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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 [email protected]. Spread the word of our newsletter by sharing our sign-up link today: https://demnpl.com/join-our-newsletter/.
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The North Dakota Legislative Session is fast-paced and every bill gets a vote unless it's withdrawn. Are there bills you want to know more about or bills that you are following that you think should get more attention? Please let us know!
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Republican State Rep. Jorin Johnson's bill to DEFUND Prairie Public passed the House. Come crossover, it will be imperative that we tell our Senators to oppose this bill!
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Sen. Michelle Axtman (R-7) (SB 2241) introduced a bill to legalize charter schools in North Dakota. ND United President Nick Archuleta said in his testimony opposing the bill, "In a recent National Center for Charter School Accountability (NCCSA) study, researcher Ryan Pfleger, Ph.D., found that twenty-five percent of charter schools closed in their first five years. By year ten, that number was forty percent. By year 20, the study found five cohorts where fifty-five percent of charter schools closed."
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Rep. Jim Kasper (R-46) presented a bill (HB 1585) that would require law enforcement to contact United States Immigration and Customs enforcement if they believe a person is in the United States unlawfully. The bill specifically says that a peace officer shall use “the tip line phone number or the tip form on the agency's website” which seems like an odd way for one law enforcement entity to interact with another. The Chiefs of Police Association, the ND Associations of Counties, the ND Peace Officers Association, and the Sheriff Departments of Burleigh, Ward, and Grand Forks counties all testified against this bill.
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Democratic-NPL Bills
Sen. Ryan Braunberger (D-10) presented SB 2265 which would allow criminal justice agencies to be reimbursed for twenty-four seven sobriety program fees from the clerk of district court if the fees were waived by a district court judge or judicial referee.
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Sen. Josh Boschee (D-44) presented two bills: SB 2377 which would ensure that a preferred provider could not restrict a covered person from receiving additional dental care services that were denied due to annual, lifetime, or frequency limitations being met by the covered person's dental plan and SB 2326 which would close domestic violence protection orders and sexual assault restraining order hearings to the public to protect the privacy of survivors.
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Sen. Richard Marcellais (D-9) introduced SB 2345 to raise state employee wages.
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Rep. Gretchen Dobervich (D-11) introduced two bills today: HB 1464 which seeks to establish postpartum doula certification and Medicaid coverage for postpartum doula services in North Dakota and HB 1217 to repeal the law that makes it a felony to knowingly transfer HIV to another person. Dobervich testified, "HIV is the only infectious disease that carries a felony charge for knowingly infecting another person. ... It is discriminatory that people with one infectious disease are treated differently than people with other infectious disease in the case of intentional transmission."
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What's coming up?
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Rep. Desiree Morton is introducing a bill (HB 1472) to legalize “microschools” in North Dakota. ND United President Nick Archuleta has said of this bill, “HB 1472 allows for anyone with only a HS diploma to be a teacher of record at a microschool. HB 1472 exempts teachers from criminal background checks. HB 1472 exempts teachers from teacher certification. HB 1472 exempts microschools from any law or rule related to fire codes, health codes, building codes, and food service regulations.”
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Rep. Larry Klemin wants to ban people from wearing masks. (HB 1226)
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Help us spread our message—share these recent posts!
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McFeely: These bills aren't wastes of time. This is who we are
No, these bills aren't reflective of oddball elements within the Republican Party. This is what the Republican Party is.
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This is who we, collectively as a society, are.
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North Dakota Legislative Review: Representative Zachary Ista
Our guest is Rep. Zac Ista (D-Grand Forks), the House minority leader. We discuss property taxes, state-paid school meals, and bonding.
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Senate bill looks to legalize charter schools in North Dakota
Opponents argue it could take away important funding and that public schools are already innovating and doing things that charters intend to do.
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“Teachers and administrators have been for many years developing, adopting and expanding innovative practices designed to make learning more meaningful and practical for the students in their charge,” said Nick Archuleta, president of North Dakota United.
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Letter: Public money should stay in public schools
Three bills – HB 1540, HB 1608 and SB 2295 – would let public tax dollars go toward private school tuition. This is a big problem because North Dakota has a limited budget, and more than 90% of students attend public schools. If we start funding private schools, public schools will be the losers, especially our rural schools.
