I can't write everything I'd like to write about the North Dakota Legislature here for a variety of reasons, but I can give you a few primers on the 2009 North Dakota Legislative Session. Here are some things every North Dakota citizen should know:
Start Date - The 61st North Dakota Legislative Session (the "session") starts tomorrow, Tuesday, January 6th, 2009.
The Website The legislature maintains an okay informational website. It's not perfect, but it can be helpful at times. You can get to it at this web address: http://www.legis.nd.gov/
Stuff on the Website - Here's a list of some of the useful resources on North Dakota legislature's website:
A list of Senators. The list should contain contact information for your Senator. Use the contact information to let your legislators know how you feel about a pending bill
A page with links to proposed legislation (near the bottom of this page you'll see "House Bills" and "Senate Bills" [etc.]. Click on those links to get to the various bills that have been proposed.)
Bill Status Inquiry page (If you know the number for the bill you're trying to find out about, you can enter it here to find out its status.)
A Major Topics Index page (If you don't know a specific bill number but want to look around at what's going on under various major subject areas, use this page.)
A Committee Hearings Schedule page. If you want to see what the various legislative committees are up to, this page might be useful to you.
A Daily Calendars page. This page is updated at least daily during the session. You'll be able to follow along with what's going on on the floor(s) of the House and Senate.
Daily Roll Call Vote page. If this works like it worked last session, I think they'll update the page in real time, as votes happen on the floor.
A Budget page. This page isn't of much use to Republicans. Borrow and spend. Borrow and spend. Puff out your chest and gloat about what a budget hawk you are when oil prices fortuitously go up. You know the drill.
Audio/Video Coverage page. While you work or home, you can have near-real-time audio or video of the floor sessions playing in the background on your computer. If someone starts talking about something you are interested in, you probably will want to have a copy of Audacity -- a free streaming audio recording program -- installed on your computer so you can record the floor debate. If you're able to record something REALLY interesting, convert it to an MP3 file (using the free MP3 encoder optional download) and e-mail it to me. I'll probably post it here. [This link may be a bad link until the session starts. I'll try to remember to come back and correct it if it's wrong. Or remind me to do so.]
Crossover - February 20th is "crossover." That's a sort of "drop dead" date; the date by which bills generally must "cross over" from one legislative chamber to the other.
Bill Grids - Probably the single most useful thing you are going to learn about in this blog post is this: Fair Housing of the Dakotas maintains an AWESOME bill grid that breaks down some of the more interesting and/or important pieces of legislation pending before the North Dakota legislature. Someone at FHD tracks all these bills and updates the grid on a daily (?) basis -- or pretty close to it -- during the session. If you're interested in human rights or labor issues (including workers comp) or arts or election law or non-profit/charity or children/minor/student issues, this grid will keep you up to speed on many of the more interesting bills addressing those issues during the legislative session. Click here to view the grid. Watch this grid during the session to track the progress of some of the more important pieces of legislation. Though nowhere near as user-friendly as Fair Housing's grid, the Association of Counties keeps a fairly decent list of interesting bills too. You can read their list by clicking here. NDACo keeps a hearing schedule you can read by clicking here, too. They've got some other potentially useful info you can find by clicking here. [I'm sure there are other good grids out there. If you know of any other organizations' online bill grids (etc.) that people might find usefull, please send me the URL(s) and I'll add links here.]
Testifying - Anybody can -- and should -- testify to the legislature about a proposed law. You do not have to register as a lobbyist unless you are going to speak on behalf of someone (or something) else. To express your own opinion, you do not have to register as a lobbyist. If you are going to lobby for a group, you generally will have to register. You can find links to pages about registering as a lobbyist and information about "how to testify" by clicking here (the links are to the left after you click through, below the word "general"). What I'd suggest is this: Go watch a committee hearing a day or two before you plan to testify. Listen to how a "real" lobbyist addresses the chairman and other members of committees. When you testify, try to use some of the same jibber-jabber the lobbyists use. That way you won't look like a newb when you testify. Lastly, don't be surprised when the committee doesn't take action on the bill you're interested in while you're in the room. It's not uncommon for them to put off their votes until nobody is around but the lobbyists who get paid the big bucks to linger in the hallways and wait for the committees to take action on bills. That's just the way it is.
