In 2018, North Dakota voters approved a ballot measure creating the state Ethics Commission. The commission was implemented in 2019, and that first year, it received just 2 complaints. There were 3 in 2020, 9 in 2021, then a spike (right around election time) in 2022 to 14. There were 14 complaints again in 2023, and so far in 2024 (another electio…

Many Republicans are trying to argue that President Joe Biden opting to end his re-election campaign, and the subsequent consolidation of Democrats behind the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris, was a "coup." Was it? My co-host Chad Oban and I discussed it on this episode of Plain Talk, where we were also joined by Trista Keith, a now-former…

When President Joe Biden announced an end to his re-election campaign, Adam Goldwyn, chairman of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL, participated in a call with his counterparts from around the country that resulted in a unanimous endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to replace the incumbent at the top of the party's national ticket. "There was…

Dickinson State University, one of the North Dakota University System's four-year institutions, has been thrown into chaos by a labor dispute with a group of nursing faculty. First the faculty, after rejecting a new contract aimed at tamping down what DSU President Stephen Easton too much spending on a program that produces too few students, chose …

Sandi Sanford, chair of the North Dakota Republican Party, joined this episode of Plain Talk from the GOP's national convention in Milwaukee, where, she said, "the security plan changed drastically" after the attempted assassination of the party's presidential candidate Donald Trump. Republicans have been focused on unity at this event -- two of Tr…

Gov. Doug Burgum has gone through a "transformation." That's what reporter Stephen Rodrick said on this episode of Plain Talk. He spent a lot of time in North Dakota for a profile of Burgum published recently by Politico. He wrote that the governor has been "rebranding" on his way to a potential place on former President Donald Trump's national tic…

Senate Majority Leader David Houge, a Republican from Minot, says that if voters approve a ballot measure eliminating property taxes, state lawmakers will be left with a mess. He said that the legislature's appropriators will be tasked with making big spending cuts. He said that members of the taxation and finance committees will have to find new w…

Disgraced former state Sen. Ray Holmberg has indicated, through his legal counsel, that he will be pleading guilty to federal criminal charges related to international travel to solicit sex with children. "When that happens," Attorney General Drew Wrigley said on this episode of Plain Talk, "everything that we have becomes a public record." An unto…

We covered a lot of ground on this episode of Plain Talk. Rep. Brandy Pyle, a Republican from Casselton, joined to talk about her efforts to curb distractions from devices in the legislative committee she chairs, and to talk about the struggles our society is having with our phone addictions. North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott …

The signature turn-in deadline for the committee backing a ballot measure to abolish North Dakota's tax on property value (but not, it's important to note, other types of property taxes) arrives on Saturday, June 29. The committee is expected to turn in the requisite number of signatures, which, if they pass muster, will kick off a repeat of a deba…

North Dakota's primary elecitons this year were brutal. Attack ads and dirty tricks are endemic to politics, but I think most people would admit that, by the standards of our state, the Republican campaigns in this cycle were rough. In legislative races, we saw ads suggesting that some incumbent lawmakers promote pornography to children, or that th…

"We knew we wanted to stay positive and above board," Republican U.S. House nominee Julie Fedorchak said on this episode of Plain Talk. Fedorchak just emerged from a bruising competition against former state lawmaker Rick Becker and three other candidates with a resounding victory. She received nearly 50% of the vote in a five-way race. The race wa…

Will a ballot measure putting age limits on North Dakota's congressional delegation, and printing candidate ages on the ballot, be approved by voters? Will MAGA-aligned populists gain ground against traditional Republican legislators in the North Dakota Republican party's primaries? Who will win the NDGOP's primaries for governor and U.S. House? Ca…

Due to a scheduling mix-up with Attorney General Drew Wrigley -- he was coming on to discuss North Dakota's legal position in redistricting lawsuits -- this episode of Plain Talk was truncated. Still, despite the shorter show, we covered some good ground. Me and my co-host Chad Oban talked about the top election official in one of North Dakota's mo…

When we booked U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong for this episode of Plain Talk, we weren't planning on talking about Donald Trump. The plan was to get Armstrong's reactions to polls showing a prohibitive lead for him over Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller in the Republican gubernatorial primary. The plan was to discuss the debate the Greater North Dakota Chamber of C…

U.S. House candidate Alex Balazs is still set on winning. On this episode of Plain Talk, he told me and co-host Chad Oban that he plans to finish the last two weeks of his primary campaign strong. There will be ads and billboards and travel, and the candidate, who received the North Dakota Republican Party's convention endorsement in April, thinks …

