Plain Talk

Prominent North Dakota Democrats made a real "mess of things" when they took the extraordinary step of jettisoning their U.S. House candidate, Mark Haugen, in favor of independent candidate Cara Mund.

"They were very presumptuous about Cara," Cramer added, arguing that they don't know much about her outside of her views on abortion. He also argued that the move may inhibit future efforts to recruit candidates to the Democratic-NPL ticket.

"Now all they have to offer is disloyalty," Cramer said.

Mund's entrance into North Dakota's U.S. House race against incumbent Republican Kelly Armstrong was just one topic Cramer and I covered on this episode of Plain Talk.

We also discussed another independent candidate, Rick Becker, who is challenging incumbent John Hoeven, Cramer's colleague in the Senate. Cramer praised Becker as representing an important part of the NDGOP, but took a dim view of his chances. "I don't think he's going to do as well as he thinks he does," Cramer said.

Becker had promised to respect the vote of delegates at the NDGOP convention, where Hoeven won the party's endorsement, but has gone back on that promise to challenge Hoeven in the general election. Cramer said that move has hurt Becker. "I've talked to a number of Republican supporters of Rick Becker and they're disappointed," he said.

Cramer also spoke about getting banned by the Russian government, the European energy crisis brought on in no small part by the war in Ukraine and what Americans can do to help, President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness.

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For the first time, incumbent Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong and independent challenge Cara Mund faced off in a debate.

On this episode of Plain Talk, with questions coming from former Democratic-NPL executive director Chad Oban and myself, the two candidates found areas where they agree, and areas where they disagree.

Both Armstrong and Mund oppose President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness. They also seem to be generally on the same page on energy, outside of Mund's criticism of the Trump-era decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord.

In other areas, the two candidates are quite different. Mund was sharply critical of former President Donald Trump, while Armstrong said he'd put Trump in the White House again if the choice were between him and current President Joe Biden. Abortion was also a flashpoint between the candidates. Mund argues that the U.S. Supreme Court, by overturning legal precedent that had been in place for five decades, had taken away an important right from women.

Mund also answered questions about her ideology. Asked which party she would caucus with should she be elected to Congress, she said she had initially thought she's caucus with Republicans but that now, "I don't think I have a choice," referring to an NDGOP rule which prohibits candidates who have run as independents from seeking the party's endorsement for six years.

She also defended her independence - under admittedly sharp questioning from me - despite the Democratic-NPL taking the extraordinary step of pushing their House candidate out of the race.

What voters are left with, after this first debate, is a view of two candidates who differ profoundly on some of the stormiest issues in politics.

This was the second in a series of Plain Talk debates between North Dakota's statewide candidates. To be notified of new episodes, including the future debates, subscribe, for free, on the podcasting platform of your choice.

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What does the Public Service Commission do in North Dakota?

The PSC makes the most headlines over utility rates. They regulate how much utilities can charge us for our power. But the PSC does so much more. They site wind farms. They run a rail safety program. They make sure that the pumps and the scales that measure how much we pay for everything from gasoline to steaks at the butcher shop are fair.

Julie Fedorchak, a Republican, has served on the PSC since she was appointed by former Gov. Jack Dalrymple in 2012. She had that appointment confirmed by voters in 2014, and successfully ran for a six-year term in 2016. She's now up for re-election, and joined this episode of Plain Talk for a wide-ranging conversation about her campaign.

This is part of a series of hosted conversations we'll be doing on Plain Talk with all of the statewide candidates. Fedorchak's opponent in this race, Democratic-NPL candidate Melanie Moniz, declined to participate.

Also on this episode, Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I talk about the controversy around President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program, and independent candidate Cara Mund's event with Democrats.

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Last week a group of Republican leaders from the state's legislative and executive branches got together and announced a new plan to flatten North Dakota's income taxes.

The state currently has five tax brackets that obligate every North Dakotan earning income to pay a progressively higher rate based on how large that income is.

This new plan would create just two tax brackets, with about 60 percent of North Dakota households paying no income tax at all, and the rest paying a flat rate of just 1.5 percent.

Would those paying no tax still have to file a return?

How would the state adjust its revenues and spending to account for this tax cut?

What of claims from Democratic leaders that this is just another handout for the wealthy?

Republican Tax Commissioner Brian Kroshus, and state Rep. Craig Headland, a Republican from Montpelier, joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss.

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Minot, N.D. — NDGOP party chairman Perrie Schafer says he's looking into the controversy around the use of homophobic slurs and other bigoted language in a messaging group organized by the North Dakota Young Republicans, and there may be consequences for Republican candidates who were a part of it.

"This is an organization," he said of his party on this episode of Plain Talk. "We get to choose who we're associated with."

He said he wants to be fair to the members of the group, which is affiliated with the NDGOP and has a non-voting seat on the party's governing committee, but that some of the people who participated in the group may find themselves out in the cold.

"We have a right to choose who is in our group," Schafer said.

"Personal responsibility and accountability are apparently not what these people want," he added, noting that some members of the group, including Carter Eisenberger, a Republican candidate for the state House in District 11, indicated that they were proud of the slurs being used.

