A spokesperson for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, hit out at “conservative cancel culture,” after the governor came under fire from the right for refusing to sign a bill that would ban transgender women from competing in women’s high school sports.
“Governor Noem is very used to fighting off criticism from the left,” Noem spokesman Ian Fury said in an email to The Daily Caller on Wednesday. “After all, in the past year, she was the only governor in the entire nation to never order a single business or church in her state to close. The left bullied her incessantly, but she didn’t cave.”
He added, “But if any number of conservative pundits are to be believed, that same governor who refused to cave is now caving to the NCAA and Amazon on the issue of fairness in women’s sports. What? Apparently, uninformed cancel culture is fine when the right is eating their own.”
Noem declined to sign South Dakota’s House Bill 1217, instead sending it back to the state legislature with some suggestions. The Daily Caller previously claimed that the governor’s decision was influenced by various groups in the state after Noem said earlier this month that she was “excited” to sign the bill. The American Principles Project, which has pushed the governor to sign the bill, told the Daily Caller that Noem was under pressure not to sign the bill from the NCAA, the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce, and an Amazon plant located in Sioux Falls that could leave the state due to the legislation.
Fury noted that although the governor faced “tremendous pressure from corporate bigwigs and the radical left alike to veto the bill,” she “didn’t do that.”
He added, “Instead, she returned it to the legislature with suggested changes because she wants these fundamental protections to pass and to survive a legal challenge.”
He went on to say that a “less impassioned review of the facts tells a much different story,” and said that “3 years ago, Governor Noem was the only public official to stand with 4-H rodeo when the USDA (under the Trump administration no less) tried to force boys and girls to compete against each other. She won that fight and protected fairness.”
Fury said, “She’s carrying that effort forward today. But we need to be strategic in our approach to such an important issue.”
He added that Noem contends that the bill, as it stands, is “a trial lawyer’s dream, offering all sorts of avenues for litigation that have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue at hand.
“Furthermore, the bill picked a fight with the NCAA — a fight that renowned conservative legal experts advise Governor Noem that she will lose, especially considering South Dakota’s unfriendly federal bench,” Fury wrote.
Source: Newmax
