Another break in tradition marked the beginning of the 65th Legislative Session. Rather than the Honorable Chief Justice Gerald Vandewalle addressing a joint session of the House and Senate in front of the public, the “State of the Judiciary” was placed in a nine-page document left on legislators’ desks. When Legislative Management chose to cancel […]
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting with Sally Boynton Brown. Sally is currently the Executive Director of the Democratic Party in Idaho. In December, she announced her candidacy to be the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Sally reached out to me after I published an Open Letter to the Democratic […]
In 2013, the State of North Dakota and the Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (MHA) entered into an agreement on oil production and extraction taxes collected from oil activity on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The agreement avoided tax confusion on the industry and showed cooperation between two sovereign governments. It was my first session in […]
We have all heard the budget situation in North Dakota has slumped over the past couple of years. Our state’s Constitution requires a balanced budget. Across-the-board budget cuts, positions going unfilled, and pulling back certain services have taken place. Governor Burgum and the Legislature have declared they will balance the budget, “with no new taxes!” But, […]
If you were looking for the floor session schedules of the North Dakota House and Senate today, your search would come up empty. If you were curious about tomorrow’s, I’ll save you the trouble and tell you it won’t be there. Rather than business as usual, the members of the 65th session will push through […]
Governor Burgum struck the right note when he spoke about the need to stop utilizing our jails and prisons as mental health and addiction treatment centers. The state’s corrections budget has exploded, and our new jails are full. The last stat I heard, it costs taxpayers over $30,000 per inmate per year. Meanwhile, in speaking […]
Throughout the morning, North Dakota’s lone Congressman Kevin Cramer was stumbling, mumbling, and bumbling over his words when trying to convince the public last night’s surprise vote by Congressional Republicans to “gut the independent ethics office” was a good move. Cramer did not hide the fact he supported the move during the voice vote. We […]
Here is one of the many action items I want to hear in Governor Burgum’s address to the 65th Legislative Session: “As I said I’d do in my campaign to become the Governor of the Great State of North Dakota, I will support a full performance audit of the Oil and Gas Division of the […]
The most baffling group of decision makers who succumb to intimidation are the lawmakers themselves. It doesn’t come from the voters either; it is from their ranks in the Capitol. Legislators tend to forget that it is the people of their district, constituents, who are their boss, not some person they elect as their caucus […]
State agencies are not immune to partisan political pressures. In fact, many of the people chosen to run these agencies are politically appointed which lends itself to kowtowing to party leadership. There are instances where department heads internally separate from the direction taken by their elected counterparts. The difficulty is often getting them to go […]