This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Our Dakota Political Junkies say that, historically, the State of the State address is meant to catch legislators up on the top issues in South Dakota.
Tuesday's speech was more of a farewell address as Gov. Kristi Noem prepares to head to Washington. The Junkies explore how the speech focused on accomplishments over new policies.
Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Michael Card, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of political science at the University of South Dakota.
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The following transcript was auto-generated and edited for clarity.
Lori Walsh:
In her 2025 State of the State address, Governor Kristi Noem touted her accomplishments over the last year and from her tenure as the state's top executive leader, but did she really give the legislature the information they need about the state of South Dakota?
Let's start with Mike Card. As you look at the governor's speech overall, what was the tone? Let's start there, and some of the things you noticed about this presumably farewell speech, but also a speech to cement a legacy.
What stood out for you?
Michael Card:
Well, I think that she's trying to cement her legacy. She spoke very positively of the things that the agencies have done. She provided another top 10 list, while the reason for the State of the State address is the, "constitutional provision that the governor provide information concerning the affairs of the state, and to recommend measures that she or he considers necessary."
We heard a lot about the condition of the state being very good. We didn't hear any measures considered necessary, other than something with the Education Savings Accounts, but I don't recall anything else that she identified as being necessary.
Lori Walsh:
Every topic heading had, "Here are the things that I think that we did, and here's kind of what's coming next."
Fireworks are going to come back to Mount Rushmore in her mind, which is, of course, not something she has entire control over. Is that a measure considered necessary when she's talking about values?
How do you define that, I guess is what I'm asking, Mike? How do you define measures? Are those just emergency measures, or are they more policy initiatives?
Michael Card:
The necessary part suggests that, here's a problem we need to solve, and that may be just the way that I look at it, but opportunities to take advantage of might also fit, but it doesn't seem to meet with the word necessary.
On the other hand, it's a self-congratulatory speech. Some wonderful accomplishments have been made. We've moved forward in a great many ways. There are ways to detract from some of those top 10 items, but there are also some important accomplishments identified in that top 10 list.
Lori Walsh:
Let's go deeper into some of those important accomplishments, and then we'll get deeper into each of them, maybe.
Jon Hunter, an accomplishment that you think she brought up that you thought, yeah, that really is going to be a hallmark of her administration that people will look to in the future, and find it was a real solid piece of state government at work?
Jon Hunter:
Yeah, there were, again, kind of part of this top 10 things really was a trying to cement these ideas as her successes. They aren't universally considered successes, but I believe in her mind that they're exactly what, the way she wanted to paint it.
It's very similar to the budget address, frankly, which was kind of more of a State of the State, I thought this year, than normal, but also very consistent with campaign speeches and so forth.
It does seem to be a little bit of separating the state from her six years, which are great, and all the other years, not so great, which I think is not as fair to a previous governors.
Lori Walsh:
Right, in the sense that it was bad, I fixed it, and now I'm going to go to Washington. It's bad, and I'm going to fix it. We are going to fix it.
Jon Hunter:
Well, yes, starting in six days, it's going to be fixed, at least according to her speech.
I think there was nothing surprising in there, Lori. It was very much a campaign speech, and frankly, State of the State are exactly as Mike described.
It's what are the affairs? Remember, when that provision was enacted in the 1800s, legislators didn't know what was going on at the state, right? We didn't have media. We didn't have communications.
They came out to Pierre and they said, "What's going on out here?" They were really forced to fill them in. It's evolved naturally over 140 years that it's now a bit more of a policy. I wouldn't even say so much a policy, but a pat on the back for accomplishments, and maybe setting some things up for the future.
Michael Card:
And to recognize some of the accomplishments of people within the state. Those probably received the biggest cheers and applause lines of this speech. I think going on what Jon said is the election would've been in November, and the legislators would've shown up in January. As soon as the session was over, they wouldn't meet again. If they wanted to come back to the legislature, it would've been in two years, they would've had another election.
The purpose of the State of the State was really to inform many of the legislators. I don't think we got a lot of informing, but we did get some information about what the governor considers to be successes.
Jon Hunter:
Yes.
Lori Walsh:
I talked to a couple of lawmakers, or legislators, just, "Hey, what were your original impressions?"
That's what I heard. "I've heard a lot of these speeches. It was nice, there's not much there. Let's get to work."
