Dana Hess writes for South Dakota Searchlight, an online news organization.

South Dakota Searchlight readers were recently treated to two very different views of bipartisanship and governance.

First came the story about an analysis of bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress. Released by the Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, the report had good news about South Dakota’s congressional delegation’s willingness to work with the other political party.

Rep. Dusty Johnson ranked 106th in bipartisanship in the 435-member House. In the 100-member Senate, Sen. Mike Rounds ranked 20th and Sen. John Thune ranked 42nd.

Thune’s ranking in the top half of senators is an oddity given that he is the right-hand man of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Despite carrying so much water for McConnell, Thune still managed to be more bipartisan than 30 of his Republican Senate colleagues, according to the analysis. That bodes well for the Senate should Thune ascend to the top job as McConnell’s replacement.

Johnson’s high rank in the House is a testament to his refusal to get involved in the Donald Trump-inspired shenanigans that have taken up so much of that chamber’s time. His spurning of the Trump-backed messes made by Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk stands in stark contrast to the leadership of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.

Noem has become something of a contortionist, trying to shape herself into the person that Trump would choose as his vice president. Her approach to bipartisanship is neatly summed up in the title of her new book, “No Going Back.” While her publisher will be “going back” to correct mistakes in the book, Noem holds true to a course that calls for never admitting a mistake and never making an apology.

This was evident in another South Dakota Searchlight story about a rare news conference Noem hosted where she once again linked the problems at the nation’s southern border to drug cartels and the state’s Native American reservations. Noem’s previous comments on these topics suggested that tribal leaders were benefiting from the drug cartels and characterized children on the reservation as having no hope.

That didn’t sit well with the tribal leaders of the state’s nine reservations, each of which has moved to ban Noem from its lands. Usually someone has to be a suspected terrorist to be banned from nine sovereign nations. To earn her status on the no-reservation list, all Noem had to do was lob a few verbal bombs at the state’s tribes.

The tribal bans are symbolic at best. It’s any easy bet that as governor, Noem has spent more time traveling out-of-state — first as the darling of the Republican Party and lately during the world’s worst book tour — than she ever has on the state’s reservations.

The recent news conference would have been the perfect time to walk back some of her previous statements, express some remorse or even apologize for her harsh prediction about the lives of children on the reservations. Instead, she was true to the title of her book with no going back.

Had she apologized to tribes, they might be inclined to be more bipartisan. Instead of banning Noem, they might invite her to visit the reservations often and at some length. As South Dakotans, they could press the governor to bring the full weight of the state’s resources to bear in the areas of law enforcement, health and human services, social work, education and whatever else is needed.

Instead, they’ve symbolically slammed the door on the state official who could help them the most.

What’s most important in the Lugar Center analysis is the fact that bipartisanship is hard work. That makes the high marks for this state’s congressional delegation all the more laudable. Bipartisanship takes a willingness to listen, discuss and compromise — attributes that are too often missing in today’s political climate.