Plain Talk

Medical marijuana is legal in North Dakota, having been approved by voters by way of a ballot measure.

Recreational marijuana, however, has taken a rockier road. Multiple ballot measure campaigns have failed in the past. House Bill 1420, considered during the last legislative session, and which would have also implemented legalization of non-medical use of marijuana, also failed.

But the proponents of legalization are giving it another shot, and this time they're perhaps more organized than they have been before. On this episode of Plain Talk, state Rep. Matt Ruby (R-Minot) as well as Fargo-based attorney Mark Friese of the Vogel Law Firm, join to talk about their proposed measure.

Their campaign is called New Approach North Dakota, and they have until July to get the requisite number of signatures to put it on the ballot.

Also on this episode, my Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I discuss a draft bill that would prohibit lawmakers from leading property to the state, as well as the intrigues of the upcoming June primaries, particularly in the legislative races.

Ben Hanson made an interesting point on this episode of Plain Talk.

He's a former state lawmaker and candidate for the Cass County Commission, facing off against Tony Grindberg, who is another former state lawmaker.

His race won't be settled by approval voting, but he lives in Fargo where approval voting is used for local races. Fargo has a lot of candidates running for mayor and the city commission, and Hanson wonders if approval voting, where voters cast a ballot for multiple preferred candidates, might have drawn more people into those races. He compares Fargo to West Fargo, where there are far fewer competitive races.

Does he have a point? Maybe, though, as we talked about during his interview, Fargo isn't the only place where there are a lot of candidates for local offices. In Grand Forks, which doesn't use approval voting, there are something like 23 candidates for the school board.

Whatever is happening, there is a lot for voters to pay attention to in local races this cycle. Hanson talked about his own races, and the challenges attendant to running for local office in general.

Also on this episode, Sen. John Hoeven talks about winning the NDGOP's endorsement at the recent state convention, what's driving the rancor in politics both in the Republican party and across the political spectrum, and what he'll focus on as he begins his general election campaign.

"We all take it for granted," says Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, talking about energy that's reliably available and cost effective.

She's running for the Public Service Commission, and she's the incumbent, only not really. She was appointed to the PSC by Gov. Doug Burgum a couple of months ago to replace Brian Kroshus who is now the Tax Commissioner.

She's new to the job, in other words, though not to the area of public policy the PSC deals with. She was the first female board chair in history for both Capital Electric Co-Op and Central Power Co-Op. She's been on the Capital Electric board for about a decade.

What will she bring to the PSC?

"Innovation over regulation," she said on this episode of Plain Talk.

I'm a baseball nerd. And a political nerd. And as a person with a foot in both of those worlds, I can say that there's a lot of overlap between the two.

There's just something about baseball that appeals to people who are also deeply interested in politics.

Anyway, today is opening day for baseball, so on this episode of Plain Talk, three political nerds - Congressman Kelly Armstrong, my frequent co-host Chad Oban, and me, of course - take off their political hats and put on their baseball hats.

We talk about our favorite teams (the Mets, the Dodgers, and the Yankees, respectively), our favorite baseball moments, and how we feel about the ways the game is changing.

If you're a baseball nerd, or aspire to be one, this episode is for you.

Minot, N.D. — "I would not vote for Nancy Pelosi" to be Speaker of the House.

So says Mark Haugen, who received the North Dakota Democratic-NPL's endorsement at their state convention in Minot last month, and is currently running unopposed in the primary.

He's far from a cookie-cutter progressive candidate for the Dems.

He's pro-life, for one, at a time when it's hard to find any Democrats anywhere who aren't categorically in favor of abortion.

He's also like to see more moderate and pragmatic Democratic leadership.

"We can't win as the old Democratic party of the past," he said on this episode of Plain Talk.