I'm not sure what else to tell you. Someone (thanks, DW) was kind enough to get me a media floor credential for the session. I almost never get up to the capitol building duirng the session, but maybe I'll get up there this year. I might even try to get up there for the Governor's budget address, or something. I don't know.
If there's something pending that's interesting and you'd like to share what you know, feel free to post a comment under this (or any later legislative blog post) or shoot me a note at northdecoder at gmail daught com.
Still-Governor Rod Blagojevich(D-Loose Cannonville) has appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to fill the senate seat of President-Elect Barack Obama.
It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety. We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris's ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus
Here's the problem: It would be a difficult constitutional question to answer whether or not the senate could vote down a gubernatorial appointment, it may not even be legal. Here is the language of the constitution with regards to the matter from Article I Section 4:
Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members...
Problem: Ronald Burris was not elected, thus there were no returns, and he is certainly qualified as laid out in Article I Section 3:
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen.
What would likely have to happen would be that the senate would be required to seat Mr. Burris, swear him in, and then vote on expulsion as provided in Article I Section 5:
Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.
That may not go over so well...there are certain to be some Republicans who would like to keep the man appointed by the least popular governor in the country around as a punching bag as long as possible. This may be indicted congressman Bill Jefferson's replacement in Congress.
What is fairly clear is that, as the above letter states, Burris will not under any circumstances be seated in the Democratic caucus. That in and of itself is significant. It means that Burris will be Bill Jefferson in another sense: he won't have a single committee assignment(unless the Republicans let him into their caucus...then again, given the fact that they didn't even threw out Ted Stevens, a convicted felon, from their ranks, they might be willing to welcome him in...
In reality, Burris will only be able to cast floor votes, and will have very little influence on real policy. He will be a lame duck unable to run for election come time for such a special election. Illinois will not be properly represented until someone other than Rod Blagojevich(be it the Lieutenant Governor or preferably the people of Illinois) sends someone to the Senate.
Finally: here's an interesting question: What if you make an appointment to the U.S. Senate, but your Secretary of State refuses to certify said appointment? Here's my guess: you get a court order(Writ of Mandamus) forcing the Secretary of State to certify the appointment, pursuant to 15 ILCS 305/5:
It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State...To make a register of all appointments by the Governor, specifying the person appointed, the office conferred, the date of the appointment, the date when bond or oath is taken and the date filed. If Senate confirmation is required, the date of the confirmation shall be included in the register.
This will only stall the inevitable. Although by dragging his feet the Secretary of State may be able to give the legislature time to impeach the Governor in time for the Lieutenant to withdraw the appointment prior to its certification and make his own appointment. It also would give the legislature time to repeal the Governor's ability to appoint the next U.S. Senator. That would be difficult, and would be a legal battle that would head to the U.S Supreme Court...Ex-Post-Facto laws and such...dates...etc...
Definitely will be interesting to watch and see how it plays out though...
I have tried to stay clear of reporting on the Minnesota recount given that this blog is more devoted to North Dakota issues, not Minnesota issues. I have to finally ring in on the issue here.
Norm Coleman has little to no chance of winning at this point. The only way he can win is by working to skew the wrongly rejected absentee ballots in his direction. Here is how that fiasco has gone down. (Note:I take my information from theuptake.org, fivethirtyeight.com, and startribune.com)
On December 18th, the Minnesota Supreme court bowed to the Coleman campaign's request that there be a “process” established for determining the status of improperly rejected absentee ballots. Forget the fact that there is already a set of guidelines for what defines a properly rejected absentee ballot(e.g. Minnesota election law). One would think that county election judges could simply sift through their absentee ballots and determine if any ballot was rejected for any reason other than what the statutes provide for, then count the ballots and amend their results.
The Supreme Court instead decided to make things ten times more complicated than this simple process. They decided(read the full decision here) that both campaigns needed to agree with election officials as to what constituted an improperly rejected absentee ballot. Those ballots would then be counted. The people whose ballots were rejected would be notified, and given time to appeal the decision in court. There would also be “sanctions” for a campaign that attempted to get ballots rejected for frivolous reasons.
Norm appears to be on the road to getting “sanctioned”.
Yesterday it was reported that while the Franken campaign and local election officials had agreed to 1346 ballots, that Coleman's attorneys had agreed to exactly 136. Those presumably were the 10% or so of the ballots located in Coleman-friendly counties. The attorneys reportedly said that they would release a list with “lots, lots more” later on--lets hope so...