Almost like this is a ceremonial thing, and it doesn't have to be a ceremonial thing. It could be meaty, and important, and down to business, and brass tacks, and opening up Governor Daugaard's binder and finding out what's inside and showing slides.
It could be many things. Is this just a sign of the times, Jon, where from now on, we'll have, there's the energy in the room, everybody's together? It's great to be South Dakotans. We're better than every other state for whatever reason that we feel we're better than every other state, shake hands, get to work.
Are we settling?
Jon Hunter:
No. I think this is unique to Governor Noem. Frankly, each governor has their own pace with that.
I think some governors, maybe the next ones, maybe the past ones, have thought of this as, first of all, every governor is going to say, especially if they've been in office, the State of the State is good. They're going to say that, right?
You might not do that if you're succeeding a real rival. You say, "South Dakota's not good, and we're going to take care of it." I would think that the moment is right for inspiration. This should be something where you can rally legislators, rally citizens, and say, "Hey, we can do great things, and let's focus on that. Let's be responsible. Let's try to accomplish some things within our means."
To me, it's really an opportunity. It's the start of the session, right? That's, I think, in any other circumstance, any other organization, annual meeting for whatever would focus on inspiring people. I think that might be something in the future certainly has been part of the past.
Michael Card:
Especially when there's been a changeover between in the governing of each chamber based on the factions and the factional challenges that the legislature faces.
We have the out with the old majority leader, out with the old assistants, in with the new ones, new committee chairs on almost every committee. Inspiration would've been nice.
Lori Walsh:
What did you think of Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden's memory of inviting people to dinner and saying, "Kristi doesn't have that many friends"? It's a laugh line, then it ends with, "She's my friend," and her telling him, "You're up to bat." This relationship they have, but that story right there I thought was noteworthy when he said that. I was a little surprised.
Jon Hunter:
I was very surprised by him recalling that. I guess it did set the stage for building a great working relationship that that kind of started out maybe on a rocky note and went forward.
It did surprise me, but I don't think anyone's going to take anything from it. I think people could probably imagine that that's probably the way it started.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Let's dig into some brass tacks. She didn't mention the prison, which I thought was interesting. In all of the public safety discussion, she didn't mention anything about the state penitentiary and what might need to happen.
The takeaway there was a governor's award for heroism for people who responded during the summer floods.
She said many times it's a 1000-year unprecedented flood, and she was criticized for her response during that flood. She kept saying it was unprecedented, which I found interesting, but nothing in public safety other than, "We support the people who are doing the work."
There was a lot of infrastructure money from the federal government, which she didn't mention where it came from, but we shored up our dams and we did the right thing. Nothing about the state penitentiary. Mike Card, did you think anything of that?
Michael Card:
Well, I did. I thought it has some contention to it, and that may be why it wasn't mentioned, but it's just, we're spending almost $800 million to do this. It's taxpayer money from the past several years, plus interest earned on that taxpayer money, that could have been spent for other initiatives.
There was no mention of budget reductions to get through this year that she recommended during her budget address, which are fairly controversial in a variety of formats.
It really didn't seem to consider much of anything that what's necessary to move the state forward, and even where could we go? What are the opportunities that we could take advantage of? In that sense, if this was a farewell address, you wouldn't expect that. Maybe I'm just off base by hoping for that.
Lori Walsh:
Jon, there was a standing ovation for babies.
Jon Hunter:
Well, I'm all for babies too. I voted in favor of them in the last election.
Yeah, it is kind of funny on how Governor Noem took credit for a lot of things. I don't know how you take credit for that exactly, but saying, "We respect and love our teachers," and so forth. It's possible that we have not made a lot of progress on teacher pay during that time.
That might be kind of a cyclical part of politics today is that you say something has succeeded, even though it doesn't necessarily fact check. That might be, if you say it often enough, then maybe people start to believe it. I think they were part of that.
But I want to go on the record as I'm in favor of babies.
Lori Walsh:
Good. Mike Card, are you in favor or opposed to babies?
Michael Card:
For someone else to have babies. I am certainly not for them at age 65 for myself, but that's a different story. I'd love to be a grandpa.
Lori Walsh:
She said, "Our people are happy. They're having babies," and that was a hope for the future. There was a standing ovation, which maybe speaks to kind of what we're, the overall theme of the State of the State was that's not real heavy on policy. She was talking about Bright Start and the first thousand days of babies in life, SD.gov, and the vote on abortion rights, which failed.
