Jonathan Ellis over at the Argus Leader is writing today that the new Governor of South Dakota is quickly letting it be known that there’s a new Sheriff in town, hearkening back to a leadership style that didn’t put up with any nonsense:
There are likely other names for what happened at the Capitol last week, but they all describe the same event: Gov. Kristi Noem’s exercise of political power.
It came well before the halfway mark of a legislative session that has already had its share of bizarre moments. By way of a colorful example, a small group of lawmakers introduced a bill to block people from accessing certain Internet sites or television broadcasts. These lawmakers apparently aspire to offices in communist North Korea.
By all accounts, Noem was sick of the weird stuff coming from the Legislature, in particular the House, when she summoned legislative leaders to her second-floor offices last week. Her message was simple: Cut it out.
and..
Running for governor, she vowed to be a strong executive. No power sharing with a lieutenant governor. It echoed the Bill Janklow school of how to run the state.
Her confrontation last week won her new admirers at the Capitol. In her first test of leadership, Noem came out on top. More tests are bound to come.
When she was in Congress, Kristi Noem’s leadership style never struck me as one that would suffer games or foolishness, a lesson that legislators serving alongside her were recently reminded of as she pointed out to them in her new role as Governor.
Stay tuned…
Impressive. The last President who took the wackies to the woodshed for a spanking was President Reagan. Nice company to be in. Again, most impressed.
Don’t forget The Donald.
I was at the House State Affairs committee hearing where she took Scott to the cleaners. I also observed her in action in the same committee taking on AT&T, Verizon and Midco lobbyists who were attacking rural telephone providers. She is not to be trifled with.
The only line I don’t understand from Ellis is “No power sharing with a Lt. Gov.” obviously written to invoke dissent or bad feelings or whatever he wants to write about next.
From what any normal brained human being has seen quite the opposite has splayed out in internal relationships between the governor and lieutenant governor
She needs to understand that the legislature doesn’t answer to her. They and her answer to the people. There are 3 separate and equal branches of government. The sooner the legislature figures this out the better.
That ended with term limits. The legislature has virtually no power, and the Governor is trying to stop the House from continually making a fool of itself. Plus, the bone-headed actions of the Speaker caused a lawsuit that cost the taxpayers a lot of money. She needed to step in and be the adult in charge.
Exactly. Term limits make the Legislature a less effective check on the Executive Branch. Just when you have leaders and committee chairs knowing where the issues are, we tell them to retire. Governors could get it any better.
I worked for a Governor before term limits. It was easy to Buffalo the newbies. The experienced legislators knew way too much.
“Couldn’t”
Troy, it is easy to buffalo the newbies. It is also easy to buffalo dogmatists and fools, many of whom occupy seats in the South Dakota legislature (and many others). I remember so many consecutive years on opening day looking down on the joint session and saying silently to myself, “Heaven help us.” Not much changes from year-to-year.
Has nothing to do with newbies or veterans.It has do with hard work and ethics. Some of the worst public servants are veterans….just look at city councils, and school boards aka Rubber Stampers.
They can switch to the House or Senate when their term is up.
There are a lot of Veteran Legislators out there. That is an excuse for passing bad Legislation.
I served less than 10 years ago, and now there are 15 of the 105 that were there when I was! Less than 15% of the legislators have 10 years of experience. Obviously, there are NOT a lot of veteran legislators out there, and term limits has had much to do with that. One of the dumbest votes our citizens ever made.
Still not a good excuse for passing bad Legislation. Heck if a guy without any Legislative experience can be President, well I would think common sense should trump experience.
Not even close… Consider that those 15% only are there 2 months of the year. They have no staff, only college interns when they are in session. On the other hand, the Governor and her staff work year-round. If knowledge is power, the legislature is totally overwhelmed. There is no check and balance now in place for the executive branch in SD.
There is no check and balance because there has been a one party control for over 40 years.
Further Anne, Governors don’t mind well-informed opposition and checks because it makes for better governance.
However, when all you have is newbies, you have a bunch who know there are problems, challenges or opportunities for improvement but don’t have the knowledge, experience and wisdom how to effectively pursue it. And, what you get is I’ll-thought out “diversity bills” or legislators leaving too early to effect the change so they resort to imperfect bills they can propose via initiative.
Don’t run if you can’t think for yourself.