Are North Dakota students getting smarter about how they finance higher education? It sure seems that way. The cost of attending institutions in the North Dakota University System certainly hasn’t gotten any cheaper, yet the volume of debt being carried by North Dakota students across all 11 public institutions in our state has declined. Earlier…
Bison Football Should Raise the Price for Season Tickets
Those of you are familiar with my work know that I’ve got little love for collegiate athletics generally, and little interest in football specifically. But even I’ve noticed some of the griping about empty seats at North Dakota State University football games. The Bison are apparently on pace for another championship season, yet according to…
Print Column: Legislative Pettiness Leads to Marginalization of Burgum’s Conservative Budget
MINOT, N.D. — Traditionally in North Dakota the governor’s executive budget, delivered to lawmakers as an address in December, is introduced as actual spending bills at the beginning of the actual legislative session in January. Last week legislative leaders changed the rules. While Burgum’s budget proposals will be available to lawmakers, the actual legislation introduced…
Read It: Governor Burgum, Senator-Elect Cramer Tell NDGOP in Letter Not to Give up Open Primary
Last week I wrote about proposed legislation, being considered for endorsement by the North Dakota Republican Party, which if passed would end North Dakota’s open primary system. In our state the political parties hold endorsing conventions, but the actual nominees are chosen in a statewide vote in June of election years. Some, arguing that political…
On Day of Heitkamp’s Farewell Speech, Democrat Leader in the Senate Trashes North Dakota
It’s pretty clear that Democrats don’t have much affinity for states like North Dakota. Even our liberal friends right here in North Dakota often talk about our state as though they wish they lived somewhere else. What’s kinda rare, though, is when Democrats come right out and admit this stuff. Today there was a remarkable…
Video: Senator Heitkamp, Who Still Hasn’t Congratulated Senator-Elect Cramer, Delivers Angry and Tearful Farewell Speech
Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s last address on the floor of the U.S. Senate today came off less like a graceful farewell than a not terribly coherent stump speech delivered with tearful emotion and a rambling sort of vitriol. She sounded at times like a peeved schoolmarm lecturing we bad boys and girls about how we have…
Burgum’s Budget Makes Spending of Oil Tax Revenues More Transparent
I’m a fan of Governor Doug Burgum’s executive budget. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good, not just for its restrained (and at times even innovative) spending but because of the way it’s structured. Case in point, some time back during John Hoeven’s tenure as governor the executive branch (with an assist from lawmakers) figured…
Teddy Roosevelt Library Is a Good Idea, but Please Don’t Call It Mt. Rushmore
“North Dakota’s Mount Rushmore,” is a term Governor Doug Burgum has been throwing around, touting the $50 million in interest earnings from North Dakota’s nearly $6 billion Legacy Fund to the build out of a $150 million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora. I cringed when I read that Burgum was calling the project that.…
Maybe Heidi Heitkamp Could Give Some of Her Left Over Money to Her Campaign’s Victims
Senator Heidi Heitkamp has a lot of money left over from her unsuccessful 2018 campaign. Earlier this year the Senator’s vote against confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh bought her a tidal wave of money from left wing political donors across the country. “So much money was flowing into North Dakota that it appears she had…
Pro-Obamacare Lawsuit, Filed by North Dakota Democrats as a Campaign Gambit, Smacked Down by Judge
When it’s an election year in North Dakota we know at some point left wing interests will probably file some frivolous lawsuit to manufacture headlines, and that invariably these lawsuits will fail on their merits once the election is over. The most notorious example is from the 2012 cycle when the Dakota Resource Council and…