There was more to it than that, we're being playful about babies, but nothing to your point about early childhood education, or how teacher salaries are really measuring up.
It was all in the win column, and not necessarily anything for what needs to happen next.
Jon mentioned something about if you say it often enough, so we have to talk about her COVID response.
And there was a time when she said she would never give a speech without mentioning foster care. I think that, and that was early on. She's like, "You're going to hear me say this every time," and certainly she's done a lot, I've heard her talk about foster care a lot, but not more than she's talked about her COVID response, and how South Dakota did things different and better.
Is that it, then, Mike? Is this the last time that we will hear her say, "We did it right," on COVID? Does she have to move on now to something else? There's a lot of federal money for many of those health care advances that happened during the time of COVID in the state.
Michael Card:
Well, during my teaching days, I would remind students of something called Miles Law, and it had to do with the Florida Commissioner of Health named Rufus Miles, whose mantra was, "where you stand on an issue, depends upon where you sit," and whatever your role is and whatever role you're aspiring to is going to determine how you see the world.
In a sense, I believe Governor Noem does believe in freedom from government. It's what philosophers would call negative liberty, that is freedom from government, as opposed to justice, which is allowing flourishing. What are the conditions that we need that would allow flourishing? Not so much individual rights, but individuals would have the opportunity to flourish.
We didn't hear much of that, other than we're creating jobs for people. We're accepting people to move to South Dakota. We've got great outdoor opportunities. We're protecting people's safety, and the like.
I don't think she sees that her COVID response has anything wrong with it, but again, that's me interpreting what she might be thinking. That goes along with where you stand, depends upon what your previous beliefs are.
Lori Walsh:
Right. She doesn't seem to acknowledge that it's subjective.
Jon Hunter:
Or a gradient.
Lori Walsh:
Say again, Jon?
Jon Hunter:
A gradient, where you have the spectrum of success, and the fact that South Dakota had more deaths from COVID per capita than the national average, is not part of that discussion, the freedom or staying open or something like that. We're not sure that staying open was necessarily negative either.
It's hard to make conclusions about that, but it certainly isn't, in my opinion, a black and white issue where you either succeeded or failed.
Michael Card:
Right.
Lori Walsh:
Right. That helps us understand how she thinks and how she's thought as our governor. A different governor would get up and say different things about the complexities of this.
She definitely got up and said, "Here is why our philosophy of government and the way that we enacted it over the past however many years worked, and this is how we're measuring success. Thank you. It's your turn." Then gets on a plane.
Again, another governor would have an entirely different presentation, but we learn more about this governor and how she sees her job of executive leadership. What do you want to close on?
Jon Hunter:
I thought a good, at least proposal, or maybe it's enacted policy already, but to talk about the possible Medicaid work requirements coming up that they would fully support the people who will now be required to do that. Whether it's job training or assistance, I was really happy to hear that, that we're not just going to say, "Look, did you get a job yet?" It actually would provide some support.
Now, I don't know that yet. The infrastructure, is that rhetoric or is that real? Remember, we closed job service offices all across the state not long ago, but if they could really support the Medicaid recipients who might be, we haven't passed that legislation yet, and the federal government doesn't allow it yet, but if that happens, to fully support those people would be good in my opinion.
Lori Walsh:
She said, "We will help them find a stable and meaningful career," but again, Mike, the outcome, the details.
Michael Card:
Right. Well, we were low on details. We're low on details about how we got to this situation. We're low on details of anything going forward, but we do have to give her some credit, that she is providing, or at least has said that this is what we need to do. In that sense, this is a measure that would be considered to be necessary. We're there, but where we stand, again, depends upon where we sit.
We don't have the strongest economy in the country by almost any measure. It's Florida, Georgia, and Texas, and even California would rank ahead of us by a couple of the measures. We're not even in the top 10, but we have a fairly strong economy.
We've got relatively low wages. When we look at multiple sides, as Jon was saying, the gradients, we have the highest percentage of married couples where both are working. Yet is that because of low wages that they have to work to have the lifestyle that they want to live, or are there jobs that would enable one parent working families, while the other one is working at home, raising babies, as we said?
There's lots of opportunities we need to talk about, and I didn't hear very many of those. That's my major criticism is we're not going forward looking to what we do forward, but she's on her way out.
Jon Hunter:
You should almost have a second State of the State from Governor Rhoden that takes place and says, "Okay, now we're going to move forward."
