Lawmakers in the South Dakota House of Representatives voted again to send a bill banning biological males from competing on female sports teams to Gov. Kristi Noem’s (R) desk.
Noem irked some conservatives last week, after she issued a so-called “style and form veto,” sending the legislation back to the House. The conservative governor asked legislators to revise the proposal to apply only to elementary and secondary school athletics in South Dakota.
The legislation, H.B. 1217, would bar any student at a state school from joining a sports team that doesn’t correspond with his or her biological birth sex. As it’s currently written, the bill applies to the state’s public universities, too.
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Noem has argued the legislation’s “vague and overly broad language” could bring about “significant unintended consequences” and might trigger “punitive” actions by the NCAA against South Dakotan athletes.
To avoid court battles she feels confident her state would lose, Noem is launching what she hopes to be a coalition of multiple states that can then go after the NCAA collectively to protect biological females’ right to compete only with other girls and women.
“Once we have enough states on board,” she explained last week, “a coalition big enough to where the NCAA cannot possibly punish us all, then we can guarantee fairness at the collegiate level.”
State Rep. Fred Deutsch tweeted Monday that Noem’s “style and form veto” failed to pass the House by a vote of 2-67.
The original legislation will no go back to the governor for either her signature or final veto.
Noem spokesman Ian Fury slammed his boss’s critics, saying she is a victim of “cancel culture” from within her own political camp.
“Governor Noem is very used to fighting off criticism from the left,” he wrote in an email to the Daily Caller. “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.”
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“But if any number of conservative pundits are to be believed,” Fury continued, “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, uniformed cancel culture is fine when the right is eating their own.”
During an interview late last week with CBN News’ David Brody, Noem described the legislature’s bill as “very flawed” and said she wants to make sure she fights for this “in a way that actually protects girls.”