Minot, N.D. — A controversial decision to move departments of North Dakota's Attorney General's office to a new building started with an informal discussion between a state lawmaker and the director of the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation. An audit report has found multiple red flags in that transaction, from questions about billing to licensing to whether the taxpayers really came out on top in the deal. Now the lawmaker who made the deal in the first place, state Rep. Jason Dockter, a Re...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 3 min
A national anti-marijuana group that is organizing the opposition to Measure 2, which, if passed by North Dakota voters, would legalize recreational marijuana, has been touting support from several law enforcement groups. These organizations say legalizing marijuana will hurt public safety. There will be more crime. More inebriated driving. But that's not so says Diane Goldstein. She's a 21-year veteran of the Redondo Beach Police Department, who retired as a lieutenant, and has spent her post-l...
Oct 31, 2022•36 min
North Dakota has three candidates running for the United States Senate. Incumbent Senator John Hoeven, who was first elected to that office in 2010, is facing a challenge from Democratic-NPL candidate Katrina Christiansen and independent candidate Rick Becker. On this episode of Plain Talk, all three candidates met for the first time to debate issues ranging from spending and abortion to carbon capture and support for Ukraine. My Wednesday co-host, former Democratic-NPL executive director Chad O...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Minot, N.D. — Members of North Dakota's Public Service Commission serve staggered six-year terms, meaning that one of the three members of the commission is on the ballot every two years. This year, however, there are two PSC seats up for grabs. Commissioner Julie Fedorchak is running for re-election at the end of her six-year term, while Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, a Republican who was appointed by Gov. Doug Burgum to finish an unexpired term, is running per state law to have that appointment confirm...
Oct 19, 2022•50 min
An opposition group has formed with the mission to defeat a ballot measure on North Dakota's ballot which would legalize recreational marijuana. This group is making a number of claims about the ill that would befall our state if legal pot is the law of the land. They're talking about increased crime. Increased addiction. Easy access to the drug for children. On this episode of Plain Talk, Fargo-based defense attorney Mark Friese, who is the treasurer for the pro-marijuana campaign, and who had ...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Last week North Dakota's two largest agriculture groups, the North Dakota Farm Bureau and the North Dakota Farmer's Union, came out against a term limits proposal that's on the statewide ballot. On this episode of Plain Talk the president of one of those groups, Mark Watne from the North Dakota Farm Bureau, joined to discuss why his group is opposed to the proposal. Watne argued that it would diminish the amount of experience and seniority in the legislature, leaving the state's law-writing body...
Oct 10, 2022•24 min
You can't really talk about the history of North Dakota's initiated measure process without talking about Kent French. The Bismarck-based businessman was legendary in the 1980s and 1990s for his many initiated measures and referenda targeting issues like taxes. And, yes, term limits. We're debating term limits again this election cycle - there's a ballot measure that would prohibit lawmakers and governors from serving more than 8 years - but you may not realize that North Dakota already has term...
Oct 07, 2022•26 min
We're all in campaign mode right now, but just a couple of months after election day North Dakota will have a new legislative session. Lawmakers at that session will be hearing about two competing tax cut plans. One would flatten the state's income tax brackets, and eliminate the tax for most of the state's filers. The other would leverage interest revenues from the state's Legacy Fund to buy down the portion of your property taxes that goes for schools. Rep. Craig Headland, and Tax Commissioner...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 6 min
In North Dakota, we elect a lot of people. That's not a bad thing, but sometimes once you get down to the bottom of your ballot, past higher-profile candidates for state and federal office, you begin to see some names you might not be very familiar with. Names that are often all alone in their races, representing candidates are facing no opposition. One of those names this cycle is Ben Hanson. He's a former state lawmaker, and a Democrat, though he's now seeking a non-partisan office on the Cass...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Election integrity is a hot-button issue. Rancor continues around the outcome of the 2020 election, with many claiming that, at least nationally, former President Donald Trump was cheated out of another term in the White House by fraud. North Dakota election officials have been flooded with open records requests from people seeking information to prove conspiracy theories about the election. As it happens, North Dakota's top election official is on the ballot this cycle. Long-serving incumbent R...