Today we got word of what “lots, lots more” meant...
-778 absentee ballots OPENED on the basis of recommendations from local election officials. -544 absentee ballots LOOKED at more closely before they are opened (or not) -67 absentee ballots OPENED that are not currently on the list from local election officials -587 absentee ballots LOOKED at more closely before they are opened (or not) that are not currently on the list from local election officials. Note that 778 plus 544 does not equal the total of 1,346 absentee ballots released by local election officials. Tony Trimble, Coleman recount laywer, said today they have not rejected opening any absentee ballot yet so the discrepancy accounts for absentee ballots they have not yet reviewed.
Understand that they don't have gobs of time to do this. The election officials and campaigns have all of six days(including today) to complete this process. They need to be completely wrapped up by the 4th.
I would give Coleman the benefit of the doubt that he's trying to be thorough(even though he has had 11 days so far to review these ballots), except for the fact that Norm's people have been the ones dragging their feet on the recount from the beginning. Lets start with this statement from November 5th:
"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," Coleman said Wednesday at a news conference. He noted Franken could opt to waive the recount.
"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," Coleman said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in Franken's position
Yeah, just waive a state-mandated recount in the closest senate race in Minnesota history(with a victory margin of only 8 thousandths of a percent)...sure...
Then came the whining over the trailing results that shifted ever-so-slightly prior to the recount(something completely normal in any election), where Coleman questioned why they were leaning towards Franken...
Then came the actual recount, where out of the 6700+ challenges, Coleman increased the number of challenges first, had more by the time the hand recount had finished, and withdrew fewer challenges only in response to the Franken campaign, ending up with nearly twice as many challenges being placed before the canvassing board, on top of that, every lawsuit so far associated with this recount has been filed by the Coleman campaign.
Now, when the Coleman people know that the absentee ballots are going to push the numbers toward Franken, wouldn't you know it, they are yet again being childish. Its time for Coleman to grow up and cooperate.
In reality, the Minnesota Supreme Court should never have given either campaign the opportunity to prevent any absentee ballot from being considered. It pretty much invited the endless squabbling we're seeing now. If the Coleman people insisted on giving their input in the process then they should have implemented a similar process to the rest of the recount. Give each campaign the option to challenge a rejection and take them to the canvassing board, which would have the final say on each rejection.
It seems that this whole process is bound to end up back in the courts, and it continues to remain a possibility to appeal the decision to the U.S. Senate itself, as ridiculous as that seems. Coleman does not seem to be doing himself a whole lot of good, and is not generating any goodwill here.
In reality though, Coleman has little to lose(only a small amount of PR that he can make strides in regaining over the next six years--I mean, Saxby Chambliss and George Bush got re-elected...), and plenty to gain by attempting to game the system to his advantage. Franken has the exact same risk/reward ratio here as well if things end up turning south for him, although he has some amount of breathing room to work with(exactly 50 votes worth—and counting) before his lawyers slam their briefcases down on the desks.
One can always hope for civility though I guess...
Yesterday I posted something about how North Dakota's GOP Chairman is upset that the Republican party's elected officials aren't giving proper respect to the GOP platform. Keeping that in mind, I thought I'd run a one-question quiz by you folks to see what you know about the GOP's platform on one issue: Guns.
Ten terrorists walk into a gun shop. Each intends to buy a fully-automatic assault rifle to use to kill your family. If North Dakota GOP Chairman Gary Emineth had his way and the GOP's platform were the law of the land in America, which of the terrorists would have to show a photo ID and have his name run through a national felon/terrorist watch list database before being given the assault rifle he'll use to kill your family?
A. All of them. (Better safe than sorry.)
B. Every other one. (Hey. Stopping half the terrorists from killing your family is better than stopping none of them.)
C. The first, fifth and tenth. (If we can keep guns out of the hands of 20% or 30% of the terrorists, the cops might be able to catch the other 70% or 80% before they kill your family.)
D. None of them. (Gun control only affects and penalizes law-abiding citizens. Gun control laws are ineffective at reducing crime.)
[Choose the answer that most closely tracks the GOP's platform.]
Put your answer in the comments section.
No cheating.
[I'll post the correct answer later today for those of you who aren't familiar.]
Leave it to the Republican Party to dishonor the Republican Party...
North Dakota GOP Chairman Gary Emineth said he too has had enough of the never-ending disconnect between what the platform says and what elected Republicans do.
