Plain Talk

"I like debates," Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorhcak told me and co-host Chad Oban on this episode of Plain Talk.

Fedorchak has come under fire from some of her opponents in the Republican U.S. House primary. Three of them — Rick Becker, Cara Mund, and Alex Balazs — participated in a recent debate sponsored by BEK Television. Fedorchak did not. "Last weekend was a balancing act," she said, noting that she's already participated in one debate with her opponents, with two more planned. She told us that the night of the debate was also her son's graduation party.

"I wanted to devote my attention to my son on Friday night," she said.

Fedorchak also responded to a recent independent poll I reported on, which shows her in a dead heat with Becker in the race (Mund is trailing as a distant third). She said she got into the race late and had a deficit in name identification with voters but that the poll "shows that we closed the gap" with Becker.

She added that she feels confident about her position in the race. "I'm the only candidate who has consistently been a Republican," she said, referencing the fact that both Mund and Becker campaigned against Republicans as independents last cycle.

"I have strong favorability in the polling we've seen," she added.

That's something Dean Mitchell of DFM Research, who conducted the survey for North Dakota United, spoke about as well in a separate interview. Mitchell said the House race is tight but favors Fedorchak. "I'd rather not be Becker," he said. "I think he's at his ceiling. I think she (Fedorchak) has more room for growth."

"I'd give the edge to Fedorchak," he added, though he acknowledged that the race is very close. "I wouldn't put much money on it."

The NDU poll also covered the gubernatorial race, showing current U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong with a 38-point lead over Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, a nearly identical result to numbers released to me by the Armstrong campaign from a contemporaneous poll.

"I don't want to say you can put a fork in it," Mitchell said, "but the silverware is on the table."

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Pat Finken is a long-time political consultant in North Dakota who now heads up an independent political action committee called the Brighter Future Alliance. Finken and his group have come under fire from U.S. House candidate Rick Becker and his allies for mailers attacking Becker and his voting record.

Finken joined this episode of Plain Talk my me and my co-host Chad Oban, and said his goal is to reveal for the public that Becker is a "show pony."

"He is not a serious legislator," Finken added. As for Becker's response to his group's mailers? "This is what all politicians do when someone criticizes them," Finken said. "They play the victim."

Becker has disputed Finken's assertions that, by voting against budgets for the North Dakota Highway Patrol and the North Dakota National Guard, he opposes law enforcement and the military. He argues that it's possible to object to a budget without objecting to what that budget funds.

But Finken says the difference is that Becker was only voting no, not working to improve those budgets. "He didn't come back with an alternative," Finken said.

"If he was a serious legislator he would have worked to make changes," he added.

Also, on this episode, Oban and I discuss the recent polling released in the Republican guberantorial primary showing U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong with a massive lead over Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller.

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The State of North Dakota is back in court over redistricting. This time, the state is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that the state had previously argued for. Specifically, the dismissal of a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of legislative subdistricts created by lawmakers in an attempt to enhance the state's Native American vote in two districts.

The courts ended up striking down that map anyway and replacing it with a new one, but this separate legal action questions whether creating subdistricts in just two districts passes muster under the 14th amendment's equal protection provisions.

Is it constitutional for some North Dakotans to vote for just two members of the Legislature on election day, while others get to vote for three?

Robert Harms, an attorney (and a Republican candidate for the state Senate in District 2) joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the case.

Also on this episode, Nick Archuleta, the president of North Dakota United, joined to discuss a recent study looking at teacher pay which indicates that North Dakota is moving down the rankings in terms of average salaries for educators.

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Racial incidents keep happening at North Dakota school events.

At basketball games. Proms. Hockey games. Part of the problem is, we don't know if they're happening more, or less. Maybe we're just noticing them more now that everyone has a smartphone in their pocket and the ability to document the taunts and jeers and boorish behavior.

State Rep. Jayme Davis is a Democrat from District 9a, which covers the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. In the state House of Representatives, she's the minority caucus leader. She wants to do something about this problem.

"I don't look for racism. That's not something I look for in my daily life," she said on this episode of Plain Talk. "But it shows up."

During the 2023 session, Davis introduced a resolution calling for a study of racial incidents at North Dakota school events. It passed, but the the Legislature's interim committees chose not to take it up. But she says she's not going to stop trying. She'd like to see data collected about these incidents, to measure the scope of the problem, and she'd also liked to see more training for the state's educators, sports officials, and even lawmakers.