Schafer also weighed in on outgoing state Rep. Rick Becker choosing to launch an independent U.S. Senate campaign against endorsed Republican incumbent John Hoeven. "He gave up his right to run as a Republican," Schafer said of Becker's decision.

"The man can't be trusted," he added, noting that Becker had previously promised to respect the vote of Republican delegates to the NDGOP's state convention.

Also on this episode, Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the NDYR controversy, Cara Mund's independent bid for the House of Representatives, and more.

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Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned its precedents finding a right to an abortion in the U.S. Constitution, the nature of the debate over abortion has changed.

On this episode of Plain Talk Cody Schuler, the advocacy manager for the ACLU of North Dakota, talks about how that debate has changed, and how pro-life and pro-choice Americans are going to have to work together to figure out what our policies on abortion will be going forward.

Also on this episode Kim Hegvik, an assistant state's attorney in Cass County who is running to be elected to replace current state's attorney Birch Burdick, talks about her campaign.

"My vision for the office is not centered around the courtroom," she said, which is an odd thing to hear from a lawyer running to be the top prosecutor in our state's most populous county, but she says she sees her job as beginning before matters reach the courtroom.

She talked about criminal justice reform, the perception of rising crime in Cass County, as well as some controversy over one of her fellow Cass County prosecutors beginning a romantic relationship with a member of the Fargo Police Department.

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Minot, N.D. — When outgoing state Rep. Rick Becker announced that he would be challenging incumbent U.S. Senator John Hoeven in the general election as an independent, after having the NDGOP's endorsement to Hoeven this spring, state Republican party chairman Perrie Schafer described Becker as having "left the party."

"I think he's got a point," Senator Kevin Cramer said of Schafer's remark on this episode of Plain Talk. Becker is the founder of the Bastiat Caucus of Trump-aligned state lawmakers and activists, though has disputed the idea that he is anything but a member of the NDGOP.

"This move to run as an independent...it surprised me," Cramer continued, referring to Becker's announcement. He noted that Becker had spoken about respecting the vote of Republican delegates at the state party's convention. "This really is a violation of that."

"If he's the leader of a party, it's a third party," Cramer continued. "I think it isolates him."

Cramer and I also discussed Rep. Liz Cheney's primary loss in Wyoming - Cramer accused her of "myopia" - as well as some elements controversial Inflation Reduction Act that he likes and feels may be beneficial to North Dakota.

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North Dakota's general election got a lot more interesting over the last couple of weeks.

First, Cara Mund, a former Miss America, jumped into the U.S. House race as an independent to take on Republican incumbent Kelly Armstrong and Democratic-NPL challenger Mark Haugen. Then state Rep. Rick Becker went back on his statements in support of the decision of Republican delegates at the NDGOP state convention, which chose incumbent Senator John Hoeven over him, and re-entered the U.S. Senate race.

Then the Secretary of State approved the signatures for a ballot measure legalizing medical marijuana.

That's a lot of things to talk about, but on this episode of Plain Talk, fill-in co-host Jamie Selzler and I tackle them all. David Owen, a representative of New Approach North Dakota, the group backing the marijuana measure, joined to talk about how they were able to run a successful petition campaign, and they'll win over North Dakota voters to their cause. Also, Jamie and I discuss Mund, Becker, and Rep. Liz Cheney's defeat in the Wyoming primary.

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Kansas, a very red, very Republican state, just voted, in a landslide, to maintain status quo protections for abortion.

Meanwhile, in Congress, there was a vicious debate over the last week over who hates veterans.

In Michigan, Democrats backed a pro-Trump, election conspiracy Republican in a primary against a GOP incumbent that voted to impeach Trump.

Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I discuss these topics, and more, on this episode of Plain Talk.

The ESG movement in venture capitalism - the acronym stands for "environment, social, and governance" - is a threat to North Dakota's economic well-being, but not just in the way you might be imagining.

Our state's primary industries - energy and agriculture - are also carbon-heavy industries, which is why our state runs afoul of the "environment" part of ESG. Our state is investing big money into improving the environmental impact of our industries - we created, for example, the clean and sustainable energy fund which is driving money into things like carbon capture projects - but the ESG movement isn't terribly pragmatic.

It's very ideological, viewing only certain types of renewable energy as satisfying the "environmental" component of it the platform.

Which is why the credit rating energy Standard & Poor just gave North Dakota a "moderately negative" (their term) rating, tabbing our state as a "climate transaction risk."

That's bad for North Dakota, and in more ways than one, as Treasurer Thomas Beadle explained on this episode of Plain Talk. He points out that this sort of rating doesn't just deter capital investment into our biggest and most important industries, it can also drive up the cost of bonding for the state.

It works like this: since our primary industries are rated a risk, and our state government gets most of its revenues, directly or indirectly, from those industries, then our bonds to build things like highways are seen as a riskier investment. Thus, we have to pay more to borrow that money.

What can our state do about it? Beadle points to things like the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, and the aforementioned sustainable energy fund (other states are calling this sort of thing a "green bank"), as factors that help, but until national, and international, banks and governments come to realize that market manipulations do not obviate our need for baseload energy, we're stuck with things as they are.

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