Lyons of Wagner. The appointment caused the Republican Party to fall one short of the two-thirds supermajority required in the Senate to override vetoes from the governor.
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