"It is time the party gets involved in policy issues and forces candidates to respond to the platform," Mr. Emineth said. "Frankly the way we view the platform is a joke. We work hard to drive our principles into the platform, then candidates ignore it."
"If the party doesn't move in this direction, we will continue to be irrelevant. Whoever has the larger star power will continue to win, and what they stand for and believe will become less relevant," Mr. Emineth said.
I think it's kind of funny. Emineth thinks the way for the national GOP party to become less irrelevent is for the party to force its elected officials to abide by the out-of-touch positions written up by the party's radical right-wing fringe in the GOP platform. Emineth's position seems to be that the Republican Party's real enemies are its elected officials.
I'm for that.
But maybe the real answer is that the national Republican party should stop letting the right-wing fringe write its platform.
Just a thought.
[Editor's note: I had a graphic picked out for this story, but couldn't bring myself to post it. Don't ask.]
It is amazing how different the Senate will be from the one that was elected once the dust settles sometime in...oh, say February... When all of the vacancies have been filled there will be between 13 and 14 different U.S. Senators(depending on how Minnesota turns out) than when the 110th congress was sworn in on January 3rd of 2007. Nearly half(6) of those changes are at least partially due to vacancies by the death or resignation of a senator.
The issue of the method of appointing new senators has been the subject of some controversy as a result. We all know about Rod Blagojevich's scandal causing the vacant Seat of the president-elect to remain that way until the Illinois Legislature can remove the governor from office. Most have heard of Caroline Kennedy's intent to obtain David Patterson's nod as Hillary Clinton's successor once she becomes Secretary of State. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has his own decision to make in regards to the to-be-vacant seat of Secretary of Interior Designate Ken Salazar, whose brother, Rep. John Salazar appears to be vying for(among others). Controversy arose around Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's efforts to hide the special election to fill the seat of Trent Lott's seat in attempt to ensure that his selection of Roger Wicker would be made permanent. This also became an issue when the health of Sen. Tim Johnson(D-SD) came into question, which caused South Dakota's Governor Mike Rounds to sidestep the issue entirely. The only real non-controversial decision was the one to fill the seat vacated by the death of Sen. Craig Thomas(R-WY). This was only the case though because Wyoming law did not allow the governor(Dave Freudenthal(a Democrat) to select the successor by himself. The Republican leadership in the legislature selected a list of individuals that the governor could pick from, ensuring that there would be no shift in the party affiliation of the new senator. If that had not been the case, it is entirely possible that Freudenthal would have selected a Democrat to the seat(although not a given, Freudenthal is not the man to play party politics. He rarely endorses any Democrat for office. Ever.).
The problem with the process we have now is especially evident in the cases of New York and Illinois. Rod Blagojevich is the nightmare scenario of a conflict of interest, to the point that all 50 Senate Democrats sent the Governor a letter stating in no uncertain terms that they would not seat any senator that the “good” governor appointed. On the other hand, New York shows a different problem: Caroline Kennedy, one of the most well-connected unelected Democrats in the country pulling out all the stops in order to try and get a freebie appointment by David Patterson. The problem with both of these situations is that the-as Sarah Palin calls it- Old Boy's network calls the shots. There is no public vetting process, no need to raise money, no need to do anything other than make enough phone calls and cozy up enough to the governor to get appointed.
Say what you want about the state of our current democratic process, but it is infinitely better than gubernatorial appointments to these seats. It's becoming much more clearer that one of two things needs to happen. Either A:)State legislatures eliminate the ability of the Governor to make appointments to senate seats on his own. B.)Amend the constitution to prohibit governors from making appointments to senate seats(good luck) or C.) get governors to do what Deleware's Ruth Ann Miller did. Fill the seat with a placeholder(in this case, Biden's Chief of Staff Ted Kaufman) to hold the seat, but agrees to not run for the special election the next year.
Gubernatorial appointments muddy waters. It gives someone automatic incumbency, an advantage that guarantees a boost in popularity, all without ever having to go through any vetting by an opponent or the media. A special election at least lets the voting public make a decision as to who will be their next Senator. The downside of course is that the seat is left vacant and the state is left underrepresented while the state waits to select a new senator.
In reality, no system is perfect. Money and connections will always influence who gets into elected office. That's a fact of life. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't make an effort to try to reduce conflicts of interest and the influence of these things on our political system.
