South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been floated as a 2024 GOP presidential candidate. Her recent reversal on a bill protecting women’s sports shows that she might not be up for the role of being a national leader.
Noem said she was excited to sign the bill, passed by the state Legislature to ensure that biological men are not allowed to compete in women’s sports. But then, she backtracked, issuing a style-and-form veto, requesting that the Legislature rewrite parts of the bill. Noem has a few issues with the bill, including tightening up some of the legal language to prevent the state from being sued for schools that violate the protections, but her chief complaint was that, by including college athletics, the state would run afoul of the NCAA.
Noem said she didn’t want to fight a losing battle against the NCAA but that she hoped that the coalition of states moving to protect women’s sports would become so large that the NCAA “cannot possibly punish us all.” But Noem abandoned that coalition before it could even set its feet, leaving other red states out to dry.
Idaho had already taken the plunge last year with a law that prevented biological men from playing in women’s sports, including at the collegiate level. Mississippi’s bill also covered college sports. The NCAA had not yet weighed in on the bills but had previously banned North Carolina from hosting NCAA events in 2016 over the state’s transgender bathroom bill.
So Noem backed away from the same bill she planned to sign, worried that the NCAA would blacklist South Dakota despite not having moved against states passing these bills, calling for a coalition that she doesn’t want to join until it’s clear it can win. Not exactly ideal for someone who ostensibly has national aspirations.
Idaho was willing to pick this fight, alone, with political hacks like the American Civil Liberties Union trying to pressure the NCAA into stripping the state of its scheduled March Madness games. Idaho’s law was eventually blocked by a federal judge, but each state following it with a law of its own makes the position stronger. South Dakota legislators were willing to lend their voice to the fight, but Noem decided she would rather wait for other states to do the heavy lifting.
Conservatives are pushing back on Noem’s lack of commitment, and rightfully so. States can’t adequately protect women’s sports if one of the nation’s most prominent GOP governors shows she doesn’t have the stomach for a fight that hasn’t even materialized yet. It’s a black mark on the resume of a rising GOP star, and it will loom large once the presidential cycle kicks into gear.
