The special 9 member South Dakota State Senate Select Committee on Discipline and Expulsion for suspended District 30 Senator Julie Frye-Mueller of Rapid City has unanimously recommended she be censured, then reinstated.
The recommendations, to be voted on this afternoon, also bar Frye-Mueller from working with the Legislative Research Council for the rest of this session. She was suspended over comments she made to an LRC staffer about maternal issues.
The committee met for 4 hours last night after beginning its work on Monday, then met again this morning to officially approve last night’s draft recommendations and send the final document to the full Senate for a vote.
Frye-Mueller was combative at last night’s committee session, complaining her treatment was “absolutely terrible,” that the Senate “didn’t even give me a chance,” and that there was a political agenda to “get” her
The 2-term senator said she was “humiliated that you have all ran me through the ringer” and accused the legislature of using a “dead cat strategy” – intentionally making shocking announcements to divert media attention from themselves.
The staffer who made the complaint about Frye-Mueller addressed the committee in executive session last night while the senator and her husband Michael Mueller, who was present for the conversation with the staffer, testified in open session.
Fellow Rapid City Republican Senator Helene Duhamel asked Frye-Mueller about the appropriateness of talking about “very personal issues” with someone who is any employee and is not a friend, especially with her husband present.
Frye-Mueller said “I would have thought she was perfectly comfortable with us,” and that the woman’s written statement of complaint was full of inaccuracies and “exaggerated beyond belief.”
Her husband called the conversation “cordial” with “no indication” from the staffer’s body language that she was uncomfortable with the discussion. He also said she was the one who brought up breastfeeding.