​’#Badass grandmas’ fight for ethics

BISMARCK– The debate over whether the state needs an ethics commission has been ongoing for years, four times defeated by the legislature. This year, however, concerned citizens turned to the power of the initiated measure, and have secured a place on the ballot this November.

What began as early-morning discussions over cookies and coffee at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum, has now mushroomed into more than 36,000 signatures supporting the creation of an ethics commission.

The ethics commission, as proposed, will be comprised of a committee appointed by the Governor, and the majority and minority heads of the state Senate, and funded by the legislature.

The measure would force transparency of all corporate and nonprofit organization donations, restrict gifts from lobbyists to public officials, ban elected public officials from also serving as lobbyists, and for two years after leaving office, prohibit campaign contributions and elected spending from foreign corporations, ban the personal use of campaign contributions, a clause the state constitution already has, and strengthen conflict of interest rules for elected officials who participate in judicial proceedings.

The topic was debated at the Greater North Dakota Chamber Annual Policy Summit on Thursday. Founder and sponsor Susan Wefald and Dina Butcher, president of North Dakotans for Public Integrity, debated the issues with long-time lobbyist Jeff Simon, and Representative Jim Kasper.

Rob Port, of the Say Anything Blog, was enlisted as the moderator, who pushed his own views on the issue into the debate.

“Rob, if you are supposed to be the monitor, are you supposed to be engaged in the argument?” Butcher said.

“Okay, all right, fine,” Port said. “Fair enough”

Butcher then held up a brochure describing a story about her grandson complimenting her as being “badass.”

“So hashtag badass grandmas,” Butcher said.

Simon and Kasper both complained that the state already has ethics laws, which is true, but failed to appropriately respond to questions related to a process where citizens can go if they feel their legislators or elected officials are involved in corruption.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Simon said. “There are provisions in our constitution now that addresses bribery.”

“This is a witch hunt,” Kasper interrupted toward the end of the debate. “It could imply, Jeff is a lobbyist, I’m a legislator, we go out for a beer at Buffalo Wild Wings he’s corrupt because he’s influencing public policy, that’s how deep it could go. That’s the problem with the wording with this measure,” Kasper said. “It was poorly written, poorly thought out.”

“This is not retro active, so if any of you are worried about those things, this is going forward, not backward,” Butcher said.

Kasper believes the measure will give unlimited power to an unelected person on the ethics commission. He’s also worried about the proposed whistleblower hotline and the ethics commission’s responsibility to keep such complaints out of the public’s eye.

“This will create a fifth branch of state government, that’s how much power it has,” Kasper said.

Wefald countered, calling Kasper’s claims ridiculous, and that checks and balances are provided for in the measure.

“The ethics commission may adopt ethics rules related to transparency,

corruption, elections, and lobbying, to which any lobbyist, public official, or candidate for public office may be subject,” Wefald said. “They would have to do a good job because the legislature is in charge of their budget.”

“And the legislature has a large role to play in establishing what the ethics commission will do, and your rules and regulations committee, once the ethics commission is appointed, and they draw up their rules and regulations of governance, the legislature will also have authority to have input on that, so it is not a stand alone additional part of government,” Butcher said.

Kasper doesn’t believe corruption exists in North Dakota, and said those who signed the proposal were misled.

“We had 36,000 North Dakotans sign, and it is going to the ballot,” Butcher said. “It helps for businesses coming to the state that they are going to have an arena that is fair and open and not influenced by dark money from someplace else that may influence.”

Toward the end of the debate, Port proposed a question.

“Do you worry about this ethics commission being used for partisan politics?” Port said.

Representatives from the North Dakotans for Public Integrity said no, ethics commissions exist in most other states and partisanship has not been an issue there, why would it be here in North Dakota.

“I think that in North Dakota we certainly can join those states that have ethics commissions and we can have better accountability, transparency, integrity, and trust in our government,” Wefald said.

Kasper then issued what he called a news flash.

“Susan, we’re not supposed to address each other, but I’ll use the old Sean Hannity statement, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’” Kasper said.

He said he is currently drafting a bill to introduce a state House and Senate ethics commission to the legislature in 2019, but not to include the executive or judicial branches. He also believes the initiated measure will “go down in flames.”

“That sounds a little opportunistic,” Port said.

“I saw the light, Rob,” Kasper said.

“It’s about time,” Butcher said.

Simon reiterated that the present system is working well enough, and that the introduction of an ethics commission is a “solution searching for a problem,”

“However, your partner up here feels that is not enough?” Wefald said. “Why would he be proposing legislation then if he feels everything we have presently in state law that’s needed?”

[Editor’s note: for a look at some of the corruption issues the state is dealing with, follow the first in an ongoing series at this link.]