N.D. House Update: April 19, 2021

The end of the 67th Legislative Session is in sight. We hope to be done sometime the third week in April. We need to save days to vote on the redistricting plan, and to make spending decisions when the next round of federal funding for the pandemic comes to the state. Federal spending guidelines have not been released yet, and we are being told that might not happen until later this year. Leadership is talking about a special session in December to deal with both of those issues.

We are limited by the constitution to 80 days, every two years. We are hopeful to finish this session by using approximately 72 days, which will allow us eight days to deal with the other issues.

Redistricting will be a tough issue for rural legislators, as the falling populations across the rural areas of the state will lead to fewer rural districts and more urban ones. Fargo or Cass County will probably gain one or two districts, and Bismarck maybe one. Some of us are hopeful that we can add a couple more districts by going from forty-seven districts to forty-nine, which will help some, but we will still see a more urban-controlled legislature starting with the next session.

The whole redistricting process will be behind normal this year, due to delays in the national census count. Normally, we would have the new census numbers by the end of April, but our experts are telling us it will be late September before we get them this year. That will mean a lot of meetings of the bipartisan redistricting committee in a short amount of time.

Members of the House continue to take final action on Senate Bills that have been heard in House Committees. Committee chairmen are making recommendations on whether the members should support House Bills that were amended in the Senate. We can accept bills as amended, or we can decide not to concur with the amendment and establish a conference committee to work out the differences before taking final action.

We got a break from legislative work on Tuesday, when Congressman Kelly Armstrong spoke to both chambers. Congressman Armstrong is a former member of the North Dakota Legislature where he served as a state senator. He has an interesting perspective, having seen issues from both the state and federal levels.

He expressed his concerns about the threat to our fossil fuel industry from the new administration. We appreciate his hard work on behalf of the citizens of our state, and greatly appreciated his willingness to take time from his busy schedule to meet with us.

The House continues to vote on several state agency budget bills, as they make their way to the floor from the Appropriations Committee. All the agency budgets contain the raises of one and one-half percent for the first year of the biennium, including a $100.00 minimum, and two percent in the second year, based on merit. The salary package was reached through negotiations between the budget leaders in the House and Senate earlier, after the latest round of income projections were received from financial experts.

The largest budget addressed by the Government Operations Division of the House Appropriations Committee is the Department of Transportation, SB 2012. Originally called the State Highway Department, NDDOT was established in 1917. The NDDOT builds and maintains a transportation system consisting of about 106,103 miles of roadways and 4,865 bridges. It oversees the development of surface transportation including highways, bridges, rail, transit, pedestrian and bicycle paths across the state. In addition, the department processes over one million vehicle registrations every year, and services over 500,000 licensed drivers at offices located across the state. No state general funds support this large agency. Their funding is derived primarily by funds from the Federal Highway Administration, motor vehicle registration fees, and gasoline and fuel taxes. The proposed budget for the 2021-2023 biennium is $1.55 billion dollars. NDDOT has 982 employees, the fewest of any state department of transportation in the country. Besides the standard funding authorization, the House committee added the following: Creation of a statewide traffic management center using five million dollars of available federal funds; authorization to use $22.6 million dollars of recently received federal dollars for bridge rehabilitation and replacement; and five million of received federal dollars to provide grants for electric charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Ideally, vehicle charging stations should be placed 50 miles apart on our state highways. NDDOT will enter into a cooperative agreement with the Theodore Roosevelt National Park Painted Canyon Visitor Center to allow for year-round use. Currently, this very popular rest area is closed in the winter months.

SB 2022 is the agency appropriation bill for The Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents. The commission is the agency that provides the attorneys and related services to indigent persons, when there is a constitutional, statutory, or rule-based right to counsel at public expense. Under established guidelines, indigency is determined by looking at income resources, non-income resources (assets) of the applicant’s household, and exceptional factors that might otherwise justify a finding of indigency. Income guidelines are set at 125% of the federal poverty level. The commission provides services through its employees in the eight public defender offices across the state and through its monthly and conflict contractors. The commission has 40 full-time employees and has a budget of $20.9 million dollars. The number of case assignments averaged between 15,000 and 16,000 from 2017 – 2019. The number of cases dropped slightly during the pandemic in 2020.

The House is working their way through the final policy bills as well. They gave final approval to SB 2093, which removes restrictive language and provides greater flexibility to the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department. It will allow the department the opportunity to allow concessionaires to provide services during public events held at the various state parks. Current law limits those opportunities to four locations and the changes will provide opportunities across the state.

The House also approved SB 2311, which we co-sponsored with Senator Heckaman. The Legislation will help provide resources to schools across the state for mental health awareness and suicide prevention in public schools. It includes the availability of evidence-based, online mental health and suicide prevention training programs.

The House passed SB 2304 this week. The bill would require instruction on Native American Tribal History as part of the United States History educational requirements in the state.

Representatives also passed SB 2322, which recognizes Juneteenth in the state. The passage of the bill sets June 19 each year as the day we commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

The House also passed SB 2215, which will establish some new deadlines for teacher negotiations between school districts and representative organizations. Supporters said the bill would establish reasonable timelines for good faith negotiations with a school board, thereby allowing districts to reach an amiable agreement with their teachers, offer them a contract and have those contacts legally signed and submitted prior to the start of the school year.

After a lengthy floor debate the House, passed SB 2245 this week. The bill will help fund the railroad tracks needed for the Intermodal Transportation facility in Minot. The facility is critically important to agriculture and many other industries in the state. Currently, there are 15 industrial shippers and commercial processors shipping out of the port. In addition, farmers and small businesses throughout the state are utilizing the site to ship North Dakota goods and commodities.

Representatives also passed SB 2065, which dealt with the jurisdiction of the industrial commission to regulate the permitting of the underground storage of gas and oil products. The bill removes numerous uncertainties surrounding the rights of mineral developers, pore space owners and mineral owners to utilize pore space for the underground storage of oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas. It is one of many bills we dealt with this session to try and create a clean energy economy, as well as new value-added production opportunities.

House members defeated SB 2170, which supporters said could lead to prescription price controls based on price data from Canada. Opponents firmly believe that the bill would not lead to lower drug costs, but instead would lead to additional red tape and bureaucracy that will limit the ability of North Dakotans to get the care they deserve.

Representatives also voted to approve SB 2332, which offers some improvements to the state’s alternative teacher certification program. It will provide schools with opportunities to fill positions where teachers are not readily available.

They also gave their approval to SB 2289, which will make some changes to the state’s scholarship program, which was established in 2009. The bill seeks to align the state’s scholarships to the Choice Ready framework used in the state. It is felt that this alignment will help students prepare for multiple career choices following high school. The goal of the Choice Reach program is to have students leave high school with the essential skills necessary to be ready for post-secondary education, the workforce and/or the military.

We look forward to hearing from our constituents during the final days of the session. District 23 residents who wish to contact us with comments on what we are voting on in these final days can e-mail us at: [email protected] and [email protected]

If you want to leave a phone message you can call the incoming toll-free number 1-888-NDLEGIS (1-888-635-3447). For hearing-impaired individuals, the TTY toll-free number is 1-800-366-6888 to reach a relay operator.