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During the 69th Legislative Assembly, North Dakota Democratic-NPL Insider will provide updates and calls to action each day of the regular session. If you would like to have something added to the newsletter, email us at laura.dronen@demnpl.com. Spread the word of our newsletter by sharing our sign-up link today: https://demnpl.com/join-our-newsletter/.
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What happened today?
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The ND Senate passed Rep. Ben Koppleman's (R-16) bill (HB 1540) today that would send your public tax dollars to private schools. Private schools don’t have to accept every student, and they’re not accountable to taxpayers! This isn't great, but the bill will still have to be voted on again in the House because the Senate added some amendments.
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What's coming up?
| The 69th Legislative Session is coming to a close soon, but there are still some big votes coming up, including another school voucher bill, SB 2400. This bill also uses public funds to subsidize private schools. |
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Follow Along!
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Did you know you can watch along with these hearings or watch them later on your own time?
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Help us spread our message—share these recent posts!
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Former Secretary of Ag, Tom Vilsack, discusses tariffs, Farm Bill, and more
Joel Heitkamp is joined by the former Governor and Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, for a conversation on the status of the Farm Bill, how the tariffs impact our ag economy, trade agreements with other countries, and more.
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In 1998, Mr. Vilsack became the first Democrat to be elected as the Governor of Iowa in more than 30 years. He became the 30th and 32nd United States Secretary of Agriculture, from 2008-2017 and 2021-2025, respectively. Only five people in U.S. history have served in the Cabinet longer, and during his tenures, the United States Department of Agriculture set records for U.S. agricultural exports and provided food assistance to millions of Americans.
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He now serves as the first Chief Executive Officer for the World Food Prize Foundation. In this new role, Governor Vilsack will focus on expanding the Foundation’s global network, and will further position the Foundation as a leader in addressing global food and nutrition insecurity, continuing his lifetime of public service.
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ACLU's Cody Schuler talks about ND legislature passing "book banning" bill
Cody Schuler is the Advocacy Manager for ACLU North Dakota, and joins Joel in the studio to talk about the North Dakota Legislature. Specifically, they dive into Senate Bill 2307 and how it could impact public libraries.
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With a 49-45 vote, House lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2307, legislation that will require school and public libraries to relocate books bill proponents say contain “sexually explicit” content to areas not easily accessible by minors.
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Federal education cuts and Trump DEI demands leave states, teachers in limbo
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The Department of Education has long played a critical role in distributing federal funds to states for K-12 education, including Title I grants to boost staffing in schools with high percentages of low-income students, and emergency relief like that provided during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Conservative-led states — particularly Mississippi, South Dakota and Arkansas — rely the most heavily on these funds to sustain services in high-need districts.
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The 15 states with the highest percentage of their K-12 budget coming from federal funding in fiscal year 2022 — the latest year with data available from the National Center for Education Statistics — voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Similarly, 10 of the 15 states receiving the highest amounts of Title I funding in fiscal year 2024 also voted for Trump.
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Reading advocacy group hopes Armstrong vetoes bill aimed at opening librarians and educators up to lawsuits
"We're just really frustrated that the Legislature is ignoring the overwhelming concerns of library professionals, and of regular North Dakota citizens. We saw thousands of people come out to our read-outs this spring; and people just ultimately don't want this bill. They want to make decisions for their own families. They don't want someone else's family to determine what their children can access in the library. So I really hope Governor Armstrong will see the legal problems with this bill, as well as the social problems."
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Scott MacFarlane talks about legalities around the deportation of Abrego Garcia
Joel Heitkamp is joined by Scott MacFarlane to have a conversation about Kilmar Abrego Garcia being deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration. Scott MacFarlane has served as a correspondent for CBS News since 2021, reporting for all broadcasts and platforms.
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Port: Minot lawmaker says she won't 'sacrifice' to attend public legislative forums
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The Minot resident who shared these emails with me about the public forums shared other communications she's had with VanWinkle in which the lawmaker frequently used abusive language.
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"Good God Almighty you’re one of the most asinine people I’ve ever had to deal with," VanWinkle wrote in a Feb. 26 email regarding her vote on a resolution opposing same-sex marriage. "May the Lord help lead you from your blindness and depravity of mind to one day understand something! Anything, true and noble."
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Port: Minot mayoral candidate is delinquent on more than $13,000 in property taxes
According to Ward County property records, Fuller is currently delinquent on a property tax bill of more than $13,000. Fuller paid $6,403.12 of the $12,433.24 for the property's Dec. 8, 2023, tax bill. He has not made any payments on the property's $13,415.57 property tax bill dated Dec. 8, 2024.
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The first half of the 2024 tax bill was due March 3, 2025. The second half is due Oct. 15, 2025. The full amount owed for the 2023 and 2024 property tax bills is currently $20,455.08.
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Moorhead law office signs amicus brief in support of firms facing Trump retribution
"The looming threat posed by the Executive Order at issue in this case and the others like it is not lost on anyone practicing law in this country today: any controversial representation challenging actions of the current administration (or even causes it disfavors) now brings with it the risk of devastating retaliation. Whatever short-term advantage an administration may gain from exercising power in this way, the rule of law cannot long endure in the climate of fear that such actions create," the brief read.
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North Dakota House approves change to state health insurance plan
One of the biggest concerns voiced by critics is that the state would be able to start charging employees premiums. The state may be tempted to do so to offset the additional cost of the plan, opponents said. Under the current plan, the state cannot charge premiums.
