The Amendment
Todd Epp
The clerk read the amendment into the record, an addition to a bill naming the state reptile.
No one interrupted her.
Then the laughter started.
It moved unevenly, a few voices at first, then more, until members looked at one another, surprised by the sound they were making. The clerk waited with the page held steady.
“The member from Sedgwick County moves that the words ornate box turtle be stricken and replaced with Representative Harlan.”
The laughter broke apart, then gathered again.
“Rep. Barry Harlan?”
The clerk repeated the name.
For a moment, no one spoke. Harlan sat facing forward, hands folded, his expression fixed somewhere beyond irritation. Rep. Tyler Janzen, R-Newton, watched him carefully, surprised not by the stillness but by how practiced it seemed.
Someone called for order. The word sounded thin the first time. It came again, firmer.
From the dais, a member of leadership rose and addressed the chamber without reference to the amendment, the laughter, or the man at the center of both.
The clerk folded the paper and set it aside.
The leader’s office was at the end of the corridor, just past the mural. Tyler had learned to walk by it without slowing down. The man in the painting held a rifle in one hand and a book in the other, his coat lifted by a wind that never settled.
“Close the door,” the leader said.
The blinds were drawn farther than before. The desk was bare except for a yellow pad and a pen laid across it.
“You laughed,” the leader said.
Tyler started to explain. He stopped when the leader raised a hand.
“You didn’t laugh loud,” the leader said. “You didn’t laugh long. You didn’t laugh like you meant it. But you did laugh.”
He wrote something on the pad. The sound of the pen was deliberate.
“That’s the problem,” the leader said. “You think that matters?”
Tyler stood where he was. No one told him to sit.
“You embarrassed a member of this caucus on the floor,” the leader said. “It doesn’t matter whether he deserves it. It doesn’t matter whether everyone knows it. It happened, and it happened publicly.”
The leader glanced at the pad again.
“You filed that transportation bill last week. The one for the rural routes.”
Tyler nodded.
“It isn’t on any agenda,” the leader said. “That doesn’t mean anything yet. But it should tell you something.”
He capped the pen.
“You’re going to vote with us for a while,” the leader said. “You’re not going to speak unless you’re asked. You’re not going to put your name on anything that hasn’t come through me. And when the caucus stands, you’ll stand.”
He opened the door.
In the hallway, Tyler stopped beneath the mural. Up close, the paint was cracked in places, the face rougher than it looked from a distance. The rifle pointed nowhere he could follow. The book lay open to a page he could not read.
When he returned to the floor, the House was already moving again.
A bill was called.
Members rose.
Tyler rose first.
Todd Epp
Todd Epp is a writer living in South Dakota. His poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction centers on the people, courage, challenges, and land of the Plains states. He is a finalist in The Good Life Review's 2026 Honeybee Poetry Prize.