It’s official: All nine of South Dakota’s tribes have now voted to ban Gov. Kristi Noem (R) from their lands.
The final tribe still holding out hope for a productive relationship with the state’s governor, the Flandreau Santee Sioux, made the decision to join their counterparts Tuesday, just a week after telling The Daily Beast that they had no plans to do so.
A tribal leader told the Argus Leader that the Flandreau Santee Sioux executive council made the decision after hearing from a number of citizens who urged them to banish Noem—saying that many on the reservation were “uncomfortable and upset” with the council’s decision to wait so long in the first place. One attendee of the council’s Tuesday meeting told the local newspaper that the matter led to a “pretty heated discussion.”
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Noem angered Indigenous American communities earlier this year by suggesting that tribes in her state were in league with Mexican drug cartels and blaming Indigenous parents for their children’s poor academic performance—leaving them unemployed and with “no hope.”
The comments led to her to be rapidly declared persona non grata by most of the tribal nations in South Dakota, starting with the Crow Creek, Sisseton Wahpeton, Oglala, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, and Rosebud Sioux tribes, which account for nearly all of the reservation land in the state—almost 20 percent of the its total area.
Leadership of the Yankton Sioux Tribe has also voted to express its support for a similar ban, though it has yet to make an official decision on the matter.
Prior to its decision, leaders of the Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe reportedly held one last meeting Sunday with Gov. Noem in the Capitol, one they described to the Argus Leader at the time as “respectful and productive.”
Noem released her own statement following the meeting, writing that it was “never my intent to cause offense by speaking truth to the real challenges that are being faced in some areas of Indian country.”
“It is my hope that the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe will give us the opportunity to partner together in a way that can be an example for all,” she added.
But just two days later, the tribe’s leadership committee decided that it just could not let her comments go unpunished.
“We need to stand in solidarity with our fellow tribes in South Dakota, the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ,” Tyler Rambeau, a tribal leader, told the local newspaper during a recess in Tuesday’s meeting. “We do not want to come up on the wrong side of history in this moment.”
When reached for comment on her banishment from tribal lands, Gov. Noem told The Daily Beast: “I only want to speak truth to the real challenges that are being faced in some areas of Indian Country. I want to focus on solutions that lead to safer communities for all our families, educational outcomes for all our children, and declining addiction numbers for all our people.
“We cannot tackle these issues without addressing the problem: dangerous criminals who perpetuate violence and illegal activities in all areas of our state. We need to take action. It is my hope tribal leadership will take the opportunity to work with me to be an example of how cooperation is better for all people rather than political attacks.”
