Tag: Mount Rushmore

South Dakota governor sues for fireworks at Mount Rushmore

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem sued the U.S. Department of Interior on Friday in an effort to see fireworks shot over Mount Rushmore National Monument on Independence Day.

The Republican governor successfully pushed last year for a return of the pyrotechnic display after a decadelong hiatus. The event drew national attention when former President Donald Trump joined Noem on July 3 to give a fiery speech. But the state’s application to hold fireworks this year was denied by the National Park Service, which cited safety concerns and objections from local Native American tribes.

Noem’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for South Dakota, argues that the decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the powers granted to the agency in the Constitution. The state last year signed an agreement with the Trump administration and the Department of the Interior to work towards returning the pyrotechnic display this year. Continue reading.

How Kristi Noem, Mount Rushmore and Trump Fueled Speculation About Pence’s Job

WASHINGTON — Since the first days after she was elected governor of South Dakota in 2018, Kristi Noem had been working to ensure that President Donald Trump would come to Mount Rushmore for a fireworks-filled July Fourth extravaganza.

After all, the president had told her in the Oval Office that he aspired to have his image etched on the monument. And last year, a White House aide reached out to the governor’s office with a question, according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation: What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?

So last month, when the president arrived in the Black Hills for the star-spangled spectacle he had pined for, Noem made the most of it. Continue reading.