​‘Drain the prairie’

GRAND FORKS – Behind the bright roving lights and trendy pop tunes, the button-pushing student pages and fiery political speeches, a group of volunteers work feverishly in a nondescript room. They’re the gatekeepers, the convention’s nerve center. Without them, the voting system at the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Convention would collapse.

Years ago, delegates used punch cards, Charlie Barber, who has been working with the credentials center for nearly 50 years, said. Today, hunched behind personal laptops, district numbers taped across the backs of screens, the system is digital and in real time.

“This is really the convention’s control center,” Barber said. “We make sure there’s an honest count, and we’re very meticulous about it, because it matters.”

It matters because the North Dakota Democratic-NPL saw another jump in delegates on Saturday, with a total of 644 certified delegates, 22 out of 47 voting districts are filled.

“It wasn’t like this two years ago,” Barber, who also sang “Ellis Island” for the convention’s recognition of St. Patrick’s Day, said.

Barber was interrupted when Kathy Hogan of District 21 warned the group of nearly 20 people that the second whirlwind of name checking would start in two minutes.

“Okay, ready to go guys?” Hogan said. “The time is 8:45 and the number is…”

For the first time since she was 22 years old, Mary Rennich chose to volunteer at the credentials center to ensure names on the list correspond with actual delegates. Rennich is an alternate delegate, which means that when a delegate doesn’t show up, she can step in to vote.

The national political scene is disturbing to her, a Democrat in a mostly red city – Bismarck. She said she’s not ridiculed in person in the state’s capital, but social media keyboard warriors occasionally find her online.

“The movement is definitely growing,” Rennich said. “You have to find a niche where you are making a positive difference, and I found that in some groups who are mostly Democrats.”

She’s a horticulturalist, an activist, a painter, she’s studied policy-making and finds it fascinating, and has worked on advocacy committees for the governor as well as the Sergeant-at-arms on the House floor. One day, she hopes to run for state office, Rennich said. 

Initial registration is at the entrance. All questions pertaining to anyone claiming to be a delegate are sent to the credential center. Roaming the halls are the third defense tier known as sergeants-at-arms, and they also keep watch, she said. Every row inside the main hall is marked with a district number, and every district has a district head.

No Republican moles were found on Friday or Saturday. In essence, infiltration is impossible.

“The trouble with North Dakota is that everybody knows everybody,” Hogan said. “No one gets in or out without us knowing it.”

“If there is a name not on the list then we have to get an agreement and a vote from the district,” Emma Steger, of District 45, said.

“The point is, because of the population I don’t know of anybody who has really tried,” Barber said. “If the Republicans really wanted to come in, well, this is North Dakota, and everyone knows everybody,”

The credentials job is more complicated than the name implies, hundreds of delegates and alternate delegates are verified, there are addresses to check, names to spell correctly.

Rules are strict during a convention: all aisles are cleared during voting procedures, such as the endorsement for either Senator Heidi Heitkamp of Dustin David Peyer for a Senate seat, and between Ben Hanson and Mac Schneider, former state legislators and Representative John Grabinger for the state’s only seat in the U.S. Congress.

Some issues are solved quickly; some take a few minutes, and the delegate in question must wait for approval before entering the main hall, Sabina Gasper, who is running for representative of District 47 and a volunteer with the credentials center, said.

“Pretty much every problem has been solved and really, the point of this is to have a paper trail,” Gasper said.

Less than a minute after convention officially started, delegates lined up outside the office door to the credentials center. Gasper smiled, answered a question and then turned back to her laptop.

Endorsements
The ND Democratic-NPL endorsed Representative Joshua Boschee from District 44 for North Dakota Secretary of State. Described a “tall, young man with a cool haircut,” a man who is destined to go places, he was also noted as a politician who responds to Fargo constituents.

“It’s time to drain the prairie and elect a Secretary of State who will move us forward,” Boschee said.

He mentioned that the current Secretary of State, Al Jaeger, has been in office since the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, was 12 years old.

“It’s time for us to get with it,” Boschee said. “It’s time for us to retire Al Jaeger. How can we trust a man who can’t keep up with technology, to manage the elections we have in our state, and the security of our election infrastructure. It’s no surprise that North Dakota is one of 21 states that the Russians infiltrated.

