Reading the text of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2022 speech, we noticed one "pants on fire" fib--that in South Dakota, "We kept kids in the classroom."
It's not true--our romantic partner's grandchildren and the rest of the Summit school district's pupils, weren't in the classroom. Indeed, South Dakota's temporary closure (later extended until the close of the semester) came a few days before that ordered by Governor Walz in Minnesota.
It's not the first time she's suggested South Dakota kept kids in the classroom to an audience at CPAC. What's more, her damning "the left" rhetoric erases some of her own policy making.
About the classrooms closing
Our tweet:
2/2 Here's the transcript in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. https://t.co/0sNvsDSvMb
— Sally Jo Sorensen (@sallyjos) February 26, 2022
In some ways, this year's CPAC speech is a rerun of last year's CPAC speech. On March 2, 2021, Joe Sneve reported in the Souix Falls Argus Leader article, As Noem scores points for her pro-liberty approach to COVID-19, here's a look at what she's done:
. . .Noem doesn't shy away from her reputation as a "hands-off" governor amid the pandemic, and that's only fueled speculation that she's eyeing a presidential run in 2024.
But to say she never issued any shelter-in-place orders and that she doesn't believe government has the authority to close businesses or make people wear masks doesn't entirely vibe with what's taken place in South Dakota during the last 12 months.
It's true, Noem never issued any statewide lockdowns or business closures. But she did use executive fiat to force certain groups of people in specific areas from being in public.
Through an April 6, 2020 executive order, the governor ordered all people with an underlying medical vulnerability and those 65 and older in Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties to stay home.
"This executive order is mandatory for the counties above," read the order signed by Noem, which she defended as a targeted approach to managing the virus versus a one-size-fits-all mandate.
The order ended up lapsing in mid-May, but not until after Noem extended it at the end of April.
Details, details. But there's more:
Noem is also correct that she never formally ordered the closure of any businesses. But following an outbreak at the Smithfield meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls in April, she joined Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken in using their offices to apply pressure on the company to shut down.
Within days, the plant executives announced it was shutting down for two weeks. . . .
And while other states are still grappling with whether to send kids back to school, South Dakota students have been in the classroom since August.
Noem touted that as the right approach during her CPAC speech.
But she didn't bother to mention she all but ordered the closure of schools in the early days of the pandemic.
On March 13, during a call between health officials and school administrators, schools were told that closing schools wouldn't necessarily help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.
Within four hours, Noem's office took a different route, instead recommending all public and private schools be closed. South Dakota school systems heeded that advice and didn't re-open their doors to students until they returned to school in fall 2020.
Of course, she cites the state motto in the latest speech: "Our state motto is “Under God, the People Rule.” No mention of her quashing of the will of the people to legalize adult cannabis via Amendment A, as South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws states:
On Election Day last year, 54% of South Dakota voters approved Amendment A, a ballot initiative to legalize, regulate, and tax cannabis for adults aged 21 and over. But after the election, Governor Noem led a taxpayer-funded lawsuit to repeal the law. On November 24, 2021 the South Dakota Supreme Court issued a deeply flawed 4-1 ruling that overturned Amendment A.
Riot-boosting law vs free speech
But Noem isn't just bending the truth about her own orders to close South Dakota schools or her hypocrisy about the will of the people.
At CPAC this year, Noem contrasted "the Left" with conservatives, though she has a short memory about her own efforts to crush First Amendment rights in saying, "The Left crushes free speech. Conservatives celebrate free expression."
Jeepers. Noem has done a bit of that herself We're old enough to remember 2019's riot-boosting law, which was laughed out of the a federal courtroom. As is often the case, Cory Allen Heidelberg summed up the situation. In Judge Suspends Noem’s Pro-Keystone XL Riot-Boosting Law, he wrote:
In this afternoon’s order, Judge Piersol says, sure, the state has an interest in busting genuine rioters. However, Noem’s “riot-boosting” laws “go far beyond that appropriate interest and… do impinge upon protected speech and other expressive activity as well as the right of association.” Furthermore, Judge Piersol concludes the laws “go beyond what is essential” to punish violent rioters.
Gee, Republican legislators: if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to sit up and bark for Kristi and Canada’s Keystone XL pipeliners, if you had actually listened to the South Dakotans who showed up on deliberately short notice to explain what was wrong with Noem’s anti-free-speech bills, you might have recognized that Noem’s proposals would fail Constitutional scrutiny. But I guess you prefer losing in court….
Governor Noem sought to criminalize as “riot-boosting” not just participating in a riot but directing, advising, encouraging, or soliciting others who participate in a riot and commit acts of force or violence. Judge Piersol took a close look at those four verbs—direct, advise, encourage, solicit—and found that while directing rioters is naughty, advising, encouraging, and soliciting do not involve control and thus “involve expressive activity of many kinds, expressive activity that is protected speech.” To support his conclusion that Noem’s statute is overbroad, Judge Piersol provides examples that answer the questions Noem’s chief lobbyist Matt McCaulley would not answer about the genuine chilling impact of her riot-boosting law:
Sending a supporting email or a letter to the editor in support of a protest is encouraging. Giving a cup of coffee or thumbs up or $10 to protestors is encouraging the protestors. Holding up a sign in protest on a street corner is encouraging. Asking someone to protest is soliciting. Asking someone for $10 to support protesting is soliciting. Suggesting that the protest sign be bigger is advising. The possible violations of those felony or damage creating statutes against advising, encouraging, or soliciting goes on and on. Encouragement, advice or solicitation for the protest on social media would be a fertile ground for damages or charges or both. And each of the examples involve protected speech or expressive activity [Judge Lawrence Piersol, Order, Dakota Rural Action v. Noem, 2019.09.18, p. 11].
Judge Piersol concludes further that Governor Noem would have slapped Dr. Martin Luther King with felony “riot-boosting” for writing his famed “Letter from Birmingham jail” for “soliciting, advising or encouraging another person to break the law.”
Judge Piersol does Governor Noem and the Legislature a small favor by manufacturing a severability clause for them and letting stand the prohibition on directing rioters. But Judge Piersol enjoins punishment of their advisors, encouragers, and solicitors, based on his conclusion that the plaintiffs will likely prevail on the merits, that the plaintiffs face “clear and substantial” irreparable harm, the state faces no harm in losing the chance to enforce a statute that it hasn’t used once since its “emergency” enactment in March, and the public interest in protecting those who exercise basic constitutional rights to speech and association from immediate and financially crushing punishment outweighs the interest in preventing the entirely speculative costs to taxpayers counties that might see protests. . . .
Freedom of speech and expression? One heckova thing.
Related posts:
- South Dakota ethics: Will lawmakers resolve Governor Noem's closed-door meeting with daughter violated public trust?
- SD Gov Noem blames Soros' money for pipeline protests; cuts tribes out of anti-protest bills talk
Photo: Governor Kristi Noem on a horse.
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