Sep 28, 2022•58 min
Minot, N.D. — It's been a circuitous route to the ballot for a ballot measure implementing term limits for North Dakota's lawmakers and governor. State officials maintain that the signature collection process behind it was riddled with fraud, but the state Supreme Court put it on the ballot on a legal technicality, finding that the Secretary of State lacked the authority to disqualify it. However you or I might feel about how the measure got there, North Dakota's voters will be confronted with a...
Sep 23, 2022•49 min
Work around politics long enough, and you'll hear everything. Including a Democratic candidate for statewide office saying you ought to vote for the Republican. Fintan Dooley, who was endorsed by the North Dakota Democratic-NPL this spring to take on three-term Republican incumbent Doug Goehring for Agriculture Commissioner, says you ought to vote for the incumbent. "I'm not smoking any pot," Dooley said on this episode of Plain Talk, which featured a debate between the two candidates. "He's act...
Sep 21, 2022•1 hr 2 min
When I began my writing career twenty years ago, North Dakota had an aging, shrinking population. Our young people were leaving. New people weren't moving here. When we debated education, much of it was focused on what to do about declining enrollment. School closures and consolidation were a sad reality. Things have improved. Where once our state was among the oldest in the nation, it now consistently ranks among the youngest (our media age of 35.2 years is good for fourth youngest, currently )...
Sep 16, 2022•50 min
If there's one thing we learned from the first debate between North Dakota's candidates for attorney general, it's that they disagree on a lot. Drew Wrigley, a Republican, is the incumbent attorney general, having been appointed to finish his predecessor Wayne Stenehjem's term by Governor Doug Burgum. Wrigley is now running to be elected to a term of his own, and he's being challenged by Democratic-NPL candidate Tim Lamb. One area where the candidates disagree sharply is on crime. Wrigley's offi...
Sep 14, 2022•1 hr 22 min
Prominent North Dakota Democrats made a real "mess of things" when they took the extraordinary step of jettisoning their U.S. House candidate, Mark Haugen, in favor of independent candidate Cara Mund. "They were very presumptuous about Cara," Cramer added, arguing that they don't know much about her outside of her views on abortion. He also argued that the move may inhibit future efforts to recruit candidates to the Democratic-NPL ticket. "Now all they have to offer is disloyalty," Cramer said. ...
Sep 09, 2022•52 min
For the first time, incumbent Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong and independent challenge Cara Mund faced off in a debate. On this episode of Plain Talk, with questions coming from former Democratic-NPL executive director Chad Oban and myself, the two candidates found areas where they agree, and areas where they disagree. Both Armstrong and Mund oppose President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness. They also seem to be generally on the same page on energy, outside of Mund's criticism of the Trump...
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 1 min
What does the Public Service Commission do in North Dakota? The PSC makes the most headlines over utility rates. They regulate how much utilities can charge us for our power. But the PSC does so much more. They site wind farms. They run a rail safety program. They make sure that the pumps and the scales that measure how much we pay for everything from gasoline to steaks at the butcher shop are fair. Julie Fedorchak, a Republican, has served on the PSC since she was appointed by former Gov. Jack ...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Last week a group of Republican leaders from the state's legislative and executive branches got together and announced a new plan to flatten North Dakota's income taxes. The state currently has five tax brackets that obligate every North Dakotan earning income to pay a progressively higher rate based on how large that income is. This new plan would create just two tax brackets, with about 60 percent of North Dakota households paying no income tax at all, and the rest paying a flat rate of just 1...
Aug 29, 2022•31 min
Minot, N.D. — NDGOP party chairman Perrie Schafer says he's looking into the controversy around the use of homophobic slurs and other bigoted language in a messaging group organized by the North Dakota Young Republicans, and there may be consequences for Republican candidates who were a part of it. "This is an organization," he said of his party on this episode of Plain Talk. "We get to choose who we're associated with." He said he wants to be fair to the members of the group, which is affiliate...
Aug 24, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned its precedents finding a right to an abortion in the U.S. Constitution, the nature of the debate over abortion has changed. On this episode of Plain Talk Cody Schuler, the advocacy manager for the ACLU of North Dakota, talks about how that debate has changed, and how pro-life and pro-choice Americans are going to have to work together to figure out what our policies on abortion will be going forward. Also on this episode Kim Hegvik, an assistant sta...