A little note, since North Dakota went through this process in 1992, when longtime Senator Quentin Burdick died. George Sinner actually did a good job in reconfiguring the delegation, and there isn't much doubt that the delegation would have turned out very different given the circumstances. Here's the situation as I understand it:
Kent Conrad was retiring from the Senate because of a campaign promise to not run again if the budget defecit was reduced during his term. Then-Congressman Byron Dorgan was running for his seat. Three months before the 1992 election to replace him, Quentin Burdick died, and Governor George Sinner appointed Jocelyn Burdick, the senator's wife, to fill his seat. A special election was held and Kent Conrad ran for and obtained the Dem-NPL endorsement for the seat, and won the special election. On December 14th, Conrad resigned from his Class 3 seat to be sworn in to his Class 1 seat. Dorgan then resigned from his House seat and was appointed a month early to his new senate seat(which he had won the election for a month earlier by a full 20 points. North Dakota's Congressional seat was left vacant until Earl Pomeroy was sworn in on January 3rd, 1993, just like every congressman was that year. In this case a Democratic Governor smoothed over the transition. If a Republican had held the office it certainly would not have ended up the same way. On the other hand, if the Governor was unable to make an appointment to the seat and the special election was held as scheduled, the only thing that would be any different would be that Dorgan would not have had seniority over the incoming Senate Freshmen(and women) that year. Other than that, nothing else would be different.
We got everything wii wanted for Christmas this year.
Wii hope you got eveything you wanted, too. .
Here's a recipe for you:
Half cup of cilantro, finely chopped.
One can of black beans, rinsed
1/3 of a red onion, finely chopped
One jar of spicey raspberry chipotle sauce (from Sociale)
Two things of cream cheese
Mix the cialntro, beans and onion together. Spread the cream chease over a serving plate/bowl. Pour the cilantro/bean/onion mix over the cream cheese. Pour the raspberry sauce over that. It's a dip. Use tortilla chips or rice crackers or whatever. Mmm mmm good.
Forum Communications reported, yesterday, that North Dakota should celebrate its massive population growth:
North Dakota posted its strongest population increase since 2000 this year and continued a streak of gains now seen in four of the past five years, new U.S. Census estimates released on Monday show.
As of July 1, 2008, North Dakota’s population had reached 641,481, an increase of 3,577, or 0.56 percent, over the 2007 estimate.
Well... sorta. But not really. It's more... just... well... information.
Think about it this way: There is a natural increase in population, right? If there weren't, there would still only be two of us, right? So what is the "rate of natural increase" for the population? I suppose there will be differences of opinion on this, but some would say the average rate of natural increase in population for the United States is 6 per 1000, or .6% Using the Fargo Forum's numbers, we had a population of 637,907 in 2007. That increased 3,577 (or .56%, according to the Forum -- which is, according to KFYR-TV's new math, "less than half of one percent.") in 2008 to 641,481 [someone needs to check their math; these numbers don't add up]. If North Dakota were tracking with the national average, the population of North Dakota SHOULD HAVE increased by .6% to 676,178.
But it didn't.
Instead, we've had yet another "unnaturally low" increase in population. Less unnaturally low than before, mind you, but still unnaturally low.
So what does our media give us? A story about how our fortuitously positive oil-industry economy has given us "record breaking" population growth. That's like celebrating an accidental decrease in the disturbingly high number of people leaving the state. Yeah, great, things aren't as awful as they could be. We're not losing as many young people as we've lost in the past!!! Let's throw a party!!!
Trust that John Hoeven will take credit for the decline in how far behind we are. He put the oil in the ground in northwestern North Dakota, after all.
The staff at the North Dakota State Auditor's Office. The hard-working civil servants working in the State Auditor's Office have been attacked, viciously, by the right-wing-nut-o-sphere of North Dakota, while -- as it turns out -- they were right; Blunt was abusing public dollars. Twelve citizens heard all the evidence and so now it is indisputable. Even if Blunt appeals and prevails on some "technicality," (I love that word) it'd be hard to suggest he didn't do anything against the law. The Auditor's said he did, the prosecutors said he did, and 12 citizens say he did. The people on staff in the Auditor's office have been called names and been mocked (by WSI's former board chairman) and been accused of being part of some mysteriously vast left-wing conspiracy. Gordy Smith, Jason Wahl and company have all been vindicated.
