South Dakota’s legislative bodies wrote a law to keep boys and men from competing in school sports as women. Fearing that the NCAA and their corporate sponsors would punish South Dakota she caved and attempted to neuter the bill at the collegiate level. That bill has now died in the veto override process. Noem has supposedly covered the two age groups, college and pre-college, with separate executive orders to achieve the same effect as the original bill and is reconvening the legislature in May to address this issue again.
So, what happened here? I think the firestorm of criticism that she received from conservatives has frightened her. She has been rightly applauded for her intelligent and courageous handling of the COVID crisis. This has raised her national profile to a level where lots of people are mentioning her as in the running for the 2024 republican presidential nomination. The last thing she can afford to do is look like a waffler on a social conservative hot button issue. This is very similar to what happened to Mike Pence when he had to walk back the religious freedom law in Indiana when the LGBTQ mafia threatened him. I think what she’s hoping to do is get a do-over. I think she knows now there is no way to finesse this thing. If she takes a strong stand and the federal government comes after her, she’s still better off than just caving ahead of time. Plus, several states have also signed similar legislation. Joining with them to come up with a united front to promote their position and maybe brain-storm a common strategy to combat the federal attack is a reasonable approach.
Even if Governor Noem does manage to walk back her earlier cowardice I don’t have confidence that she’ll have the courage it will take to stare down the feds once the guaranteed Supreme Court betrayal occurs. But it is possible that one of the other governors will have the cojones to tell Washington where to go. That would be something to see and could act as the first example of state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws.
At this point I think it’s only a fifty-fifty chance that any of these politicos have the grit to stand their ground but at least it shouldn’t take too long before we know the answer. And from my point of view that’s all we’re looking at here. We’re waiting to see if there is any leader who wants us to rally around him. The common people are no match for the KGB. We don’t have the resources to win a war against a well-armed and well-organized secret police force. It’s going to take the legitimately elected governor of a state along with the backing of the legislature and people of a state to stand down the FBI when a gangster administration decides to crush us. That’s what it will take. But do those things exist anywhere in this country? I assume we are about to find out. And once we find out that answer each of us can then make our own decision.
So good luck Kristi Noem. Choose wisely. Your political career and a lot more depends on whether you pass the test you are about to take. You flubbed it the first time but you’re going to get a do-over. Don’t waste the chance.
You should be her advisor. For now, she has pretty much lost my vote for 2024–unless other candidates stumble even worse.
Neil, I was pretty flippant about her dilemma but she hasn’t done anything that almost every Republican wouldn’t also do. It’s going to take real courage to stand up to the LGBTQ scolds and then when the SCOTUS throws out her law as unconstitutional it would take the fearlessness of a Homeric demigod like Achilles to defy the full weight of the federal government and risk career and possibly imprisonment to hold her ground. I wonder if any of the male governors will do any better. We’ll see.
The Conservative Treehouse has an interesting take on the letter Gov. Noem sent to the legislature about her veto position(s?) on the LGQTXYZ bill. Reminds me a little of Romney’s disclaimer about the Mass. Health Care he sponsored and denying that Obamacare was of a similar nature.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/03/30/when-is-a-veto-not-a-veto-when-kristi-noem-needs-the-political-cover/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=when-is-a-veto-not-a-veto-when-kristi-noem-needs-the-political-cover
Yeah, she’s a politician for sure. The weasel words come natural to them. But I was also reading what the legislature was saying and there was some slippery stuff there too. Best case, she and the Republicans running the two houses of the legislature put their heads together and put the best face on her signing the same bill in about a month when that emergency session happens. She let herself be cowed into watering down the bill. Now she has to man up and do the right thing. If she does, all will be forgiven. If she doesn’t, she’s… Read more »
Its not just the feds. As you said “Fearing that the NCAA and their corporate sponsors would punish South Dakota, she caved”.
She needs to gut up and tell the NCAA “So what? Take your ball and go home.”
Over half the states have Republican governors that (Should) support protecting girls sports.
Over 30 states have bills to protect girls sports.
If the NCAA wants to boycott all of those states, it will be a very small market.
Wouldn’t it be great if all these red state governors sat down together and put together a checklist of things that they would present a united front on. If all of those states said the same thing and were boycotted at the same time there wouldn’t be much of an NCAA without them. In general these governors have to start preparing their citizens to tolerate the punishment the Left will inflict on them and accept it as the price to pay for being free of them. Part of this is the fault of us citizens for whining about every pin… Read more »