Aug 22, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Minot, N.D. — When outgoing state Rep. Rick Becker announced that he would be challenging incumbent U.S. Senator John Hoeven in the general election as an independent, after having the NDGOP's endorsement to Hoeven this spring, state Republican party chairman Perrie Schafer described Becker as having "left the party." "I think he's got a point," Senator Kevin Cramer said of Schafer's remark on this episode of Plain Talk. Becker is the founder of the Bastiat Caucus of Trump-aligned state lawmaker...
Aug 19, 2022•46 min
North Dakota's general election got a lot more interesting over the last couple of weeks. First, Cara Mund, a former Miss America, jumped into the U.S. House race as an independent to take on Republican incumbent Kelly Armstrong and Democratic-NPL challenger Mark Haugen. Then state Rep. Rick Becker went back on his statements in support of the decision of Republican delegates at the NDGOP state convention, which chose incumbent Senator John Hoeven over him, and re-entered the U.S. Senate race. T...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Kansas, a very red, very Republican state, just voted, in a landslide, to maintain status quo protections for abortion. Meanwhile, in Congress, there was a vicious debate over the last week over who hates veterans. In Michigan, Democrats backed a pro-Trump, election conspiracy Republican in a primary against a GOP incumbent that voted to impeach Trump. Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I discuss these topics, and more, on this episode of Plain Talk.
Aug 03, 2022•1 hr 1 min
The ESG movement in venture capitalism - the acronym stands for "environment, social, and governance" - is a threat to North Dakota's economic well-being, but not just in the way you might be imagining. Our state's primary industries - energy and agriculture - are also carbon-heavy industries, which is why our state runs afoul of the "environment" part of ESG. Our state is investing big money into improving the environmental impact of our industries - we created, for example, the clean and susta...
Aug 01, 2022•37 min
As the controversy over a corn milling plant near Grand Forks, and the Grand Forks Air Force Base, to be built by a Chinese company whose leader is a member of the Chinese Communist Party, continues to unfold, Sen. Kevin Cramer sees the need for legislation to address the matter. Federal officials are in the process of reviewing the land purchase and potential development for national security threats, but on this episode of Plain Talk, Cramer said more needs to be done. "Agricultural investment...
Jul 29, 2022•57 min
Minot, N.D. — Last week the North Dakota Democratic-NPL saw some internecine conflict over their U.S. House candidate, Mark Haugen, who is pro-life and supports the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Patrick Hart, the chairman of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL, joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the challenges of managing the disparate points of view in his party. We also spoke about what his party is do to find its way in a state where Republicans are seeing historic levels of dominance, and w...
Jul 27, 2022•1 hr 3 min
I suspect that many in the general public, when they hear about carbon capture, think of it as some pie-in-the-sky thing. Something that's being developed. That's in the work. Not really something that is, as yet, a practical part of modern industry. Except, the State of North Dakota just permitted its first carbon capture project under state primacy. Which is to say, that state officials reviewed and permitted the project, not the feds. It's the first time that's ever happened in the United Sta...
Jul 20, 2022•25 min
Last week, in response to an open record request filed by myself and others for emails, Attorney General Drew Wrigley announced that his office wouldn't be able to satisfy those requests in full . An employee, who was not a supervisor or attorney in his office and who had no authority to do so, ordered the deletion of former Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem's email account. Stenehjem passed away earlier this year. Wrigley, who had already announced a campaign for the office, was appointed his re...
Jul 18, 2022•33 min
Governor Doug Burgum's administration is on the path to proposing some very significant policy to address North Dakota's child care process in the upcoming legislative session. It will be "something different from what you usually see from our administration," Lt. Governor Brent Sanford said on this issue of Plain Talk. Child care has been talked about as an urgent public policy need for, well, about a generation now, most recently at a Chamber of Commerce event in Fargo, yet there hasn't been m...
Jul 13, 2022•1 hr 4 min
President Joe Biden is putting the blame for high gas prices on gas station owners. "My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril," he wrote in a tweet posted before Independence Day. "Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now." How does an actual gas station owner feel about that? "He seem to think we can drop the price twenty cents to be ...
Jul 06, 2022•1 hr 3 min