"I've been an outside viewer," Dustin McNally, a Republican candidate for the state Senate in Grand Forks-area District 42, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "I haven't really liked what I've seen. McNally was speaking about what he's been seeing from North Dakota's Legislature. "It's a lot of negative news. It's a lot of changes in the Republica…

U.S. House candidate Rick Becker recently took the unusual step of paying internet personality and trans rights activist Dylan Mulvaney to record a message praising the energy record of his primary rival, Public Service Commisisoner Julie Fedorchak. The message was done tongue-in-cheek -- though it hasn't sat well with some elements of the MAGA mov…

A civil war is playing out in the North Dakota Republican Party between traditionally conservative Republicans and MAGA-aligned populists. One front in that war is the NDGOP's legislative primaries, where a group called Citizens Alliance of North Dakota is trying to defeat traditional Republicans. State Rep. Brandon Prichard, a Republican from Bism…

"I like debates," Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorhcak told me and co-host Chad Oban on this episode of Plain Talk. Fedorchak has come under fire from some of her opponents in the Republican U.S. House primary. Three of them — Rick Becker, Cara Mund, and Alex Balazs — participated in a recent debate sponsored by BEK Television. Fedorchak did…

Pat Finken is a long-time political consultant in North Dakota who now heads up an independent political action committee called the Brighter Future Alliance. Finken and his group have come under fire from U.S. House candidate Rick Becker and his allies for mailers attacking Becker and his voting record. Finken joined this episode of Plain Talk my …

The State of North Dakota is back in court over redistricting. This time, the state is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that the state had previously argued for. Specifically, the dismissal of a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of legislative subdistricts created by lawmakers in an attempt to enhance the stat…

Racial incidents keep happening at North Dakota school events. At basketball games. Proms. Hockey games. Part of the problem is, we don't know if they're happening more, or less. Maybe we're just noticing them more now that everyone has a smartphone in their pocket and the ability to document the taunts and jeers and boorish behavior. State Rep. Ja…

"I'm sympathetic to what they're doing while recognizing there's a better way to do it." Those are the words of Jason Bohrer, president of the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council, and advocacy and lobbying group that represents the state's coal industry. He was speaking on this episode of Plain Talk about the Midwest Carbon Express pipeline propose…

Marijuana is already legal in North Dakota. At least for medicinal reasons. But the backers of a new ballot measure want recreational use of marijuana to be legal as well. The campaign is calling itself New Economic Frontier. Their measure was just approved by the North Dakota Secretary of State's office for circulation. They have until July 8 to g…

U.S. Senate candidate Katrina Christiansen says the incumbent in her race "isn't that popular." Christiansen is running unopposed for the Democratic-NPL's nomination, and the incumbent she's referring to is Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, who is seeking a second six-year term. The challenger says she has polling suggesting that only 33% of previous C…

It wasn't on purpose, but bipartisanship and moderation ended up being the themes of this episode of Plain Talk. Whether we're talking about a Republican Speaker of the House, under siege from the MAGA wing of his own party, reaching out to Democrats to get things done, or democracy engaging on the issue of abortion now that the Roe v. Wade precede…

"I don't think he's a good person," U.S. House candidate said on this episode of Plain Talk, referring to former President Donald Trump. "I'm appalled at how much people have caved," she also said, saying her opponents in the North Dakota Republican Party's primary are too Trump loyal. "I'm the only candidate in this race who is not worshiping Trum…

Kirsten Baesler has been the elected Superintendent of North Dakota's Public Schools for nearly 12 years. She's now seeking a fourth term. Before each of her previous three elections to this office, she sought and received the North Dakota Republican Party's endorsement. She sought it again this year, but was denied it by the convention's delegates…

Alex Balazs, the out-of-nowhere candidate who won the North Dakota Republican Party's convention endorsement last week, ended his interview on this episode of Plain Talk by joking about the tough questions we asked him. We did run him through the ringer, on everything from abortion, to Trump's claims about the 2020 election and January 6, to the fa…

By the time you listen to this podcast, we will know if Cara Mund is going to turn the three-way Republican House primary into a four-way race. Whatever choice the former Miss America makes, North Dakota politics has gotten a lot more interesting since the North Dakota Republican Party's state convention in Fargo. And the Democratic-NPL's conventio…

When state Sen. Merrill Piepkorn, gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic-NPL, joined this episode of Plain Talk with me and my co-host Chad Oban, the first question I wanted to ask him was how he plans to unite North Dakota voters at a time when even Republicans here seem deeply divided against themselves. Piepkorn accused me of not "pussy foot…

Resolutions are, once again, causing headaches for North Dakota Republicans ahead of the 2024 statewide convention. One party resolution to be voted on at the convention calls for laws that would put a pregnant woman who seeks an abortion in jail, along with anyone who helped her. Another denigrates public schools as places where children are indoc…

