South Dakota's legislative leadership has found that two District 27 elected officials are eligible to serve in the Legislature after allegations were made regarding their South Dakota residency.

Sen. Red Dawn Foster, D-Pine Ridge, and Rep. Peri Pourier, D-Pine Ridge, were seated in the South Dakota Legislature this week without incident after claims were swirling for weeks regarding their residency.

Sen. Phil Jensen, R-Rapid City, and Rep. Julie Frye-Mueller, R-Rapid City, challenged Foster and Pourier's residency prior to the start of the legislative session, alleging that Foster was a Colorado resident and Pourier was a Nebraska resident. The state mandates that lawmakers be South Dakota residents for two years prior to their election to the Legislature.

An investigation into the allegations found that Foster and Pourier met the residency requirement, Senate Majority Leader Kris Langer, R-Dell Rapids, and House Majority Leader Lee Qualm, R-Platte, said during a weekly leadership press conference on Friday.

"As far as the Senate caucus goes, we are satisfied with the information that we've gotten and plan to let the senator serve," Langer said. Qualm added, "We worked very hard to get the information and right now, with current information we have, we believe there's no reason she would be unseated. There's plenty of evidence saying that she's definitely eligible."

Sen. Tony Heinert, D-Mission, said during Friday's press conference that Democratic leadership was confident from the beginning that Foster and Pourier were going to be found eligible to serve.

"We're comfortable they did their investigation, they looked at the documents," Heinert said. "We knew that that was going to be the end result."