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Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem made headlines last week for calling out fellow GOP governors on lockdowns, but her own record on the issue isn’t spotless.
Noem has consistently claimed she is the only governor in America not to order any business or church to shut down. A closer examination of her record reveals that she did support several restrictive measures in the early days of the pandemic that her office is now trying to distance itself from.
In March 2020, South Dakota Rep. Lee Qualm introduced House Bill 1297 at the request of the Governor’s Office. The bill would have granted the Secretary of Health the power to “order the closure of or place reasonable restrictions on the use of any public or private location, including a business, park, school, or other location that promotes public gathering, if reasonably necessary to slow or prevent the spread of communicable diseases during a public health emergency.”