“What’s the best salon in Mitchell to get my hair done?”
But since she defeated Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (in part by making an issue of Herseth Sandlin’s marriage to a lobbyist), Noem has hired her new chief of staff from . . . a lobbying firm! And on Tuesday afternoon, she was the guest of honor at a “Meet & Greet” with Washington high-rollers at the powerhouse lobbying firm Barbour Griffiths Rogers. Once these boys start throwing money at Noem’s feet, she’ll soon be chin deep in lobbyist greenbacks.
It was probably inevitable that the Tea Party activists would be betrayed, but the speed with which congressional Republicans have reverted to business-as-usual has been impressive.
House Republican leaders rejected a Tea Party-backed candidate as the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, instead installing Hal Rogers of Kentucky, who is known as the “Prince of Pork” and who once said pork is a “bad word for making good things happen.”
Many Tea Party favorites, meanwhile, have discovered the appeal of Washington lobbyists’ cash and advice. South Dakota’s Noem is one of at least 13 incoming Republican lawmakers who have hired lobbyists to run their offices. As The Post’s Dan Eggen reported last week, dozens of freshman lawmakers have already had fundraisers to collect millions of dollars from lobbyists and other deep-pocketed interests. In the month since Election Day, new Republican members had more than a dozen such “debt retirement” events.