Someone please unspin this for me: Kristi Noem, soon to be South Dakota’s lone Representative in the U.S. House, for all her supposed pull with the new Republican majority, fails to land a seat on the House Agriculture Committee.

The Agriculture Committee is the one committee for which Noem has more experience than I do to serve as a useful member. She relentlessly touted her lifelong farm background on the campaign trail. Right after the election, Noem herself said landing a seat on the agriculture committee was among her top priorities:

Once in Washington, Noem says she hopes to serve on the agriculture committee.

“But then we’ll go on from there.  Maybe commerce; energy will be extremely important. We’ll see what we can do and we’ll be on the one that’s best for South Dakota,” Noem said [Shawn Neisteadt, "Noem Reflects on Campaign, Looks Forward," KELOLand.com, 2010.11.03].

Noem repeated later in November that she wanted an Ag seat, plus Energy and Commerce. She also mentioned Natural Resources.

Noem got little of what she wanted. She landed the Natural Resources Committee, which is apparently “less competitive to get a seat on” (i.e., Noem got the crap assignment), and the Labor and Education Committee, for which she as a non-college graduate from a union-busting state is singularly unqualified. And all Noem’s spokesflunky Joshua Shields can whimper in response to a direct question about the failure to get the ag nod is “there are several good committees Kristi considered. She is pleased with her assignments.”

My only hope is that she will use her position on Ed/Labor to put her Tea-Bag cred to work and kill No Child Left Behind. Why, oh why, do I keep hoping against hope that Republicans will display philosophical consistency?

Noem’s assignments are one more sign that the GOP leadership sees her as more valuable as a trick pony for their fundraisers and press appearances than as a strong voice for South Dakota interests. Maybe they noticed that she never did get around to posting a coherent ag policy on her campaign website. Or maybe even the GOP leadership couldn’t ignore Noem’s clear conflict of interest over making a living off farm subsidies and subsidized crop insurance.

Either way, South Dakota has just lost its only voice on the House Agriculture Committee, which shapes legislation on all manner of ag issues as well as on the rural electric systems and rural development.

In an interview with the Rapid City Journal a couple weeks ago, South Dakota’s GOP candidate for U.S. House Kristi Noem addressed the question of her family’s huge reliance on federal farm subsidies. Says Noem:

What our family has done is participate in the farm programs. And so the farm programs I think essentially almost every farmer in South Dakota has participated in those, and they haven’t been bailouts they have been programs that the United States has put forward for farmers to participate in.

It’s all about national security, so we don’t have to depend on other countries for food. Fear, everyone. Fear.

Noem says every farmer and rancher would prefer more risk management programs to direct payments, a position she’s taken in other discussions like the State Fair debate.

Noem concludes by claiming, “We’ve done what every other farmer and rancher has done by participating in those [programs].”

Actually, no, Kristi. You haven’t done what every other farmer and rancher has done. As the invaluable Environmental Working Group notes, the vast majority of farmers get little benefit from farm subsidy programs. 26% of South Dakota farmers get no subsidies. 10% of South Dakota farmers claim 61% of the subsidies sent to our state. The bottom 80% have collected an average of $1,334 per year since 1995. The top 10% have collected an average of $35,077 per year since 1995.

Your family, Kristi, has taken over three million dollars in subsidies over the last 15 years. That’s $200,000 per year. That’s more federal handouts than all but 17 other farm operations in the entire state have taken over the same period. Three million dollars is six times the amount I’ve earned in paychecks since 1995.

On farm subsidies, Kristi Noem again demonstrates her inability to square the anti-government, free-market principles she spouts for her Tea Party supporters with her family’s dependence on federal handouts for fiscal viability.