A South Dakota legislative committee has decided to subpoena a document and a former state employee at the center of questions about whether Gov. Kristi Noem used her influence to aid her daughter’s application for a real estate appraiser license.
The subpoena from the Government Operations and Audit Committee needs to be approved by the Legislature’s Executive Committee, which could occur on Wednesday.
The committee is pressing for details about a meeting the governor called last year that included her daughter, Kassidy Peters, and key decision-makers in a government agency.
The agency had moved days earlier to deny Peters’ application for an upgrade to her appraiser certification, which was approved a few months after the meeting and just before the long-time agency head says she was forced to retire.
Noem has adamantly denied any wrongdoing, saying her daughter was included in the meeting to provide first-hand insights on the certification process and what could be streamlined.
The fact that the GOP-dominated committee issued the subpoenas shows that lawmakers want more answers.