Also on this episode, Chad and I talk more about the aftermath of the NDGOP's state convention, as well as some surprises in a couple of local district conventions that have happened since, including one in District 3 (Minot) where newcomers were locked out, and one in District 13 (West Fargo) where long-time lawmaker, and current Speaker of the House, Rep. Kim Koppelman, didn't receive the convention endorsement.

After all the Sturm und Drang, all the attack ads and recriminations, incumbent Senator John Hoeven bested Rick Becker in the North Dakota Republican Party's Senate primary.

On this Plain Talk, Chad Oban and I wrap up what happened, and talked about what it might mean for the NDGOP and North Dakota politics going forward.

"The problem we've gotten into are the tactics being used," says former North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer.

Schafer will be delivering a speech at what is expected to be an NDGOP state convention marked by factionalism and resentments, and his hope is to inspire delegates to find a sense of unity.

This year marks the 30 year anniversary of Schafer's election, which ushered in the era of Republican dominance that thousands and thousands of North Dakotans grew up with. On this episode of Plain Talk, Schafer says he intends to tell that story, and talk about how Republicans found so much success in North Dakota.

It was about optimism, he says, and competent policymaking, which is distinct from the "incendiary things" modern politicians say and do to "get on Facebook and Tiktok."

"It gives Republicans a black eye," Schafer says. "I think it creates a shallowness."

One cause of the infighting in the NDGOP is a lot of new people getting involved in party politics. They're angry and they want change, Schafer says, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but he argues that some "have been able to take advantage of that" and point the energy toward some unproductive initiatives.

"There are some problems within the Democratic party in North Dakota that we need to fix."

That's according to Trygve Hammer, a Marine veteran from Velva who just accepted the Democratic-NPL's endorsement to campaign for a seat on the Public Service Commission. He spoke about his candidacy on this episode of Plain Talk - he'll be running against Republican Sheri Haugen-Hoffart who was just appointed by Gov. Doug Burgum - and he doesn't sound like your typical Democratic candidate.

He's pro-oil, pro-coal, and he's not afraid to be critical of his own party, which he says needs to "get over" the years of dominance the NDGOP has accrued and start "showing up."

Why is he running for the PSC? "The party asked me. The party needed me," he said, noting that he was first recruited for a 2022 campaign in February. But it wasn't until this month that he decided to campaign for the PSC specifically.

He said he wished he had more time to prepare for the campaign, and he admitted, when I asked him if there were specific policies the PSC has implemented that he could cite as reasons for a change in leadership, that he still has to get up to speed.

Still, Hammer has the skills and the personality to connect with North Dakota voters in ways that Democratic candidates in the recent past have struggled to achieve.

Also on this episode, Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the upcoming NDGOP convention, and some of the potential shenanigans which may play out there.

The Sierra Club in other states, such as Iowa, is opposed to the Carbon Express pipeline, but not in North Dakota.

They're not against it.

They're also not for it.

"If we voted, we would probably vote to oppose it," Dr. Dexter Perkins, a member of the North Dakota chapter of the high-profile environmental activist group, told me on this Plain Talk.

Perkins, who is also a geologist at the University of North Dakota, says he's skeptical that the pipeline will work, but he and his group are hoping it does. "We're hoping we're wrong," he said, noting that the clubs refusal to condemn the project "puts us in the minority among environmental groups."

That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the pipeline, which would bring carbon emissions from ethanol plants across the upper midwest to North Dakota where they would be pumped underground, but given the intensity of environmental politics, but given the polarizing nature of environmental politics in America, the reticence to be opposed seems like a breakthrough for pragmatism.

Perkins agrees. "We're a pretty practical bunch of people," he said of his Sierra Club chapter.

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It's over folks.

The North Dakota Democrats have selected candidates for two Public Service Commission seats, Attorney General, U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

They left campaigns for Tax Commissioner and Secretary of State unfilled.

On this episode of Plain Talk, I talk with my regular co-host Chad Oban, a former executive director of the party, about the good, the bad, and the ugly.