Mugwumps and reasonable legislators may come together to stop future governors from abusing the economic development funds the way Kristi Noem did. The first bill in the Senate hopper, sponsored by radical right-wing Senator Taffy Howard (R-34/Rapid City), maybe kinda-sorta Democratic Senator Red Dawn Foster (D-27/Pine Ridge), and Senate President Pro-Tempore Chris Karr (R-11/Sioux Falls) and a similarly motley mix of Representatives at the request of the watchdog Government Operations and Audit Committee on which they sit, would take away the Governor’s power to unilateraly hand out cash from the Future Fund.
Expenditures from the Future Fund have been at the sole discretion of the Governor since it was created in 1987, when we had a Governor, George S. Mickelson, whom we could trust not to do vain and stupid shit. Kristi Noem broke that trust, so now, says GOAC, we need Senate Bill 1, which will require a majority vote of the Board of Economic Development to approve disbursements from the Future Fund. That board is still stacked with big-cash cronies handpicked by the Governor, but that board at least has to meet in public, so we’d see bad ideas like subsidies for fireworks shows and crony contracts for self-promoting ad campaigns coming and have a chance to raise heck about them before the vote.
Senate Bill 1 also orders the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to put on the books clear rules for doling out Future Fund grants and loans. Those published rules, public scrutiny, and end of the Governor’s direct authority over that money, would make the Future Fund a lot less slushy.
That our Republican friends even see the need to put into statute what would have been considered norms speaks a lot to the quality of candidate being elected to public office and the deafening silence of tacit support those candidates enjoy in the moment of their corrupt actions.
She’s stealing from America just like she did in South Dakota. WOW!!
The core of the controversy? A DHS-funded ad featuring Noem filmed at Mount Rushmore, intended to deter illegal immigration. It’s not the message itself, but who got paid to deliver it that’s igniting outrage. The contract, worth $220,000, went to The Strategy Group, a firm with demonstrable ties to both Noem’s political career and key personnel within DHS.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=kristi+noem+under+congressional+investigation&view=detail&mid=566B026AEEE13E09AC01566B026AEEE13E09AC01&FORM=VIRE
Come on, she had to pay for those lips somehow!
Well, Mikelson was saner than most SD Governors, but he was wrong to create the Future Fund with minimal citizen and legislative oversight.. It was always a slush fund, and he and other Governors used it for some dumb stuff, some of it corrupt. Noem, of source, was thoroughly corrupt, so it just became more noticeable under her rule.
The Futures Fund and Tax increment financing need to be severely curtailed. They have been greatly abused…………….
Frank, it sounds like the Legislature is more ready than ever to do that curtailing. Has Noem’s departure left us with a weaker executive branch that may not stand in the way of Legislative reforms?