Longtime Rounds aide lobbied South Dakota Legislature for Meta and Altria while serving on his Senate staff

A senior adviser to Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has for years worked as a registered statehouse lobbyist while simultaneously drawing a paycheck from the senator's Senate office, according to South Dakota state filings first reported by Politico and detailed in follow-up reporting published this week. The arrangement, which has drawn little notice in Washington, is now prompting government-ethics watchdogs to question whether a top Senate aide can credibly serve the public while being paid by more than a dozen private clients with business before Congress and the South Dakota Legislature.

The aide, Robert Skjonsberg, has worked at Rounds's side for more than a decade. He managed Rounds's first Senate campaign in 2014, served as chief of staff from 2015 to 2022, and now holds the title of senior adviser. Since 2023, according to South Dakota's state lobbyist registration system, he has also been a paid lobbyist before the South Dakota Legislature in Pierre for clients that include Meta, the tobacco company Altria, the conservative Freedom Foundation, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, and the state's dairy and pork producer trade groups. His government-affairs firm, 605 Strategies, lists him on its website as a co-owner and founding member, though the firm itself does not appear anywhere in his state lobbying paperwork.

The overlap, by the numbers

Skjonsberg's registered client roster has run to more than a dozen entities since he began lobbying the state Legislature in 2023, spanning technology, tobacco, agriculture and manufacturing interests, according to the filings. Two of those clients, Meta and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, list contracts that ran through March, when South Dakota's legislative session ended. Under Senate rules, staff who earn more than $25,000 a year and work 90 days or more must report outside employment in writing and, at higher pay levels, are barred from board seats or professional work that conflicts with their Senate duties. Senate Rule 37 specifically prohibits "outside business or professional activity or employment which is inconsistent or in conflict with the conscientious performance" of Senate duties, and requires committee aides earning above certain thresholds to divest holdings that could be affected by their committee's work, according to guidance posted by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.

A senator's agenda and a lobbyist's client list

The timing of some of Rounds's legislative activity has drawn particular attention. Since Skjonsberg registered to represent Meta, Rounds has introduced or co-sponsored a string of artificial-intelligence bills, including the bipartisan CREATE AI Act to expand federally funded AI research infrastructure and the LIFT Artificial Intelligence Act on AI literacy in schools, both areas in which the social-media company has invested heavily. Rounds also sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, which oversees funding tied to the farm and ranch industries represented by several of Skjonsberg's other clients. This year Rounds introduced the bipartisan RANCH Act, which would open up to 20 million acres of marginal cropland to grazing, and led the PASS Act, which would bar China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from buying American farmland near military installations. Neither bill names Skjonsberg's clients directly, and there is no indication he lobbied Rounds's Senate office on either measure; the overlap identified in the reporting is between the industries Skjonsberg represents in Pierre and the committee jurisdiction Rounds holds in Washington.

How the arrangement has persisted

Skjonsberg's mixing of public duties and private interests is not a new concern. In 2014, while managing Rounds's Senate campaign, Skjonsberg sat on South Dakota's Board of Economic Development, which approved state economic-assistance awards to companies in which he and Rounds held investments through a private fund, a conflict flagged at the time under state rules requiring board members to recuse themselves from votes touching their own financial interests. That episode did not derail Rounds's Senate career, and Skjonsberg went on to run his office for seven years as chief of staff before formally registering as a state lobbyist in 2023, the same year he shifted to the less operationally demanding senior-adviser title.

Who is affected

• South Dakota residents and lawmakers whose statehouse debates on tobacco, agriculture, technology and manufacturing policy Skjonsberg has lobbied on behalf of paying clients.
• Meta, Altria and the other companies and trade groups that retained Skjonsberg, none of which has publicly commented on the dual role.
• Rounds himself, who faces voters in South Dakota's Nov. 3 general election against independent challenger Brian Bengs after winning his Republican primary by a wide margin in June.
• Senate ethics enforcement more broadly, since the case tests how aggressively chamber rules reach into a staffer's state-level, rather than federal, lobbying work.

Watchdogs call it a clear conflict

Ethics researchers who reviewed the arrangement said it falls squarely within the kind of dual-loyalty problem Senate rules are meant to prevent, even though Skjonsberg's registered lobbying occurred at the state rather than federal level. Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen, in remarks reported by Raw Story, said the setup "poses the most obvious conflict of interest I can imagine," adding that a staffer cannot simultaneously work "on the public's behalf" and as "a hired lobbyist" for private interests "getting directly paid for it."

"It's wholly inappropriate for somebody who's working as a Senate staffer to be lobbying, even if it's only at the state level, because you can't draw this line or wall between all the kinds of information you gain. To me, this is pretty much a no-go, and it's an outside employment that should not be permitted." — Meredith McGehee, government ethics researcher

A spokesperson for Rounds's office said the senator's general counsel had consulted with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and received guidance that the arrangement did not present a conflict of interest. The office did not dispute the underlying state filings identifying Skjonsberg's clients or the timeline of his roles.

What happens next

No formal ethics complaint has been filed against Rounds's office over the arrangement as of this week, and the Senate Ethics Committee does not routinely comment on whether it has received or is reviewing a complaint. The disclosure surfaces roughly eight weeks before the November election, in which Rounds is seeking a third term, giving the story potential traction in a race his campaign has otherwise treated as a formality after his lopsided primary win. Whether the reporting prompts a formal review by the ethics committee, changes to Skjonsberg's role, or simply fades as one more staff-conduct story in a crowded pre-election news cycle is likely to become clearer in the coming weeks, as South Dakota's Legislature and Congress both return to session this fall.