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• Rounds' campaign manager, Rob Skjonsberg, said Rounds was out of the state Tuesday, but Noem called Rounds earlier in the day to discuss her decision. Rounds has pledged to help Noem win re-election to the House, he said.
• "It's time to come together and support a united team for South Dakota," Skjonsberg said.
• Noem is a rancher and former state lawmaker from Castlewood who was first elected to Congress as part of the 2010 Republican wave that put the House under GOP control.
• Bob Burns, a retired South Dakota State University political science professor, said Noem would have been taking a big gamble if she had run for the Senate against Rounds.
• "She had a lot to lose if she didn't capture the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. She's probably going the safer route by seeking re-election to the U.S. House," Burns said.
• If Noem had run for the Senate, she also would have left the House seat more vulnerable to Democratic attempts to regain it, Burns said.
• Rounds remains the only announced Republican candidate for Senate.
• Rick Weiland, an ex-staffer for former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, is the only announced candidate on the Democratic side.
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Settlement reached in SD Medicaid system dispute
CHET BROKAW,Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Work on a new computerized Medicaid management system should resume soon because a settlement has been reached between the state and the company hired to do the work, a South Dakota official said Tuesday.
• After a dispute that halted work for nearly three years, the state and the company are now negotiating details of what will happen when work resumes, state Social Services Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon said. The company might start work by late summer and finish the project in another three years, she told a legislative panel.
• The state signed a $62 million contract in 2008 with Client Network Service Inc. of Maryland to develop a new computerized system for managing the system that pays medical expenses for low-income people. The state ended the contract in 2010 after officials said the work was behind schedule and of poor quality.
• The company then sued the state, which in turn filed a counterclaim in state court.
• Malsam-Rysdon said the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid then persuaded the state and the company to enter mediation. The federal government is (Continued on page 24)
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