Plain Talk

Russia's bloody invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions of Ukranians, most of whom need a place to go. Meanwhile, North Dakota has a long-enduring workforce shortage that is felt most acutely in the state's oil fields. Now, those two problems are coming together to form what is, if not a solution, is at least a way to mitigate some suffering while simultaneously creating some new opportunities. Former Lt. Gov. Brent Sanford, who stepped down from Gov. Doug Burgum's administration late last year, is now the project manager of what North Dakota's oil industry has dubbed Bakken GROW. The acronym stands for Global Recruitment of Oilfield Workers, and it's precisely what it sounds like. A concerted effort to match Ukranians, who need an escape from their homelands, with jobs in North Dakota's oil industry. "It's not only a workforce recruitment effort, it's a humanitarian effort too," Sanford said on this episode of Plain Talk. "The United States is not good at legal immigration," he added, but hopes this program can make a difference. He says it will begin with Ukranians - there is already a sizable Ukranian community in western North Dakota, and he says they're reaching out to organizations like the Ukranian Catholic Church to help with the effort - but the hope is to target potential refugees and immigrants from other countries and ethnic backgrounds as well. Also on this episode, state Rep. Corey Mock joined co-host Ben Hanson and I to talk about the ongoing debate over North Dakota's public worker pension. We disagreed a lot, but we did find some common ground around the idea that there are no easy solutions to this mess, and that a lot of the lawmakers in Bismarck on both sides of the debate are ignoring some pretty brutal fiscal realities. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish? Search for the show on Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher, or click here to learn how to subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.

"When I'm in committee, when I'm speaking, nobody ever asks me any questions." That's what Kristie Miller had to say on this episode of Plain Talk. She's the mother of a trans person and has become active in North Dakota politics opposing a legislative agenda in Bismarck she characterizes as an attack on the trans community. The most frustrating aspect of that activism? How hard it is to even get some lawmakers to talk to her. "My experience is...when they found out I'm the mother of a trans child, they won't speak to me." That experience isn't universal. Some lawmakers do speak with her. She credited House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, a Republican from Dickinson, with engaging, though she said that other lawmakers have been something less than pleasant to deal with. She described what she said was a rude interaction with Sen. Keith Boehm, a Republican from District 33 who primaried a Republican incumbent, Jessica Bell, over her vote to sustain Gov. Doug Burgum's veto of a transgender sports bill during the 2021 session. She said that many Republican lawmakers are afraid of opposing the 21 bills dealing with transgender issues at the legislature. "There's a small group out there...when they found out a GOP member voted a certain way they verbally attack them," she said. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish? Search for the show on services like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher, or click here to learn how to subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.

Drawing capital to North Dakota has been a problem for our state since, well, statehood. Our economy is heavily dependent on commodity-driven industries - energy and agriculture. Generations of political leaders have tried to find a way to diversify, but not much has changed. Which would argue, I think, for some outside-the-box thinking. And that's what Commerce Commissioner Josh Teigen was doing when he invited Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank star also known as Mr. Wonderful, to manage a $45 million investment fund for the state of North Dakota. On this episode of Plain Talk, Teigen talked about how that relationship came to be, and responded to criticism of the bidding process around it, as well as recent comments O'Leary made comparing Moorhead, Minnesota, to Cuba. "I think the comments are less about Fargo and Moorhead and more about North Dakota and Minnesota," Teigen said, also describing it as "more of a Bismarck versus St. Paul conversation." "We know the people in Moorhead aren't necessarily driving he policy in Minnesota. That's happening in St. Paul," he added. Asked if he felt O'Leary's comments were helpful to the cause of bringing capital to North Dakota, Teigen didn't defend them, but he wasn't critical either. "We don't get to control every bit of the narrative," he said, adding that having someone like O'Leary, with a national platform, "tell North Dakota's story" has "a lot of upside." Also on this episode, co-host Ben Hanson and I discuss Gov. Doug Burgum's apparent interest in running for president, as well as the Legislature falling just one vote short of passing a bill to expand the state's school lunch program.