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Letter: Yes, let's send convicted criminals to El Salvador
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The person I reference has been convicted of 34 felonies. This person has been convicted of sexual assault, excluding multiple allegations of the same. This person has been convicted of defamation, twice. This person set up a university that was a fake real estate school promising to teach students his business secrets but instead scammed them out of thousands of dollars; he paid $25 million in 2018 to settle after being accused of fraud.
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This person established a charitable foundation and used funds for personal expenses, including payment of legal bills and the purchase of a $10,000 portrait of himself. In 2019 he was ordered to pay $2 million in damages and the foundation was shut down for corruption.
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Letter: Attack on culture in America is deplorable
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To think that to create wealth means to eliminate culture, humanities, arts, museums, and libraries is a false premise. To eliminate these entities does not make our communities better, it makes us smaller, weaker, less caring, and culturally isolated. These organizations can help tell our stories today and from the past. Just because some may not like the truth that is portrayed, doesn’t mean it is not valid or inspiring.
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Every authoritarian country in the history of the world has attacked these institutions, and every open and free country has supported and uplifted these institutions.
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Check out these posts from the national Democratic Party
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The Emergency Is Here | The Ezra Klein Show
The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvador’s justice minister, is in a coffin.
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The president says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next.
This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.
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Raising kids is costly; Tariffs will make it even more expensive
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By some estimates, raising a kid, who was born in 2015, could cost a middle class family close to $320,000 over 17 years.
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That money goes to childcare, healthcare, food, clothes, education, transportation, activities, toys, and a lot more. All of those things will be affected – one way or another – by the Trump administration's tariff policy.
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America’s Mad King
But here’s the danger: Vindictive narcissists like Trump hold grudges and harbor resentments, blame everything on someone else, and weaponize information. They have a mean, even sadistic, side, belittling others to feel better about themselves and using, abusing, and discarding people.
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Supreme Court keeps hold on Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship but sets May arguments
Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
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How the Radical Right Captured the Culture
There’s never been a better representation of Donald Trump than those generated by AI; no human being has ever been more suited to the medium. Even the images supplied by his fans exaggerate what makes him strange and terrifying to the rest of us: the strangely flat yet voluptuous contours of his face, the persnickety downward pull of his lips, that hair, that skin. At least the AI version can be made to do anything you want: lick Elon Musk’s toes, ride a unicorn, open a casino in Gaza.
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RFK Jr.’s Autism Quackery is Harrowing
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But the point Kennedy is so obviously eliding is that, in the 1960s, autism was characterized by “profound impairments,” and now, it’s, well, not—hence the CDC’s findings. The definition of autism has changed several times over since the 1980s and now includes kids with Asperger’s Syndrome, a social disorder that Elon Musk himself has said he was diagnosed with, and ADHD.
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Beyond his ideas about the origins of autism, Kennedy also appears to hold a dangerously archaic view of autistic people themselves. On Wednesday, he said autism “destroys” children, who he argued would grow up to “never pay taxes, never hold a job, never play baseball, never write a poem, never go out on a date.” (Tell that to Darryl Hannah) In one particularly harrowing moment, he described autistic kids as a strain on the country’s ballooning healthcare costs.
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American-born doctor receives DHS email telling her to leave U.S.
A Connecticut doctor, an American citizen born in the U.S., is seeking help from immigration attorneys after receiving a government email telling her to leave the country immediately. WVIT's Jeremy Chen reports.
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Whistleblower claims DOGE took sensitive data - now he’s being hounded by threatening notes
An employee and whistleblower from the NLRB, an independent federal agency enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, says DOGE took information from critical databases and describes the haunting images taken of him alongside threatening messages demanding he stop.
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LA superintendent responds to DHS officials attempting to enter two elementary schools
Last week, Los Angeles public school administrators turned away Dept. of Homeland Security officials who attempted to enter two schools to speak to students there. DHS says they were conducting wellness checks and the actions had nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho joins José Díaz-Balart to explain more about the situation.
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Committees
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Every bill is voted on in the North Dakota legislature, but first, it must go through a committee hearing. The committee will vote to give the bill a "Do Pass" or a "Do Not Pass" recommendation. Below is a list of Standing Committees this legislative session.
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Senate Standing Committee Members
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Meets Monday through Friday
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Desiree Van Oosting (R-36)
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Desiree Van Oosting (R-36)
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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House Standing Committee Members
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Gretchen Dobervich (D-11)
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Cynthia Schreiber-Beck (R-25)
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Meets Monday through Friday
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Cynthia Schreiber-Beck (R-25)
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Patrick R. Hatlestad (R-1)
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Mike Motschenbacher (R-47)
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Gretchen Dobervich (D-11)
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Lisa Finley-DeVille (D-4A)
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Meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
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Lawrence R. Klemin (R-47)
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Patrick R. Hatlestad (R-1)
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Lawrence R. Klemin (R-47)
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Mike Motschenbacher (R-47)
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Meets Thursday and Friday
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Lisa Finley-DeVille (D-4A)
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The Century Club supports our year-round work to build party infrastructure supporting candidate recruitment, local district and regional leadership, issue-based education, and tools for Dem-NPL success.
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Help us elect great Democrats up and down the ballot!
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The North Dakota Democratic-NPL is launching a new grassroots program called “Neighbor to Neighbor” where volunteers will connect with voters in your community to elect Democrats up and down the ballot. As a volunteer, you will be responsible for connecting with voters in 25 homes in your neighborhood or friends and family to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot about 3-4 times this year.
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Grassroots organizers are the lifeblood of the Dem-NPL! Sign up to volunteer with the Dem-NPL!
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