Gov. Kristi Noem, Sioux Falls school board candidates among Argus Leader’s 2024 people to watch

As the end of 2023 inches closer, so do the controversies that surround some of South Dakota's most influential people, affecting everything on a scale reaching from local school board politics to potentially the White House.

And with a new legislative session days out and the first election of 2024 a few months away, how elected leaders respond to what Sioux Falls and Minnehaha County residents want as a whole will be top of the list for people to watch as the new year unfolds.

The Argus Leader has laid it out for you. Here are the top South Dakota people to watch in 2024.

Politics: Gov. Kristi Noem and her future ambitions

It’s no secret that Gov. Kristi Noem’s political ambitions lay beyond South Dakota. Throughout the past year, she has traveled to other states and went so far as to Paris, France, to introduce herself to audiences at a variety of conservative conferences. Her stump speech topics remain the same: growing up on a ranch, the values her late father instilled in her and her approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Are the appearances and the work Noem has done at home enough for the second term governor to land on former President Donald Trump’s shortlist for vice president if he nabs the GOP nomination in July?

Maybe.

She told Newsmax in September she would consider a spot on Trump’s ticket “in a heartbeat.” She encouraged the six other Republicans running for the presidential nomination to throw their support behind Trump after a recent Des Moines Register poll found 50% of Iowa Republicans supported him. And during Trump’s September rally in Rapid City, Noem’s remarks seemed like an audition for the No. 2 spot as she endorsed the former president. While Noem and Trump shook hands, the screen above briefly flashed to Trump-Noem 2024, foreshadowing a possible running ticket.

Noem has her homework cut out for her at home though if she wants to be seen as a governor who can get things done consistently, and not as a one-hit wonder because of her approach to COVID-19 that included trusting people's personal responsibilities or her criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party. Noem found many of her 2023 legislative policy recommendations dead in the water.

More recently, Noem has been focused on matters of the state, including asking the South Dakota Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion about the state's conflict of interest clause within the state Constitution. She's also the face of the Freedom Works Here workforce ad campaign, encouraging people to move to South Dakota. But Freedom Works Here has drawn the scrutiny of lawmakers when it came to the campaign's the bidding process, the Ohio ad firm that won the bid and tracking the success of the campaign.

Noem will be looking for legislative success and support when she lays out her policy priorities on Jan. 9 in Pierre during her State of the State address.

− Annie Todd, Argus Leader state politics reporter

Education and sports: Girls on Sioux Falls' gymnastics team — and in the gymnastics lawsuit

Last year, almost a dozen girls who wanted to be known only for their gymnastics prowess were soon known as the girls who got their sport cut, the girls who called out the Sioux Falls School District and its board for cutting their sport, and the girls who sued the district over losing their favorite pastime.

Those girls, and their parents, will continue to make headlines next year as the lawsuit, Title IX complaint and district’s appeal of a preliminary injunction that allowed the gymnastics season to continue, goes on to unfold in the new year.

That’s on the macro level. On the micro level, as the grown-ups and lawyers argue elsewhere, the girls who wanted to play this year had to start their season from scratch with little time between thinking they wouldn’t get to flip, tumble and turn this year and being told they had to get ready for their first competition.

Their ability to turn things around in such a short time, and whether that pays off in competition, will also be worth paying attention to in the new year.

The girls’ parents will also continue to make news as they stand up for their daughters in court.

− Morgan Matzen, Argus Leader education reporter

Education: School board candidates

Terms for Sioux Falls School District Board of Education vice president Marc Murren and member Kate Serenbetz end June 30.

Whether Murren and Serenbetz will run again, and whether any other individuals enter the race, will be a big-ticket item for local elections in early 2024. City councilor Pat Starr has expressed interest in running as well.

Anyone who runs for those two open school board seats will be running for a two-year term. This change is part of the district’s plan to transition to four-year school board terms after the passage of House Bill 1123 in 2023 allowed school boards to increase terms from three years to four years to combine school elections with other local elections, like city council.

Typically, school board elections see a turnout about five times smaller than the turnout of city elections. Transitioning to elections every two years can save the district as much as $50,000 every other year, district officials estimate.

The 2024 election will consist of two two-year terms, 2025 will see two three-year terms and 2026 will see three four-year terms. Then, all subsequent elections beginning in 2028 will alternate between two and three four-year terms.

April 9 will be the big day at all the city’s polling places. Candidates can start circulating and filing nominating petitions on Jan. 26 until Feb. 23. Voter registration is due March 25.

Who is chosen by the city’s voters will say much about the future of the Sioux Falls School District, its transparency going forward and the priorities of city residents.

The individuals chosen to serve will have a chance to shake things up on a board that's usually in lockstep with the district administration it leads, to decide the district's multi-million dollar budget, to regularly meet and correspond with Superintendent Jane Stavem, to advocate for the city's students and to question major and minor district decisions.

− Morgan Matzen, Argus Leader education reporter

County government: Auditor Leah Anderson

The Minnehaha County auditor was making waves even before she was sworn in earlier this year, ousting Ben Kyte from the role after running a campaign centered on election integrity and endorsed by figures who claim election fraud is occurring across the country.

Anderson’s time in the office has won her a small army of supporters, who attend county commission meetings to accuse officials of conspiring against Anderson, to decry what they call “secret vote counting” and to accuse commissioners of “treason by proxy.”

Many of them, including recently-hired elections coordinator Mike Mathis, are associated with South Dakota Canvassing Group, a group that calls for hand-counted elections with a ban on machines, mail-in voting and ballot harvesting.

But as April 9, the date of Anderson’s first election as auditor, draws closer, other elected officials are increasingly losing their patience with her.

More: Commissioner: Minnehaha County auditor's performance 'unprofessional' and 'embarrassing'

Members of the Minnehaha County Commission, Sioux Falls City Council and South Dakota Democratic Party have all criticized her for a Dec. 4 call in which Anderson allowed nearly two dozen of her supporters to secretly listen in on a discussion between members of the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office, the county’s elections vendor Election Systems & Software and Anderson herself.

“That was very unprofessional, and not the way we do business, and quite embarrassing to the county,” said Commissioner Joe Kippley at a Dec. 19 meeting, when he floated the idea of excluding Anderson from a proposed salary increase.

Anderson’s response to the criticism has been that she works for the people, and that she’s receiving pushback for asking questions about the security of the elections she’s charged with overseeing.

And with four months until the election, it’s nearly certain that plenty more sparks will fly.

− Trevor Mitchell, Argus Leader city government reporter

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Kristi Noem, Leah Anderson among Argus Leader's people to watch in 2024