What's the right legacy for North Dakota's Legacy Fund? It's a perennial question, all the more so when lawmakers are in session in Bismarck, and the answer is seemingly different for everyone. And that's the problem. The Legacy Fund was created two decades ago to store a big chunk of oil tax revenues for the future. Now the fund has billions in principal, and produces hundreds of millions in revenues of its own every cycle from its investments, and we're still debating what to do with it. Former Gov. Ed Schafer, who was a part of the campaign that created the fund, joined this episode of Plain Talk to talk about it. He says our current lawmakers are too spend-happy with the fund, and are foolishly, in his estimation, tying up its revenues, sometimes decades into the future. Also on this episode, co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the debate over school lunch. Should the state be picking up the tab? It would end the headaches schools have with trying to collect past-due lunch payments. It would also make it so that no student would be shamed when they don't get the same school lunch as everyone else because their parents didn't pay. Also, school lunch bills can cost $1,000 or more over the course of the school year. If the state picks up the tab, that's a burden off families with young children. But some lawmakers say it's a handout. A new sort of entitlement. Are they right? If you want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish, search for it on platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcast, or Stitcher, or click here to learn how to subscribe on the podcast service of your choice.

The American system for insurance and health care is broken. There's no two ways about it. We pay too much, and get too few choices. How much can North Dakota's lawmakers do about it? Not a whole lot, but there are things they can do to keep it from getting worse. House Bill 1416 would stop insurers from using price pressure convince North Dakotans to opt-in to health insurance plans that freeze out independent health care proviers. Dr. Duncan Ackerman, an orthopedic surgeon and a spokesman for North Dakotans for Open Access Health Care, joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the issue. Also on this episode, guest co-host Jamie Selzer and I discuss the push in the Legislature to put another term limits option before voters, one that alters the term limits amendment they just approved last year. We also talk about former U.S. House candidate Mark Haugen's decision to leave the Democratic-NPL and join the NDGOP. Haugen's House campaign ended after party big-wigs pressured him to bow out in favor of former Miss America Cara Mund, an independent candidate who was a late entrant to the race. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk Publish? Search for the show on services like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher, or click here to find out how to subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.

Minot, N.D. — I have been an outspoken critic of legislation before lawmakers in Bismarck that seeks to implement new content regulations on libraries and private stores open to the general public. So when Sen. Janne Myrdal agreed to come on this episode of Plain Talk, she knew what she was getting into. Kudos to her for coming on anyway to face questioning from myself and guest co-host Chad Oban (who makes a triumphant return to the podcast and predicts that surge in listens will crash our servers. That remains to be seen. As you might imagine, we three didn't find much to agree on, at least when it comes to the book bills. Myrdal, who says she supports librarians, nevertheless alleged that there is a concerted effort to make explicit content, and even pornography, available to children. She also denied that Senate Bill 2360, which has passed the Senate with her vote among those in favor, which she spoke in support of on the Senate floor, would ban books at private bookstores. This despite language that makes a person, "guilty of a class B misdemeanor if the person willfully displays at newsstands or any other business establishment frequented by minors, or where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public any photograph, book, paperback book, pamphlet, or magazine, the exposed cover or available content of which...contains depictions or written descriptions of nude or partially denuded human figures posed or presented in a manner to exploit sex, lust, or perversion." By my reading, that means romance novels, and even great works of literature by people like Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, would have to be either shrink-wrapped or squirreled away from the public. But Myrdal says that's not so. She says the intent is to protect children. Also on this episode, we asked Myrdal about a recent report noting that she turned her back on a pastor delivering an invocation about "differing colors, genders, races, ethnicities and language." She said she feels the pastor had a political agenda, and that she would have similarly turned her back if an invocation backed a political interest like credit unions. "Prayer should be vertical, not horizontal," she said.

Minot, N.D. — "It's happening," Sen. Scott Meyer, a Republican from Grand Forks, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "We're not stopping it." He's referring to sports gambling, which is one of the topics he says his constituents talk to him about the most. "It's becoming more and more common. It's everywhere," he says. Meyer is backing House Concurrent Resolution 3002, which, if passed, would put the question of sports gambling to voters on the statewide ballot. If they approve it, the lawmakers would be authorized to enact enabling legislation dictating regulation, consumer protection, and taxation. At least for professional sports. The constitutional amendment would leave out other types of sports betting on collegiate or even high school competitions, though Meyer insists that sort of thing is already happening too. "There are already betting lines on those games" available from sports betting services based off-shore that can be accessed online. Meyer says that's a big part of why this resolution should pass. Because these services are offshore, the North Dakotans who are already using them have no protection from fraud, and there is no way to generate revenue from the bets to offset the social impacts of gambling. A similar resolution proposed in the 2021 legislative session passed in the state House, but failed, narrowly, in the state Senate. So far, HCR3002 has followed a similar trajectory, having passed already in the House. Now it's before the Senate, where Meyer hopes his colleagues will let North Dakota voters have a say. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish? Click here to subscribe, or search for the show on Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, or any of the other podcast services.

