Maybe it took a Republican governor to do it because SD has a Republican governor? No Democratic governor had the opportunity to sign or veto this bill. In any case, Democrats are outnumbered by more than 3 to 1 in both SD houses, so lots of Republicans had to vote to pass this bill since even with an equal number of GOP members voting with them, all the Democrats in the SD legislature together could not pass any bill, at all, ever. I do not follow your logic; you could just as easily invert the statement and it would make equal sense.

The governor vetoed the law based on his reasoning that it would be litigated against in Federal courts, cost the State money to defend it, and they would probably lose based on previous Federal court decisions in civil rights cases. Also, the Feds could hold up paying federal monies for education in the state based on Title IX which has provisions for that sort of thing. This is a governor doing his job, in at least this instance.

But this has nothing to do with whether someone votes for one party or another "automatically" -- a bad plan that always deserves rethinking.

Hugs,
Erin