The Burleigh County States Attorney's Office. Dick Riha and his team have been accused of bringing trumped-up charges against an innocent man, with claims there was no evidence supporting the charges. From internal WSI documents, it appeared as though a plot was being formulated by WSI insiders -- one of whom is a Burleigh County Commissioner -- and others to run Dick Riha out of his job. In the face of crazy right-wingers who insisted the case against Sandy Blunt was completely unsupported by fact or law, TWELVE (or thirteen? if the thirteenth juror happened to agree) jurors found Sandy Blunt guilty. Riha, Cynthia Feland and Lloyd Suhr have been vindicated.
The Whistle-blowers. Remember that there are four people who sought protection from Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem because they were trying to stop criminal conduct at WSI and feared they would be retaliated against? Remember that!?! Well, they were all retaliated against. They were all fired. Of course WSI came up with "pretextual" excuses for firing all of them -- using a high-priced, out-of-state non-expert "expert" to help them cover their asses -- but anyone with half a brain will recognize that they were all retaliated against. Kay Grinsteinner, Jim Long, Billi Peltz and Todd Flannagan have all been vindicated.
About 70 Former WSI Employees. If you get your news from the mainstream North Dakota media-ocrity, you don't know that about 70 solid state employees have left WSI during and/or because of the Blunt administration, the Indvik/Gjovik Board, and WSI's other "leadership." Some of those former employees -- believe it or not -- stay in touch with each other, much like other groups of people who survive hostage crises, wars and other traumatic events. Some of the vindicated former WSI employees testified in the Blunt trial. Don't feel too sorry for Blunt and company; they have made many of those former WSI employees out to be "disgruntled" and have done all they can to smear many of their good names. Many of those people left WSI because they couldn't or wouldn't continue doing what they were being asked to do to injured workers and/or state dollars with a clear conscience. Those people have been vindicated.
Some Democratic legislators. Some (though certainly not all) Democratic legislators have been beating the "fix WSI" drum for about 10 years. They have effectively thrown up roadblocks to Republican proposals for WSI "slush funds" and other irresponsible spending and further oppression of injured workers. Some of them called for Sandy Blunt's dismissal back in December of 2006. If they had had their way, Blunt would have been gone from WSI nearly a year earlier, and the state of North Dakota would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary and severance paid to Sandy Blunt. They have been doing all they can in the face of a right-wing media-ocrity and a GOP super-majority in the legislature and our ineffective Governor and Attorney General, and they have been vindicated.
Joel Heitkamp --Radio talk-show host Joel Heitkamp, who also happens to fall under the category of "Democratic Legislators" -- has been maligned by the right-wing nutjobs for questioning Blunt's conduct -- and the conduct of others -- at WSI. Sandy Blunt and his posse at WSI obviously spent way too much time criticizing Heitkamp and not enough time looking at what Sandy Blunt was doing. Joel has been vindicated.
Me -- I have been vindicated. Trust me on this.
Besides Sandy Blunt, there are plenty of folks who have been implicated. Not necessarily (though some, possibly) as criminals or co-conspirators, but as apologists, enablers and/or loud-mouths, at least:
Governor John Hoeven. Somebody tell me, please, one thing John Hoeven has done to support either the investigation or the prosecution of Sandy Blunt or anybody else at WSI. Tell me, please, one thing. He and his staff have been nothing but obstructionists, using smoke-and-mirrors tactics to try to make it look like they've been doing their jobs. They sought Bob Indvik's resignation, but only after I told them they had to and I made the evidence indisputable. Hoeven did none of the heavy lifting. He let Bob Indvik and the WSI Board coddle the law breakers at WSI without doing anything about it. He claimed he had no power to do anything, but then ultimately claimed credit for demanding Indivik's resignation. (Which is it, John?) He appointed Bruce Furness -- who has no experience in insurance or workers compensation -- to serve as a figure-head, while allowing the Sandy Blunt Gang to continue to run the show at WSI. Hoeven officially has ultimate control over WSI, as of a couple weeks ago, but has done nothing to clean house over there. As far as I can tell, he hasn't even exercised the authority we gave him to appoint a WSI director. Hoeven is an ineffective "leader" and a cowering enabler. Hoeven has been implicated.
