This guest post was submitted by Bette Grande, a former lawmaker who served in the state House of Representatives from 1997 to 2014. During my time in the North Dakota Legislature, I learned that Bills, even bad ones, had a way of popping up session after session. It works the same for laws that failed to perform…

“Rural America gets bad vibrations from Big Wind,” Robert Bryce wrote recently for the Wall Street Journal. He notes that President Joe Biden’s administration is pushing for “tens of thousands of wind turbines,” but asks, “where, exactly, will all those turbines be built?” It’s a good question. Many Americans, even those who support the concept of wind energy, may not…

“I would like us to get the smile back,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said in a recent interview. “I mean, we still are the greatest experiment in political world history. Self-governance requires people of virtue, as Os Guinness puts it, and our virtue needs to be demonstrated in our personalities, not just in our ideals. If I…

Earl Pomeroy served in the North Dakota House of Representatives from 1980 to 1985, as state Insurance Commissioner from 1985 to 1992, and as the state’s at-large member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2010. He knows a thing or two about state politics. And national politics. He joins this episode of Plain…

Earlier this year North Dakota’s lawmakers approved a bill that prohibited institutions in the state’s university system from working with groups that promote abortion. The bill, as passed, also included a financial penalty, denying matching state fundraising dollars for campuses that ran afoul of the provision. The impetus for the legislation was a long-standing grant…

You’re probably hearing a lot about cryptocurrency these days. Dogecoin. Bitcoin. The businesses you patronize are telling you they accept it. Heck, here in North Dakota, the City of Williston has begun accepting it as a payment option. But what is it? How do you use it? And given the headlines we see about the rollercoaster values…

A company or organization wants to start some project with economic development assistance from the government. They make applications to state boards or local governments, and in those applications they make promises. They’ll create jobs, they say. They’ll generate tax revenue. And when the tax breaks or subsidies are approved, the politicians doing the approving…