New Rockford Transcript - Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883

 As the 2021-2022 Legislative Interim work concludes, I want to provide a short summary of my work over the last few months.  The Budget Section Committee received reports from several agencies as well as from the Office of Management and...

Nearly halfway through the 67th legislative session, Democratic-NPL lawmakers continue to fight for policies that support North Dakotans and their families. We have had many successes and a few missed opportunities so far this session, and we remain...

The Senate is almost finished with its first half work. We will complete our voting on all Senate bills by next Tuesday morning, so I will not be providing a legislative report next week, but instead join my colleague in the House, Rep. Josh...

This week Senate Appropriations finished up policy bills that either have appropriations in them or they affect the revenue/expenditures of agencies. We are also continuing our subcommittee work on agency budgets, so it was a very busy week. The...

While this week has been extremely busy, my report will be shorter because of subcommittee work in Senate Appropriations. This week I worked on subcommittees for the agency budgets for the Department of Transportation, Information Technology,...

This week Senate Appropriations heard several bills and held subcommittee hearings into agency budgets. MONDAY: Appropriations heard the budget for the Commerce Commission. We heard not only the Commission’s programs, budget, and requests, we also...

MONDAY and TUESDAY: The first two days of this week were dedicated to hearing budget requests from the 11 campuses in the North Dakota University System. We began by hearing an overview from the system office on their three focuses: 1. Innovation,...

MONDAY: In Appropriations, we began the week with the Department of Transportation budget. This agency’s funding comes from special funds derived from a combination of federal funds along with income generated from the public use of services. This...

I am pleased to be back presenting a weekly legislative report for all of you in D-23 and across the state. I will again be serving as Senate Minority Leader for the biennium. In addition, I will also be serving full time in the Senate Appropriations...

We finished the 66th Legislative Session around 10 p.m. Friday, April 26 with the passage of SB 2015 which is the budget for the Office of Management and Budget. This is usually the last bill passed. I joined leadership on the conference committee....

Tuesday evening, I met with the delegation from the Midwest Higher Education Compact. This Compact works with 12 states to increase productivity, access to higher education services and streamline the higher education system across the Midwest. Work...

We started the 62nd legislative day Monday, April 8. This week's report will be rather short considering that many, many bills are in Conference Committee and are in limbo. To report on any of them would be premature. This time of the session there i...

The week began with committee work and hearings. The Senate accepted the House version of the pay package for state workers. That proposal is a 2 percent the first year with a minimum of $120 per month and a maximum of $200 per month with a 2.5...

Tuesday afternoon the Senate resolved itself into a Memorial Service to remember those previously serving senators who have passed away in the last 2 years. The service is always moving as families receive a copy of the Memorial Resolution, a commemo...

The Senate had Sophia Richards from Hope-Page High School serving as the Page for the Day. She assisted the Senate pages in distributing material to the Senators before and during session, attended committee work, and got a deeper look into the...

First, Congratulations to the New Rockford-Sheyenne Rockets for their Consolation Championship at the State B Basketball Tournament. It was exciting to watch the team on TV and listen on the radio when I could not be there. There are also many other...

A highlight this week was to have the Lakota High School and Hope-Page High School students visit the Capitol. Besides a tour of the building, a visit to committee hearings, and lunch, some students had the opportunity to sit with House or Senate...

Crossover break is over, and both chambers are back to work. Some committee hearings were held Wednesday morning, while other committees chose to wait until afternoon. The Senate held session at 1 p.m. and cleared our calendar of a few House bills we...

The Senate completed its work for the first half of the session on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 20. We will have a few days off while staff take time to remove bills from the bill books in committees and place the House bills in the Senate Committe...

This week I completed the testimony in the Senate on the last few bills I sponsored. I introduced SB 2266 which would provide that K-12 schools have a policy on the seclusion and restraint of students. This bill is similar to one from last session....

This week I introduced four bills to various committees for their consideration. Monday, I introduced SB 2276, which asks the State Investment Board to return $100 million in fixed asset allocations from the Legacy Fund principal invested outside of...

This was an extremely busy week at the legislature. It started with holding session on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Special recognition was provided in the Senate by Senator Erin Oban and Senator Dick Dever. Remembering an individual who fought so...

Jan. 14 was the deadline for the House to submit bills and limits the Senate to only three more bills each, other than some defined resolutions, after this date. I currently have seven bills in the Senate that I am the prime sponsor on and one...

The 66th Legislative Session is moving forward with a few tweaks that have made the first few days interesting. We gaveled in for our first day's roll call on Jan. 3 at noon to hear the Governor's State of the State Address. Prior to that, in the...

The Organizational Session for the 66th Legislative Assembly concluded Wednesday, Dec. 5. That session brings all legislators in to the Capitol for training, seminars, committee assignments, and other meetings to prepare us for the 66th Session...