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. Wayne Stenehjem is supposed to be North Dakota's top law enforcement officer. Whistle-blowers went to him, seeking protection from the retaliation they expected to be forthcoming from Sandy Blunt and his cronies at WSI. Stenehjem sat back and watched as all of those people were retaliated against. He did nothing to make sure a proper investigation of the allegations in the whistle-blower complaints ever happened. He played no known roll in ensuring WSI followed the law. It could be argued that he and his office participated in some of the retaliatory conduct. That's troubling. Thought he has provided occasional, marginal help in forcing WSI to comply with open records laws, he's done little to impose sanctions or otherwise deter WSI's records people from stonewalling legitimate requests for information. Stenehjem has been implicated.
The WSI Board. (All but two of them.) Remember what happened when Sandy Blunt was charged criminally? The WSI Board (minus 2) rallied around Blunt, insisting he had done nothing wrong. They actively demonized and blamed everybody but Sandy Blunt and his clan at WSI. First they blamed the civil servants in the State Auditor's Office. Then they blamed the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party. Then they blamed overzealous Democratic (ha!) prosecutors at the Burleigh County States Attorney's Office. They blamed Joel Heitkamp. They blamed disgruntled former WSI employees. They blamed the whistlblowers. They blamed the left-wing media. They blamed me. They blamed injured workers. They were enablers to criminal conduct. They adopted their "Carver Model" of governance that allowed them to say, "We have no idea what Blunt is doing at WSI, but we approve of all of it, because it's profitable." That -- Blunt thought -- gave Blunt cover and gave the Board cover and created a situation where there was no accountability. For anybody. Then they gave Blunt over a hundred thousand dollars in (what I'll call) "vacation pay" while Blunt was on paid leave most of last year. Then they gave him another $140,000 (plus) in severance money. They (or some of them) deserved to be charged along with Blunt. They have been implicated.
Some Executives and Managers at WSI and One Doctor at MedCenter One -- They know who they are. So do we. They're the people who have engaged in illegal, unethical, irresponsible and/or criminal conduct on behalf of WSI (a state agency) along with Sandy Blunt. They've covered up for him and his cronies. They've attacked critics of WSI. They (or some of them) had one of the organizers of the Initiated Measure followed by WSI investigators. They (or some of them) were involved in organizing secret drops of materials in the offices of the media. They were obstructionists when I (and others) requested records, but handed them out freely (literally freely) and with reckless abandon when Blunt and various WSI apologists asked for them. They had secret meetings during business hours with legislators and chamber of corruption leaders. They've engaged in letter-to-the-editor (type) writing campaigns. They've done it in a calculated, systematic, organized way. Some of them also snuck provisions into Sandy Blunt's separation agreement that allowed Blunt to seek MORE public money, and did so behind the backs of the WSI Board. They have been implicated.
Republican Legislators. Google this phrase: "The ultimate responsibilty for what goes on at WSI rests squarely on the Legislature." GOP legislators joined in on the fun with the WSI Board, blaming, excusing and enabling. Accusing and denying. Meeting in smoke-filled rooms and strategerizing. They know who they are and they have been implicated.
North Dakota's Right-Wing Media. The Fargo Forum (and other Forum Comm newspapers) had one writer who wrote critically about WSI and Blunt. When he did so, the right-wing Forum Comm owners shut him down (or at least it looked like they did for a while). The Bismarck Tribune has been incurious and ineffective when it comes to writing about Blunt and WSI. Tribune writers have done little or nothing to expose problems in the criminally-operated agency. The Minot Daily and Williston Herald reprint AP stories, and that's about all. Stories about the corruption at WSI have nearly universally started right here on NorthDecoder.com and been copied by North Dakota's media-ocrity only after it became clear the stories were legitimate and everybody "in the know" in (and sometimes out of) the state was talking about the stories. North Dakota's media has been lazy, incurious and -- at times -- has played defense for WSI and state government leaders who have dropped the ball. The media has been implicated.
Right Wing Know-It-All Bloggers like Tom Heuerman and Rob Port. These tools joined in and served -- knowingly or otherwise -- as shout-box operators and apologists for Blunt, his WSI Board, the Republican legislators and other WSI crime-defenders. Without ever bothering to look into the facts or evidence, these clowns have called the Blunt case things like a "politically motivated witch hunt" and argued the indictments were "ridiculous" and that the people who pursued them were "embarassed when the charges" were dismissed (erroneously). Those of you who've been reading this blog and its predecessor for a long time know Rob Port had a personal financial stake in WSI's operations and has little or no credibility when talking about WSI or much else. After all, Port's the kind of tool who would argue Blunt "deserved" his $140,000 severence package because he "didn't do anything wrong." Port's problem -- or his problem regarding WSI -- is that his primary source of information seems to have been discredited right-wing news rag publisher Steve Cates. These people all claim anyone who criticized Blunt's huge jack-pot severance package were engaging in "political grandstanding." You have to wonder whether they're now going to blame the 12 citizen jurors for being a part of the grandstanding, partisan, witch-hunting persecution of Sandy Blunt. These guys -- Heuerman and Port -- are tools and don't even see it. They've been implicated.