"The reality is we knew the campaign team," U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong told me and my co-host Chad Oban on this episode of Plain Talk. Armstrong was responding to a question about his decision to go negative first against his opponent, Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, in North Dakota's Republican gubernatorial primary. "We are going to play the game by the ru…

It's campaign season, and unfortunately in the news cycle that often means substantive policy discussions takes a back seat to aspersions and invective from political campaigns. We have a bit of both on this episode of Plain Talk. Yes, we talk about U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong throwing the first punch in what promises to be a nasty gubernatorial prim…

The North Dakota Republican Party will be holding what will be a very interesting event on April 5. Interesting in the conventional way in that it will be a showcase of (most) of the party's statewide candidates. Interesting also in that there is a divide among Republicans between those who think the party's most ardent activists, the one who fill …

There is a shift happening in North Dakota politics. Republicans are divided between Trump-style populists, and more traditional conservatives. The legislative primary in District 8 may well be a bellwether for the future of both North Dakota's dominant political party, and the way in which our state is governed. That jurisdiction is home to state …

"It's strategically dumb," says Sen. Kevin Cramer, referring to those who heckled President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address, and otherwise made a spectacle of themselves. Cramer joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the president's speech, the Senate's GOP's progress toward picking a new leader, and the prospect for tackling …

For people of a certain age, who entered adulthood around the turn of the last century, the music of Five for Fighting is a cultural touchstone. The song, "Superman (It's Not Easy)" was an anthem post 9/11. John Ondrasik, the man who is Five for Fighting, performed it at the 2001 Concert for New York. Ondrasik, who will be playing the Fargo Theater…

As someone who has worked as a reporter in this state for more than two decades, who has broken a very large number of stories based on records requested from various government entities, I know a thing or two about North Dakota open records laws. When a prosecutor says that criminal charges can't be brought in a case where a staffer ordered the de…

We talk a lot about political leaders and activists who do stupid things. Ugly things. Cynical and self-serving things. But what about those who are standing up for what's right? On this episode of Plain Talk, co-host Chad Oban and I discussed Sec. of State Michael Howe, North Dakota's top election official who has, despite the partisan pressures c…

Rep. Scott Louser, a Republican from Minot who also recently announced a campaign for the local school board, has a big proposal aimed at school funding and North Dakota's seemingly intractable property tax problem. He has organized it into a draft bill for the 2025 legislative session. But does that mean he thinks a proposed ballot measure to abol…

No, the Republican presidential primary is not over yet. And yes, North Dakotans, you will have a chance to vote in it and make a difference. Bob Harms, who is running the NDGOP's presidential caucuses, joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the process. He talked about how to vote, and where to vote, and how those votes will be counted and r…

Why did Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak opt to run for the United States Hosue of Representatives? "I don't like the state of our country," she told me and my co-host Chad Oban on this episode of Plain Talk. Fedorchak is a long-time member of the policy-intensive PSC, and thinks she can take what she learned from administering the compl…

Me and my co-host Chad Oban took a break from guests on this episode of Plain Talk to spend some to talk through some of the headlines in North Dakota. We discussed the Republican primary races. With Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller in the gubernatorial race with U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, and Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak in the U.S. House race…

Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller has announced her campaign for governor. She'll be taking on U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong in the Republican primary. Asked, on this episode of Plain Tal, how she's different from Armstrong, she touted her business background. "I'm a proven business leader," she said, referencing the 14 years she spent leading Border States Electr…

"Republicans understandably and rightly believe that border security is important for our national security," U.S. Senate candidate Katrina Christiansen told me and co-host Chad Oban on this episode of Plain Talk. Wanting a secure border is "absolutely paramount if you're going to be a real leader," she added. I want to stress, at this juncture, th…

Chris Berg says that he once had a boss, when he was a talk radio host for AM1100 "The Flag" in Fargo, who told him that he was supposed to be infuriating his audience. "You gotta get people angry," Berg says he was told (he said people will think he was talking about host Scott Hennen, but that it was someone else). In addition to talk radio, Berg…

MINOT — Sen. Kevin Cramer is vexed by some of his fellow Republicans who want to kill a tax bill, and an immigration deal, lest they be seen accomplishing anything that might be perceived by voters as an accomplishment for incumbent Republican Joe Biden. "That frustrates me," told me and my co-host Chad Oban on this episode of Plain Talk. On the im…

Former state Sen. Tom Campbell has a plan for getting the nation's finances in order should he be elected to Congress. "No new hiring," he said. "Let's use artificial intelligence." He argued that many government jobs could be automated, resulting in dramatic reductions in the federal workforce, and savings for taxpayers. Campbell is seeking the ND…