“And I’ve got news for you,” Boschee said. “I have a track record of winning elections that were unwinnable.”

Former representative and current North Dakota Democratic-NPL chair Kylie Oversen promised to push for genuine tax reform after winning the ND Democratic-NPL endorsement. Republicans have a history of “passing the buck” on issues such as property taxes, she said.

“Republicans tripled state spending since 2007, and cut state savings in half, this was all one big ‘I told you so moment,’” Oversen said.

The majority party also steadily cut taxes for corporations in recent years, which will run the state a total of $470 million this biennium in lost tax revenue.

“To be clear these weren’t cuts for ma and pa stores, they were tax cuts for large corporations. In 2015, again, against our objections, the majority cut the oil tax… drastically lowering revenues even further.

“What we hope to see in our government we must first see in our elected officials. If we want our government to inspire trust, our leaders must exhibit integrity. If we want our government to be transparent, then our leaders should be.”

Oversen is running against incumbent Ryan Rauschenberger, who pled guilty to DUI charges after the State Highway Patrol arrested him in September 2017. He was sentenced to a 10-day suspended jail term and put on probation for a year.

“On all of these counts, our current tax commissioner fails,” Oversen said. “The problems he brings to this office has nothing to do with addiction, and everything to do with doing right. This is about public safety and good governance.”

On Friday, attorney David C. Thompson was endorsed by the Dem-NPL to run against incumbent Wayne Stenehjem for North Dakota Attorney General, the most powerful legal office in the state. Thompson is a long-term attorney with a Fargo and Grand Forks law firm.

He’s running against Stenehjem because he believes that Stenehjem, along with Congressman Kevin Cramer, and former Governor Jack Dalrymple, are guilty of Class C felony bribery stemming in part from a 2011 underhanded deal with Continental Resources oil magnate Harold Hamm.

“North Dakota lost revenue because of this,” Thompson said. “Oil and gas money leveraged that, Wayne Stenehjem knew, he was the legal adviser. We accused Governor Dalrymple of Class C felony, and I do the same today in respect to Wayne Stenehjem.

“If elected, not only will I not tolerate these practices, I will prosecute them,” Thompson said.

Current Senator Jim Dotzenrod also received the Dem-NPL endorsement on Friday and plans to run for the position of agricultural commissioner against incumbent Doug Goehring, who has held the post since 2009.

Jean Brandt, who works for an oil field service company, is also a mother, farmer, and rancher with a background in agriculture, and was also endorsed to run for the six-year term of Public Service Commissioner.

After a three-way contest for the state’s only U.S. House of Representatives seat between Senator John Grabinger, former lawmakers Ben Hanson and Mac Schneider, the Dem-NPL voted to endorse Schneider.

“This election is an opportunity to win back the trust of hardworking North Dakotans,” Schneider, an attorney, said. “Let’s help them turn the channel, let’s not be a part of the chaos. We’re bound together by the things that we value.”

“Kevin, you’re fired.”
After a delegate vote totaling 479 to 85, the North Dakota Democratic-NPL chose to endorse Senator Heidi Heitkamp over wildlands firefighter Dustin David Peyer, who said his voice was the true representation of the Democratic Party. It was unknown if Peyer still plans to participate in the primaries.

Heitkamp took the stage with her family after the endorsement, and remembered her mother’s generation as the hard working people who built America today. 

“We were taught to work hard and play hard but to always pursue justice, and we take that vow to work every day with us,” Heitkamp said. “There is no more critical time in our history than now, we must join the ranks now.”

She took a stab at Cramer, saying he does not reflect the interests of the people of North Dakota, and acts as a puppet for President Donald Trump. 

“In the name of decency… we cannot send someone to represent the state of North Dakota who will simply be a rubber stamp for an agenda of someone who does not represent everyone in this country.”In a predominantly red state, 

Heitkamp knows she faces a tough race, but remains confident. Her main concerns include: healthcare issues and ensuring Medicaid and Medicare are not further endangered, agricultural issues, missing and murdered Indigenous women, domestic violence, human trafficking, human slavery, Main Street small businesses, e-commerce, net neutrality, funding for the military, Veteran Administration improvements, oil and diversifying alternative energy sources. 