Dakota Beacon Excreter Steve Cates. This character, you'll recall, snuck his way onto the agenda for the Burleigh County Commission -- which included his beloved, dear friend WSI executive Mark Armstrong -- with the intention of coming across as some kind of expert on what was going on at WSI. He thought he was going to put on some kind of dog-and-pony show, to argue that Burleigh County States Attorney Dick Riha was somehow abusing the trust of the county by pursuing the charges against Blunt. I watched the video of this. Cates got the smack-down and bad. When Blunt was found guilty by 12 Burleigh County citizens, Cates lost any credibility he had (assuming he had any credibility after renegging on the promise he made on the TV news that he would pay anybody $100,000 if they could prove he had written anything that was erroneous, or a misrepresentation or a lie in his Dakota Beacon right-wing news rag. [click here, here, and here to see how this turned out for Cates.])
This is a partial list. I'm sure there are more. Help me think of who they are.
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I'd like to talk to some of the jurors. I suspect their stories might be interesting. If any of the jurors happen to stumble upon this website, I'd ask them to please send me a note at editor at northdecoder daught com. I'd like to visit with you.
SCHIP: This past year, we worked hard to win federal approval to raise the eligibility level for SCHIP from 140 to 150 percent of the poverty level. We now propose raising the eligibility level for SCHIP to 200 percent of the poverty level, and our budget provides the funding to do it.
/eyebrow???
Wait a second...did he just say “we worked hard?”
I think the record on this needs to be reexamined here. Lets rewind to last legislative session for a moment. Newly minted Rep. Jasper Schneider, along with Mary Ekstrom, Scott Kelsh, and Ben Vig(also newly elected), working with Senators Tracy Potter and Tim Mathern put forward a bill to raise the SCHIP eligibility level from 140% of poverty level to...wait for it...200% of poverty level. That bill was defeated with by the Republicans. So in order to say “we did raise SCHIP levels,” the Republicans passed their version of the bill raising eligibility by a token 10% to 150% of poverty level.
Now lets put this in perspective here for a second and look at what we're talking about here. SCHIP provides healthcare coverage to children that are ineligible for medicare because their parents don't qualify. The state decides the exact eligibility requirements but the eligibility cap for federal matching funds is at 200% of poverty level. A state may go over that but they won't get any more federal assistance to do so. For every dollar that the states put in the feds put in 3. So this is basically free money to go towards keeping kids healthy. It makes no sense to not take that money unless you are(as the republicans obviously are) philosophically against that spooky “redistribution of wealth” mantra, like the republicans are...
Or are they? I want to see what happens when this comes to a vote, because not only did every Republican present in the house vote this bill down, but when Schneider ran for insurance commissioner, he ran(in part) on this issue, and got praise for it. Adam Hamm argued that everyone that was currently eligible was covered, and knew just the person to get that message out, too... I wonder what Adam Hamm thinks of John Hoeven scrapping his plan and taking the Democrat's one instead.
The bottom line here is that the Republicans always do this. They take the Democrats' good ideas(property tax relief, minimum wage relief, wind energy, etc), tone it down, and then eventually take credit for “getting things done.” I am happy that we're finally covering every child that the feds will help us with, but it would have been nicer if we could have put partisanship aside and done this two years ago when we were supposed to, and the credit could have been given to the real champions of the issue, not the ones that stood in the way.
That's what we get with a supermajority though, I guess...
I can't write everything I'd like to write about the North Dakota Legislature here for a variety of reasons, but I can give you a few primers on the 2009 North Dakota Legislative Session. Here are some things every North Dakota citizen should know:
Yesterday 
Here's a recipe for you:
Forum Communications reported, yesterday, that North Dakota should celebrate its massive population growth:
Here's a story that got glossed over by the state media-ocrity in the past month...