Claiming Need for Broader View, Noem Sending Her Tribal Secretary to Give State of Tribes Address

The Executive Branch already gets two big speeches before the Legislature: the Governor delivers her budget address by the first Tuesday after the first Monday of December, then opens the Legislature with her State of the State Address on the second Tuesday in January.

But now the Executive Branch is seizing a third speech before the Legislature. Apparently at the invitation of the Executive Board, Governor Kristi Noem gets to send her Tribal Relations Secretary David Flute to deliver the State of the Tribes speech:

Tribal leaders, not the secretary of tribal relations, have delivered the annual speech since the tradition began in 2016.

“I think it’s important to continue that tradition,” said Harold Frazier, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. “I probably won’t be there if a state employee is giving that address.”

[Noem spokesperson Kristin] Wileman said the legislature’s Executive Board had requested that Flute, former chairman of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, deliver the speech.

“As a former tribal chairman and now the Secretary of Tribal Relations, Secretary Flute has a broad perspective on the issues facing tribes across the state,” she wrote. “His mission is to give the legislature a complete picture of the state of the tribes, instead of a chairman or president focusing most on one specific tribe. In the Secretary’s effort to include all tribes, he has reached out to tribal chairmen/presidents from each tribe and asked for input” [Arielle Zionts, “State-Tribal Relations Group Scolds Noem Administration for Not Attending Meeting,” Rapid City Journal, updated 2019.12.19].

“Focusing most on one specific tribe”? That’s odd: Rosebud Sioux Tribal President Rodney Bordeaux seems to have spoken “for all nine Indian jurisdictions” in the 2019 State of the Tribes address. Lower Brule Sioux Tribal Chairman Boyd Garneau highlighted achievements on his reservation in his 2018 State of the Tribes address but also spoke about the meth epidemic and called for expansion of Medicaid to help all South Dakotans. Yankton Sioux Tribal Chairman Robert Flying Hawk used his 2017 State of the Tribes address to discuss drug abuse, healthcare, and economic development on the reservations. And Chairman Frazier devoted the inaugural State of the Tribes address in 2016 spoke about Indian Health Service, youth suicide, and other issues facing all nine tribes. Those speeches all seem to have spoken to all of Indian Country.

But sure, let’s get broader perspective on Native issues by letting the white Governor send her appointed Secretary to give his carefully vetted and Executive-aligned remarks on what the Governor thinks matters to Indian Country.

Secretary Flute will speak for the Governor on Thursday, January 16.