In July 2020, Kassidy Peters, the daughter of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, was waiting for the state to certify her as a real estate inspector.
According to a report in the Associated Press, the Appraiser Certification Program planned to deny her that certification.
Days later, Noem summoned Sherry Bren, who ran that agency, to her office. Bren’s boss and the South Dakota labor secretary also attended the meeting. Inexplicably, so did the governor’s 26 year-old daughter.
By the fall, Peters had her certification and Bren, then 70 years-old, was forced to retire. She later received a $200,000 settlement from the state after she accused them of age discrimination.
Following the AP report on the suspicious sequence of events, the South Dakota Attorney General said he was reviewing the matter.
“I have been contacted by concerned citizens and legislators,” Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg said in a statement. “I am actively reviewing their concerns and I will be following the steps prescribed in codified law in relation to those questions.”
Both Noem and the attorney general are Republicans.
Noem has denied any wrongdoing and lashed out at the AP. But ethics experts have raised questions about her involvement in the affair.
“It’s clearly a conflict of interest and an abuse of power for the benefit of a family member,” Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who was the chief ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush, told the AP. Painter added that Noem should have recused herself from all business involving the Appraiser Certification Program while her daughter had an application pending before the agency.
Bound by a non-disparagement agreement connected to her payout, Bren could not answer specific questions posed by the AP, simply explaining you “want to be fair and consistent and treat all your appraisers the same.”
In her complaint alleging age discrimination, she said the state labor secretary demanded her retirement, claiming she exhibited an “inability to change gears.”
But according to Bren’s complaint, the labor secretary said Bren must appear that she was making the decision under her own volition.
According to an email obtained by the AP, Bren wrote to colleagues, “I have been forced to retire by the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Regulation at the behest of the Administration… I want each of you to know that I have sincerely done everything possible to avoid this unfortunate circumstance.”
Slate provides context on Noem’s political ambitions:
Over the past year, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has gotten attention for speeches she’s given to rooms full of Republican supporters, bragging that she “never shut down” her state, COVID be damned. She’s been traveling a lot, showing up to glad-hand in Iowa, speaking at CPAC, making noise on Twitter. Joe Sneve, a reporter at the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, says it’s obvious why: She wants to be president.
