S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem banned from Cheyenne River Reservation

RAPID CITY, S.D. – South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was banned from a second reservation following a vote taken during Tuesday’s Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s tribal council meeting.

Representatives from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe were angered by Noem’s presence at the quarterly Pe’ Sla meeting, uninvited and unannounced, on March 29 in Rapid City, South Dakota. She made the appearance after making a series of allegations regarding cartel involvement on Tribal lands, mismanagement of funds and poor education towards Native Nations in the last few weeks. District Five representative Robert Walters presented a motion by resolution to ban Noem from the reservation and the council voted unanimously, 12-0, to ban Noem from Cheyenne River lands.

“This person has made a lot of accusations about the tribes, about the cartel, council representatives being in bed with the cartel, stuff like that. It’s all false information. I make a motion at this time to banish her from the Cheyenne River Reservation,” Walters said during the April 2 council meeting. “Mr. Chairman, I believe there has to be some kind of policy set up for her to show up at these tribal meetings. She can’t just go in there and do her thing.”

Prior to the vote, Chairman Ryman LeBeau expressed concern about Noem’s attendance at the Pe’ Sla meeting and claimed she brought cameras in with her to document her attendance and use it for “her agenda.”

LeBeau reported to the council that during the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association meeting on March 30, the leaders from the nine tribes in South Dakota discussed how to approach Noem’s recent allegations.

“One of the ideas was to do what Oglala did and banish her from our reservations, another idea was to develop some policy and enact sanctions on her. That way if she shows up to one of our meetings, we’ll make her leave until she follows the process that we set up to engage with her,” LeBeau said during the tribal council meeting.

Following Noem’s initial allegations of cartel involvement on Jan. 31, she was banned from the Pine Ridge Reservation by Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out.

“Banishing Governor Noem does nothing to solve the problem,” said Ian Fury, communications director for the Governor’s Office in an email to ICT and the Rapid City Journal. “She calls on all our tribal leaders to banish the cartels from tribal lands.”

In a March 29 post on the social media platform X by Noem regarding the Pe Sla meeting, she said, “The dialogue was positive and substantive, but challenges remain. The conversation started – that’s vital.”

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

This story is co-published by the Rapid City Journal and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the South Dakota area.

Amelia Schafer is the Indigenous Affairs reporter for ICT and the Rapid City Journal. She is of Wampanoag and Montauk-Brothertown Indian Nation descent. She is based in Rapid City. You can contact her at aschafer@rapidcityjournal.com.