Also on this episode, are North Dakota's political leaders being too tough on electric vehicles? And what was with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem bragging about killing a dog? Me and co-host Chad Oban discuss.

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"I'm sympathetic to what they're doing while recognizing there's a better way to do it."

Those are the words of Jason Bohrer, president of the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council, and advocacy and lobbying group that represents the state's coal industry. He was speaking on this episode of Plain Talk about the Midwest Carbon Express pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. That project has no ties to the coal industry. Rather, it seeks to bring carbon emissions gathered from ethanol plans across the upper midwest to North Dakota where it would be buried underground.

Bohrer joined the program to discuss the controversy around the North Dakota Republican Party's resolution branding carbon capture as "fascism." The resolution had appeared to have been passed at the party's state convention earlier this month, but after a recount, it turns out it failed.

But Bohrer says Lignite's larger concern is that public backlash against Summit's project may turn into generalized opposition against the concept of carbon capture.

"An individual project differs from a technological opportunity," he said.

"We're going to take a long term view," he added.

Also on this episode, two board members from the North Dakota Association for Justice joined to discuss consternation in North Dakota's legal circles over Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller's gubernatorial campaign saying some ugly things about lawyers.

"Politicians and trial lawyers often struggle with the truth," is a quote Miller spokesman Dawson Schefter gave me for an article about their campaign ad attacking their opponent in the Republican primary. "Kelly Armstrong is both, so it's no surprise he lies about his opponent and his opponent's ads."

The NDAJ fired back, calling those comments "ill-informed and ignorant." Then Schefter came back again. "It's no surprise lawyers and politicians are sticking up for each other," he told me in response to the NDAJ's statement. "While Kelly Armstrong was raking in cash defending drug dealers, a man who beat his wife unconscious, and a man who attempted to suffocate his daughter — Tammy Miller was growing a company and creating thousands of jobs. Job creator or trial lawyer is an easy choice."

"Frankly, we were offended," attorney Tatum O'Brien said.

"She probably has a failing campaign," attorney Tim O'Keefe added by way of explaining why Miller's campaign would launch the attack.

Both O'Brien and O'Keefe are board members of the NDAJ, and say that attorneys do important work defending the rights of citizens in court, from the 4th amendment protections against illegal search and seizure to our 7th amendment right to seek a jury trial in matters of civil law.

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Marijuana is already legal in North Dakota. At least for medicinal reasons. But the backers of a new ballot measure want recreational use of marijuana to be legal as well.

The campaign is calling itself New Economic Frontier. Their measure was just approved by the North Dakota Secretary of State's office for circulation. They have until July 8 to get it on the November ballot, though if they miss that deadline they'll still have a year from the date they began collecting signatures to qualify for the next statewide vote.

Steve Bakken, the former mayor of Bismarck, and current member of the Burleigh County Commission, joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the measure.

North Dakotans have said no to recreational marijuana before, though the "no" side of the argument has been shrinking.

In 2018, just over 40% of voters cast their ballots for a proposal to legalize.

In 2021, another legalization proposal passed in the state House of Representatives on a 56-38 vote, though it failed in the state Senate with just 10 Senators approving it.

In 2022, just over 45% of voters cast a ballot for another legalization proposal.

Bakken says that's progress, and they're relying on it to get this measure over the finish line, though Bakken says he isn't planning on partaking if it's successful. "I'm not interested in using it," he said, but he does think the status quo creates problems, such as dangerous marijuana products mixed with other drugs.

"It's tragic when you see someone who smokes some canabis and then dies from a fentanly overdose," he said.

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U.S. Senate candidate Katrina Christiansen says the incumbent in her race "isn't that popular."

Christiansen is running unopposed for the Democratic-NPL's nomination, and the incumbent she's referring to is Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, who is seeking a second six-year term. The challenger says she has polling suggesting that only 33% of previous Cramer voters are committed to voting for the incumbent again.

"I think that shows the race can be competitive," she told me and my co-host Chad Oban, though she acknowledges that she has her own challenges. "My name rec is not great," she said, referring to name recognition, a common campaign metric, especially for challengers.

We talked mostly about the question of federal policy on abortion -- Christiansen said she would vote to "codify Roe" in federal law -- and foreign policy. On the latter, Christiansen said Congress should have passed more aid funding for Ukraine "six months ago." She also spoke strong in support of Israel, though she says she supports a ceasefire.

Still, "Supporting Ukraine puts America first," she said. "Supporting Israel puts America first."

Christiansen said that if elected, she'll be "a foreign policy hawk."

