MINOT, N.D. — Wednesday, Sept. 23, Gov. Doug Burgum issued an executive order which made failure to quarantine after close contact with someone positive for COVID-19 a Class B Misdemeanor. Today, Sept. 24, lawmakers are saying that order has been rescinded. In an email sent to his caucus this afternoon, which I obtained, House Minority…
Will Democrats Accept a Peaceful Transition of Power? They Didn’t Last Time
MINOT, N.D. — Shame on President Donald Trump for even suggesting that he might not accept the results of the 2020 election. His “we’re going to have to see what happens” remark is just the latest in a long history of Mr. Trump saying astoundingly stupid things. But shame, also, on Democrats and left-wing activists who carry…
The Democratic-NPL Is About to Be Embarrassed by the Courts Again
MINOT, N.D. — Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court removed Travisia Martin, the candidate for Insurance Commissioner endorsed by the North Dakota Democratic-NPL, from the statewide ballot. The reason? She voted in Nevada in 2016, something which, when done legally, requires one to be a resident of Nevada and not North Dakota. Yet North…
Plain Talk: Democratic Legislative Candidates Talk About Campaigning in Rural North Dakota
Jodi Meisch and Will Thompson are two Democrats in North Dakota’s 22nd legislative district. They are hoping to unseat to Republican incumbents, Rep. Brandy Pyle and Rep. Michael Howe, who are just finishing their first term in office after fist being elected in 2016. I’m not sure the last time District 22 sent a Democrat…
The Next President Should Appoint Ginsburg’s Replacement (He Wrote, Reluctantly)
MINOT, N.D. — Republicans should let whoever serves next as president of the United States choose the replacement for recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s the right thing to do. Let the election be, in part, a referendum on who the American people want to make that appointment. The partisan flames which…
Dem-NPL Gov Candidate Doesn’t Want to Be Called a Democrat, Stumbles on Mask Mandate Question
MINOT, N.D. — If a candidate demands a mask mandate, shouldn’t they be prepared to tell you what the consequences would be for violating it? Democratic-NPL gubernatorial candidate Shelley Lenz isn’t. Monday I guest-hosted the “Jay Thomas Show” on WDAY AM970 and had nearly an hour-long conversation with Lenz. I like Lenz. I think she’s an…
Why Did North Dakota’s Universities Get More Than 5 Times the COVID-19 Funding K-12 Schools Did?
MINOT, N.D. — Let’s do some math. The fall 2019 enrollment number for full-time equivalent students in North Dakota’s public K-12 schools was 110,797. All of those kids are North Dakota residents. The fall 2019 enrollment for North Dakota’s public institutions of higher education was 35,353 full-time equivalent students. Nearly half of them, something like…
MINOT, N.D. — I’ve been writing about higher education for a long time, and when it comes to budgets and how our state’s universities react to them, there are two simple truths. Any budget increase will be treated as a cut because it wasn’t as large an increase as the universities requested. Any actual cut…
Gov Candidate Lenz’s Pandemic Plan Amounts to Appointing Someone Else to Lead
MINOT, N.D. — The governor’s job is to govern. The governor’s job is not appointing other people to govern. After reading her plan for addressing the coronavirus pandemic, I’m not sure Shelley Lenz, the Democratic-NPL’s gubernatorial candidate, understands this. The plan was released this week. It tosses a few bones to placate the nascent authoritarians…
Democratic-NPL Says NDGOP Legislative Candidate Is Ineligible Because He Lives in Wyoming
MINOT, N.D. — Earlier this year the Democratic-NPL stubbornly refused to acknowledge that one of their candidates for statewide office, Travisia Martin, who was running for Insurance Commissioner, was ineligible for the ballot. Despite clear evidence that Martin had cast a ballot in Nevada in the 2016 election — something that, if done legally, requires residency in…