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We need to tell our lawmakers to vote against these bills and keep public education strong. Public money should stay in public schools, where it helps the most students. Let’s make sure we protect great public education for all children
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Landowners vs. Oil and Gas
The strange environmental and oil industry bedfellows of carbon capture, a pipeline and the battle over eminent domain.
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Port: North Dakota lawmaker suggests overthrow of 'Jew' Mexican president
"Wonder if the CIA would help Trump overthrow and kick this Jew out of power in Mexico?" state Rep. Nico Rios, a Republican from Williston, wrote in a post on X on Sunday, Feb. 2.
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The context, of course, is Mexico's retaliation to President Donald Trump's announcement of new tariffs and trade restrictions on America's continental neighbors. The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, is of Jewish heritage.
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Port: A state spending cap proposal, brought to you by vibes, not numbers
"I do not have that number, no," she said. "I didn't really come here with facts and figures. What I come with is basically the feelings that the people are having out there, and their impression is that we have no control over spending."
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Sorry, Rep. Wolff, but facts don't care about your feelings.
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We can't really excuse Wolff for her ignorance — she is an elected member of the Legislature, after all — but in fairness to her, she did make it clear in her testimony to the committee that this is Blessum's bill. Unfortunately, Blessum didn't do any better under scrutiny from the committee.
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Hearing set Monday on bill that would provide free school meals for North Dakota students
Universal free school meals are the focus of two bills in the North Dakota Legislature, with one set for a hearing on Monday.
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Both bipartisan bills call for using state funds to pay for the cost of providing free breakfasts and lunches to all students. These bills would offer the free meals regardless of student family incomes. The expected cost is $140 million over two years.
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Check out these posts from the national Democratic Party
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Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number
So now Musk and DOGE have access to and potentially power over what is basically America’s checkbook, weeks before another debt-ceiling crisis looms, at a time when Musk is vowing to somehow cut a hysterically large amount of federal spending, and during a chaotic period in which he and other officials in the Trump administration are running roughshod across the federal government like they have unchecked power. On Saturday, Musk was already making wild unsubstantiated claims on X about what his DOGE investigators had discovered about federal payment processes. On Sunday, he alleged that “career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress.” He also said that “the DOGE team” was “shutting down” “illegal payments.”
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But vague bluster aside, it’s not actually clear what Musk and his DOGE and White House allies intend to do with the federal payment system or the information it holds.
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‘Totally illegal’: Andrew Weissmann on Trump’s effort to dismantle the FBI, purge career employees
Andrew Weissmann, former top prosecutor at the Justice Department, Glenn Thrush, New York Times Justice Department Reporter and Frank Figiluzzi, former Assistant Director of Counterintelligence at the FBI join Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss Donald Trump and his justice department sycophants efforts to dismantle the Justice Department and what can be done by lawmakers or in the courts to stand up to Donald Trump’s efforts to punish career civil servants for doing their jobs and hold incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel should they be confirmed.
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LA Times owner boosts RFK Jr. online, as writer says paper cut his critique
With trust in the news media at deep lows, Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is calling for a more tempered approach to covering political matters at his newspaper — even in the opinion section.
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On social media, however, Soon-Shiong has posted repeatedly in support of President Trump's pick to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services. That would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who has spread false claims about public health.
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Is That Legal? Plus, DeepSeek and the A.I. Bubble.
President Donald Trump has signed dozens of executive orders since returning to office. On this week's On the Media, how the directives are butting heads with existing laws. Plus, what the DeepSeek saga reveals about American A.I. Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate and host of the podcast Amicus, to discuss Donald Trump's attempt to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding, the legality of the president's litany of executive orders, and how political paralysis is the point. Brooke speaks with Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast and author of the newsletter Where's Your Ed At on how the release of a new Chinese AI chatbot model, DeepSeek-R1, threatens to burst the American A.I. bubble, and how tech moguls have gotten away with overhyping A.I. for years. Brooke continues the conversation with Ed Zitron, peeling back the facade to explore what generative A.I. can actually do.
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Committees
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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