“We cannot be the party of irrational regulation. We have to be the party that looks at what we are doing, finds value in what we are doing and move our country forward. We don’t need to unwind everything, but we need to be responsive,” Heitkamp said. 

“The next steps are more hard work. Hope is never a strategy; our strategy is to come together in our neighborhoods across the state of North Dakota. We can win legislative seats in North Dakota with less than 3,000 votes in a district. We have a thousand people in this room, let’s make it happen. We’re going to do it again. 

“Don’t let anyone tell you America is not a great country.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the convention, saying he learned his political values at his family’s kitchen table, and that North Dakota could have taught his family a few things about courage and loyalty.

“There is a new type of courage today,” Biden said. “It’s having the courage to reach your hand out. We’re drifting toward this notion of purity, unless you agree with me on everything, even within our own party. It takes courage to reach across the aisle and get something done for the country.”

Biden also challenged Democrats and Republicans to put an end to partisan division.

“Think about how we all attack one another, how demeaning, how crude, how someone in the highest office of America can look at another person and make fun of someone with a disability or have a problem with someone’s weight. Ask yourself, ‘Why aren’t we getting enough done?’ Nothing can happen in America without reaching consensus, otherwise we’re paralyzed, as we appear to be today,” Biden said.

“The answer is not only do we need bright men and women, and women and men with high integrity, we need women and men who are able to make a consensus and make principled compromises to move America forward without abandoning our principles.”

Biden’s speech lasted for the better part of an hour, at which point he made a joke.

“No one has ever doubted what I say, but sometimes the problem is that I say all that I mean. All kidding aside, what worries me most today about the Republican Party is I know they don’t agree with the President on a whole bunch of stuff, and they’re spending a great deal of time protecting him. I’m talking about people standing up.”

During Watergate in the 1970s, Republican leaders held former President Richard Nixon responsible for his actions.

“They’re decent people,” Biden said. “We got to give them a chance to do the right thing. Now, it’s time for us to get up. I think it’s time to say we don’t have to choose between our heart and our soul.”

Biden added that America is the world’s bread basket, America is energy independent, and by 2020, America will be the largest energy producing country in the world, and also leads the world with military power.

“That’s how we lead the world, not with the power of our military, but the power of our example. That’s why the rest of the world follows America, and that’s why we need Heidi.”

Former Senator Kent Conradtold delegates that now, more than ever, Democrats have a heavy responsibility to the state, and to the country.

“An open assault on our democracy by the Russians, the Russians interfered directly with our elections, every intelligence agency confirms this, and these are agencies appointed by the Trump Administration, and they confirm this,” Conrad said.

“Every American must ask why. Why did the Russians want to elect Donald Trump?”

Conrad recognized current local and national issues such as opiate crisis, the North Korea nuclear threat, terrorism threats such as Taliban, ISIS, real environmental threats from Climate Change, local agricultural problems with rising costs, stagnant wage growth, failures of trickle-down economics, and the national debt of $20 trillion that threatens Americans’ way of life, and will be $30 trillion in ten years.

Conrad reflected on a day toward the end of former President George W. Bush’s administration when he was called to the Capitol Building in Washington DC and told the country was on the very edge of complete collapse.

“Republicans would have you believe they are responsible stewards of our economy?” Conrad said. “Their record tells a very different story. They claim it will all be rosy, well, we’ve seen this movie before.”

Heitkamp’s presumptive Republican rival, current Congressman Kevin Cramer, supports tax cuts for the wealthy, increased military spending, and expanding debt to $30 trillion, Conrad said.

“And he asks North Dakota to promote him to the North Dakota Senate? Kevin, you’re fired,” Conrad said.

“Kevin Cramer is no Heidi Heitkamp. Heidi is smarter, she’s tougher, she’s more experienced, and she’s far more effective, and she simply works harder. There is no comparison between Kevin Cramer and Heidi Heitkamp.

“North Dakota deserves the quality of Heidi Heitkamp representing them in the United States Senate. I believe deeply our very best is Heidi Heitkamp.”