Minot, N.D. — If Senate Bill 2360, which has already passed North Dakota's Senate by a 38 - 9 vote, were to become law, would Christians and Muslims and other citizens of faith have to buy their holy books in a porn shop? This bill, introduced by Sen. Keith Boehm, a Republican from Mandan, would require that any material having pictures or even "written descriptions of nude or partially denuded human figures posed or presented in a manner to exploit sex, lust, or perversion" be removed from public spaces accessible by children. That means public libraries. School libraries. It means Walmart, Target, and Barnes & Noble, too. Works of art with sexual content - which includes the Christian bible, which has many stories about sex and rape and incest - could only be made available in cordoned-off areas accessible only by adults. Like adult bookstores, I guess, and wouldn't that be weird? If a state law, pushed in no small part by scripture-quoting Christians, required the bible be sold alongside actual porn? This is the stuff we discussed on today's episode of Plain Talk, where my co-host Ben Hanson and I were joined by Cody Schuler, advocacy manager for the local chapter of the ACLU, and Janet Anderson, the director of the Minot Public Library. I'm being facetious when I lump the Christian bible in with porn. Obviously, the bible is not porn, but SB2360, along with House Bill 1205, which seeks to implement similar content restrictions, doesn't make those distinctions. These bills' definitions of what constitutes objectionable materials are so amorphous that most literature sold today would be censored. That's going to invite lawsuits, Schuler pointed out. Meanwhile, Anderson noted that the bills seem to be in pursuit of a problem that doesn't exist. "I challenge you to find anything in our library that has pornography," she said. She's held her position at the Minot library for nearly a decade, and in all that time her institution's process for challenging material has been used just four times, which hardly speaks to there being a problem the Legislature needs to solve. Though, Anderson notes that plenty of people seem convinced that our librarians and educators (and booksellers, apparently, given the scope of one of these bills) are perverts out to get children. "I've been called a groomer," Anderson said. "I've been accused of wanting to teach teenagers about sex education with pornography." Be sure to listen to the entire episode. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish? Search for the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or click here to find out how you can subscribe on the podcast service of your choice.

Minot, N.D. — There aren't a lot of Republicans in the United States Senate willing to praise President Joe Biden for his trip to Kyiv, in Ukraine, which is a war zone. That's what Senator Kevin Cramer told me on this episode of Plain Talk. But Cramer himself? He thinks the president did good. He called the trip "gutsy" and "appropriate." Staying on the national security topic, we discussed the Chinese spy balloon situation, which is where Cramer did have some criticism for the Biden administration. He said a lack of communication from the public drove an overreaction to the balloons, making many Americans, and people in the international community, feel as though our military and intelligence agencies were less prepared to handle the balloons than they really were. Also on this episode: Why is the Biden administration's EPA so hostile to carbon capture and pipeline projects when the infrastructure bill Congress passed before the midterms, one President Biden himself championed, did a great deal to fund and facilitate those projects? And are we classifying too many documents? Cramer says yes. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish? Search for the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or click here to find out how to subscribe on any of the other podcast services. It's free!

Minot, N.D. — A war of words between state Auditor Josh Gallion, a Republican, and members of his own party in the state legislature has made a lot of headlines of late. Gallion has accused lawmakers of being "corrupt" for allegedly targeting a member of his office for specific termination and for legislation he says undermines his ability to do his job. Lawmakers say it was actually Gallion who requested that the employee be fired, and that they're responding from complaints from local government entities, including a western North Dakota ambulance service which has now filed an ethics complaint against the auditor's office, who say that Gallion isn't doing his job right. On this episode of Plain Talk Gordy Smith, a 36-year veteran of the state auditor's office under Gallion's predecessors, weighs in on the controversy. Was it appropriate for Gallion to write an op-ed for the state's media outlets blasting lawmakers as corrupt? "Absolutely not," Smith said. "When I read the op-ed, the first two words that came to mind were 'unprofessional' and 'disrespectful,'" Smith said. As for the legislature targeting a specific employee in the auditor's office, Smith says he believes the lawmakers and not Gallion. "There's no doubt in my mind," he said, adding that he spoke to both Gallion and legislative leaders about the issue in 2017 when it happened. Want to be notified when new episodes of Plain Talk publish? Search for it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or click here to subscribe on one of the other podcast services. It's free!