Also on this episode, we discuss the first debate between Republican gubernatorial candidates Tammy Miller and Kelly Armstrong, as well as my story about Miller's running mate, Commerce Commissioner Josh Teigen, and some personal conflicts of interest he had with his work in the Commerce Department under Gov. Doug Burgum's administration.

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It wasn't on purpose, but bipartisanship and moderation ended up being the themes of this episode of Plain Talk.

Whether we're talking about a Republican Speaker of the House, under siege from the MAGA wing of his own party, reaching out to Democrats to get things done, or democracy engaging on the issue of abortion now that the Roe v. Wade precedent has been overturned, it's clear that process matters. And when we engage in the process, and we have the debates, and we don't let ourselves be derailed by all the various flavors of theatrical obstructionism, the outcomes we get are further from what the extremes might want, and closer to what most of us can live with.

Co-host Chad Oban and I talk about renewed controversy about delegate votes at the NDGOP state convention and whether U.S. House candidate Rick Becker's promises to help contribute to the chaos in Congress if elected is going to help him with North Dakota voters.

We asked the guest for this show, Sen. Kevin Cramer, about that last point. "I think it's consistent with how Rick Becker has behaved in the Legislature," he said, arguing that Becker's campaign trail posturing is authentic. "It might be a good tactic to being the largest vote getter in a five-way race, he added.

But also, "the House doesn't really need more bulls in a China closet," Cramer added.

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"I don't think he's a good person," U.S. House candidate said on this episode of Plain Talk, referring to former President Donald Trump.

"I'm appalled at how much people have caved," she also said, saying her opponents in the North Dakota Republican Party's primary are too Trump loyal. "I'm the only candidate in this race who is not worshiping Trump,"she added.

"I support women," she continued, referencing her fiercely pro-choice position on the issue of abortion, "and I will not bow to Trump."

But when I asked her how she'll vote in November, she didn't rule out casting a ballot for Trump. "I'm considering the options for both," she said, adding that she did vote for Trump in 2016.

Mund also discussed other policy positions, such as the issues at the border and support for Israel, and told my co-host Chad Oban and I that despite her passion about keeping legal access to abortion, she doesn't want to be known as a single-issue candidate.

Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak also joined this episode, and talked about her evolving position on a federal abortion ban. When we interviewed her on Plain Talk in February, Fedorchak said she opposed a federal abortion ban. Now she says she supports one. What gives?

Fedorchak says she supports the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe, and send the issue back to the states, but that she also isn't opposed to the federal government setting national guideline, though it wouldn't be an immediate priority.

"Would this be my goal in the first 100 days in Congress? It wouldn't," she said.

Fedorchak also hit both Mund and Becker for what she characterized as convenient political posturing. "They have changed parties as opportunists," she said, referring to Becker's decision to challenge Republican Sen. John Hoeven in 2022 as an independent, and Mund's strong support from Democrats as an independent U.S. House candidate that same cycle.

As for Mund's contention that she worships Trump? "The only person I worship is my god," she said, adding that she plans to support Trump in 2024, and has no comment on his personal lifestyle choices or legal challenges.

"I'm not going to pass judgment on Trump and his personal issues," she said.

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Kirsten Baesler has been the elected Superintendent of North Dakota's Public Schools for nearly 12 years. She's now seeking a fourth term.

Before each of her previous three elections to this office, she sought and received the North Dakota Republican Party's endorsement. She sought it again this year, but was denied it by the convention's delegates by a wide margin.

They instead chose home schooling advocate James Bartlett, who has campaigned on bringing the 10 commandments and other Christian tenets to our state's public schools.

On this episode of Plain Talk, Baesler told my co-host Chad Oban and I about her experiences at the state convention, Bartlett's push for more religion in schools, and why voters should give her a fourth term in office.

"I have not heard in 12 years that families are asking us for more Christianity," she said.

She added that she sought the NDGOP's endorsement knowing full well "things had shifted quite a bit in the Republican party" toward a new sort of populism. She said that whether or not to seek the endorsement at the convention was "weighing" on her mind. "I decided in the end I was going," she said. "I needed to make my case."

Also on this episode, we discuss the politics around North Dakota's five-way Republican U.S. House primary that now features a traditional Republican in Public Service Commisisoner Julie Fedorchak, a populist Republican in former state lawmaker Rick Becker, former Miss America Cara Mund who campaigned against a Republican House incumbent as an independent last cycle, and two newcomer candidates, Alex Balazs and Sharlet Mohr.

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