Last Saturday, we posted Noem silent about ethics probe response. Flight to daughter’s wedding part of official business.
Apparently, that sort of silence is an important part of ethics investigations in the Rushmore State.
Reporting for the Associated Press, Stephen Groves writes in Ethics board keeps ‘action’ secret on complaint against Noem:
South Dakota’s ethics board won’t publicly disclose the “appropriate action” it took after finding evidence Gov. Kristi Noem intervened with a state agency to influence her daughter’s application for a real estate appraiser license, a lawyer for the board told The Associated Press.
The state’s Government Accountability Board was created to provide a check on any misconduct by state officials, and the question of whether to discipline the Republican governor presented its first major test.
A lawyer hired by the board, Mark Haigh, responded to an open records request by telling the AP this week that the board’s response would remain “confidential.”
The board’s three retired judges considering the complaint voted unanimously last month to find that there was evidence that Noem, who is considered a potential 2024 White House contender, engaged in a conflict of interest and malfeasance when she held a meeting in July 2020 that included her daughter, Kassidy Peters, and key decision-makers in Peters’ licensure just days after the agency had moved to deny her a license. After the meeting, Peters got another opportunity to demonstrate she could meet federal standards and was ultimately awarded the license.
But the board appeared to let Noem decide whether to defend herself in a public hearing, known as a contested case hearing, or simply accept the “appropriate action” and let the matter quietly die. As a deadline passed last week to contest the board’s finding, Noem stayed silent, and the board’s lawyer says the case remains closed.
“This all looks like, frankly, an ethics board trying to engage in a cover-up,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor who specializes in government ethics at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.
After reviewing the board’s statutes, Clark pointed out that South Dakota law says the board “shall” conduct a contested case hearing if the board members vote that there is enough evidence to believe an official engaged in misconduct. That vote then triggers a statute that makes the board’s files open to the public.
“This appears to be an end-run around the required transparency and disclosure,” Clark added.
The board’s attorney said by email that the board has “maintained confidentiality where required by the statute” and is “confident that it has interpreted the statutes correctly.” . . .
Read the rest at the Associated Press's page. Groves first reported for the AP about Noem’s hands-on role for her daughter's career in September 2021.
And there's little chance the appraiser licensure process will be reformed. At Dakota Free Press, Cory Allan Heidelberger observes in Failure to Engage Stakeholders Leads to Continued Rejection of State’s Bad Appraiser Training Plan:
In another example of the Noem Administration’s failure to consult with stakeholders, the Legislature’s Rules Review Committee once again rejected the Department of Labor and Regulation’s proposal to create a new training program for real estate appraisers. The state is trying to get more appraisers in the pipeline, but the state’s appraisers say the plan as conceived won’t work . . .
Governor Noem has wrecked the state’s relationship with real estate appraisers. She pushed the state’s longtime appraisal certification chief, Sherry Bren, out of her job after Bren refused to certify her daughter for real estate appraising despite multiple exam failures. Bren’s replacement was under orders from the Noem Administration not to talk to appraisers. The state tried pushing ahead with rule changes last spring despite strong industry opposition; now it appears Noem’s Department of Labor still hasn’t figured out how to communicate with the appraisers, despite the expressed expectations of legislators. . .
Go read the post at Dakota Free Press.
Photo: Governor Kristi Noem.
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