Governor Larry Rhoden has worked to undo the walls Kristi Noem built between herself and the people who paid her salary. Right after Noem left to take her position under Trump, Rhoden said he wanted to “reset” relations with the press and end the stonewalling Noem had imposed throughout state government on the simplest media requests. “I am not going to be hard to find,” Rhoden said in his first address to the Legislature as Governor.
Rhoden has made himself easier to find on the Second Floor. Bob Mercer reports that Rhoden has undone Noem’s closure and hogging of the big beautiful lobby of the Governor’s Office and returned it to the people:
Noem closed the office’s main double doors that had been open to the public for decades and moved into the large area that had previously served as a ceremonial space where people could visit or wait to see the governor and also see the historic desk used for bill signing ceremonies.
Members of the public were instead channeled through a small side door into a side room, where a series of at least five previous governors, from Janklow through Daugaard, had privately worked.
That put the historic desk out of view, other than for people allowed into Noem’s inner sanctum to see it or during special occasions when the desk was moved into the rotunda for a bill signing.
Noem described the change as a return to the arrangement that Frank Farrar had used while he was governor in 1971-72.
Now that Noem has stepped down, Rhoden has changed the arrangement back. The main double doorway is open again to anyone who wants to stop in [Bob Mercer, “At the Capitol: Another House Seat to Be Filled,” KELO-TV, 2025.08.29].
No word on whether Rhoden has junked Noem’s extravagant sex desk or if he continues to sit at the monstrosity where Kristi and Corey Lewandowski worked things out.