Political marketing firm Kaplan Strategies says Governor Kristi Noem is the most well-liked politician in South Dakota. Kaplan’s dubious poll evidently did not include in its sample chiefs of staff, of whom Kristi Noem has just burned through her fifth. After declaring just last weekend that working for “the best Governor (and it’s not close) in the nation… absolutely is more fun than a guy deserves,” Mark Miller told the Second Floor staff he chiefs that he’s going back to Florida:
He is returning to Florida where he has accepted a position with a nonprofit. Miller joined Noem’s staff in 2020 as legal counsel. He moved up to chief of staff in November 2021 on an interim basis and received the full appointment in March 2022.
The Republican governor often described him as her administration’s unborn child advocate.
…He previously was an attorney for Pacific Legal Foundation in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. His wife moved back to Florida last winter, prompting speculation that he would be leaving soon, too [Bob Mercer, “No Word Yet on Noem’s Pick for Her 6th Chief of Staff,” KELO-TV, 2023.06.13].
Noem goes through chiefs of staff the way Trump goes through lawyers. Miller lasted longer than his four predecessors, but five chiefs of staff in four and a half years is unmatched in recent South Dakota history; with her next appointment, Noem will tie Bill Janklow, who took sixteen years to employ six different chiefs of staff.
The radical right-wing South Dakota Freedom Caucus sees this high churn as a signal that Noem is a bad boss:
Miller did help advance those right-wingers’ agenda. Miller said last month that one of his most rewarding experiences in Pierre was chairing Noem’s redo commission on K-12 social studies standards, which canceled the work of South Dakota’s teachers and rubber-stamped radical standards composed by right-wing, public-education-hating Hillsdale College. If Miller wasn’t just blowing write-me-a good-reference smoke and chiefing Noem’s staff really is more fun than a guy deserves, you’d think Noem might promote a gal, like Rachel Oglesby, who says on her LinkedIn page that she was promoted to deputy chief of staff just last month. But keen-eyed Mercer notices that Oglesby, whom Noem imported along with Miller in fall 2020 and helped propagandize for the Hillsdale standards, has also left Noem’s staff.
The next most deserving gal is press secretary Amelia Joy, whose advanced degree in political communication is going woefully underused. Joy could surely use the bump in salary: she could move from making $60K a year for doing nothing to earning the $178,461.60 Miller made as chief of staff or even the $144,805.85 Oglesby was getting as deputy chief.
But Joy may stand no chance of advancement. All five of Noem’s chiefs of staff have been guys, leaving us to wonder if Noem could even stand to have another strong, independent woman at her side managing her schedule and her team.
If Amelia were a strong, independent woman, she probably would go somewhere else. On the other hand, I can hardly fault her for drawing $60k for occasionally tossing a baton. What’s the take-home outa $60k with no deducks?
Watching the SDGOP eating its own is divinely inspiring!
So the wife left last winter? Came for the “freedumb,” but they didn’t tell her about the winters? Awwww! :-)
Covering South Dakota government these days is like watching episodes of Mean Girls. We are now in the chapter titled Ditzy Kristi.
She must be very hard to work for.
It’s a job where you’re delegated to talk with disgruntled, argumentative people and you are assigned to tell these people “No”. Governor’s don’t say “No” to citizens with a request for government grease for their squeeky wheel. It is a trying 24 hour a day job and, if a Chief of Staff lasts 4 years, that’s a long time. In my memory, only Janklow enjoyed arguing with constituents and saying “NO”.
They should consider grudznick for this plumb job. I could argue with citizens and run the show if the Governor were to be out of town.
Grudge would be the perfect choice — since that expensive goat fence was put up, it should be put to use. Bring in the goats.
Grudz (that will become a problem with autocorrect in your new position)
Grudz…wake up…the Governor won’t need to be out of town…the Chief runs the show, the Governor is the show.
Winter drives a lot of people back home to where they came from. I’m sure working for Noem is not a fun job, given her wacky ideology rants. Overall if Noem wanted a long-term staffer, she made a poor decision hiring somebody outside of the cold states region. Very few people that come from the southern states stay here for more than 3-5 years.
I always get a chuckle when I hear that cities or the state is going to spend money recruiting people to the state. It is like putting a small round Band-Aid on a long deep cut that needs many stitches. Recruiting people from outside the region is like the Band-Aid, a waste of time and money. If you cannot get people born and raised in SD to stay here, there is a reason and political leaders in Pierre need to understand that and change their mentality.
That changes my desire to be this Chief fellow, Mr. Blundt. If true.