Approximately 50 to 75 individuals from around the Lake Region gathered at Lake Region State College on Saturday, March 8 for a Legislative Forum with our local legislators.
Donna Henderson, from Calvin, ND; Kathy Frelich, from Devils Lake, ND and Kent Weston, from Sarles, ND were present on behalf of the North Dakota Legislature to talk about the bills that made it through to crossover.
Now those bills that were approved in the House go to the Senate for their vote and the bills voted on in the Senate go to the House. That is why it is called “crossover”.
Henderson and Frelich are both District 15 Representatives and Weston is the Senator from District 15 Cavalier, Ramsey and Towner Counties.
Each legislator took turns and spoke about the bills they had either sponsored and/or studied and voted on in the first portion of the session.
Frelich said they had been “crazy busy” with a high number of bills to address. She serves on the Transportation Committee and is Vice Chair of the Human Services Committee.
When each legislator had introduced themselves and shared their initial comments, questions from the audience were solicited.
The first question was about how much weight they placed on polls like the one that stated that over 70 percent of North Dakotans were in favor of Free School Lunches, one of the bills that had been voted down in the first part of the session and funding private schools that polls said 72 percent of North Dakotans were against, however that was approved of by the legislators.
Weston stated that he did not pay much attention to polls, but rather “voted my principles” which were “God inspired, not based on polls.” He said he believed in personal responsibility and personal accountability. He said he believed that it was up to the parents to do the paperwork to apply for Free or Reduced Meals if they needed them. The legislature would not approve paying for everyone to get free meals, because that would be paying for wealthy family’s children, too, and others that didn’t need help and would be too costly for the state. He added that the problem with polls is that they are not reliable.
Frelich reported that one positive bill that the Transportation Committee had championed was dedicating Highway 200 that embraces nearly the whole width of North Dakota as the “Thin Blue Line” in honor of all Fallen Peace Officers and First Responders. She also talked about dedicating the month of May as Military Appreciation Month – a bill that passed the House unanimously.
They addressed three different bills that dealt with Property Taxes, 1168, 1575 and 1176. They said that all three were different and that each bill had good things in them, too. Then they shared which ones or what portions of each that they thought held promise.
They addressed K-12 education funding, capping political subdivisions’ spending, and Henderson stated frankly that there is “a spending problem in ND.”
Other issues addressed from the floor or the presenters were “banning” books in public and school libraries; auditing the Commerce Department and the ND Development Fund; transparency in government; the Office of Management and Budget; nursing home funding and moratorium on beds available; how $300K for a dog shelter got slipped into a bill before the final vote; changes to Homestead Credits and school taxes; the state of North Dakota’s jails and correction department; rebuilding the State Hospital; how important it is to have personal testimony before voting on bills; how vital it is to know what North Dakotans feel about an issue – personally, not from “form letters”; “We may not know the unintended consequences of a vote one way or another, but you might see something that we do not or are unaware of.”
All of these listed above and more were touched on briefly or at some length during the Forum.
All three, two Representatives and one Senator, encouraged everyone to make their wishes known to “us in the legislature.” The best way to do that is by sending a brief message by e-mail to them so they can determine how to vote on a bill before them.
Henderson explained that her vote had been influenced by an e-mail she’d received while on the floor of the House getting ready to vote for that very issue. Henderson, Frelich and Weston all agreed, the best way to get your message to your representative was a personal e-mail — not one of the AI-generated or mass postcard messages — but a heartfelt, personal message that is signed by “you” letting us know who you are and where you live.
That goes for Republican, Democrat and Independent voters, too – not just the members of their own party. They were elected to serve all North Dakotans, not just their own party, although all three claim membership in the Republican Party and its ideals.
Let’s take them at their word and use the following e-mails for our messages to District 15 Representatives and Senator:
dhenderson@ndlegis.gov
kfrelich@ndlegis.gov
kweston@ndlegis.gov
