(BISMARCK, ND) – In a refreshing example of bipartisan cooperation, the Senate Ag Committee advanced the 2018 Farm Bill by an overwhelming 20-1 vote, according to a new article featured in the Bismarck Tribune. Both Senators Heitkamp and Hoeven voted in favor of the bill, which avoided the partisan squabbling that derailed a similar effort in the House earlier this spring. Senator Heitkamp played a key role in the crafting, negotiation, and passage of the bill which she described as “a strong, bipartisan bill” that would be able to make it across the finish line.

Heidi’s enthusiasm for finding common ground with her colleagues stands in stark contrast to Kevin Cramer, who has been criticized for playing politics with the Farm Bill ever since he got to Washington. Simply put, Cramer is indifferent to the challenges facing his constituents – dismissing the concerns of his constituents as “hysteria,” claiming that North Dakota’s farmers have a low pain threshold and confessing his belief that playing politics with the farm bill is “what you do in this business.”

While Heidi has been hard at work building bonds across the aisle and getting results, Cramer has been busy passing the buck – blaming the White House for his legislative failures instead of getting things done for North Dakota.

Read a quick recap of the article below:

Bismarck Tribune: Bipartisan Senate farm bill gains momentum with 20-1 committee vote

• A strongly bipartisan 20-1 vote by the Senate Ag Committee on Wednesday has sent the five-year 2018 Farm Bill to the full Senate and added momentum to get the measure passed by the time the current bill expires on Sept. 30.

• Upper Midwest senators, in what was a somewhat rare move of bipartisanship, praised what has been accomplished so far in interviews and news releases Wednesday and were in agreement that the measure was a priority.

• “I am beyond thrilled, “said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., in a teleconference with reporters. “Members put regional and individual concerns to the side and got a strong, bipartisan bill across the finish line.”

• Despite some struggles that lie ahead, the Senate bill may have avoided one big fight. Senators put off any stiffer rules proposed by the House for able-bodied food stamp recipients such as raising the work requirement of 20 hours a week for people up from age 49 to 59 and no longer exempting parents or caretakers with children 6 years old and older.

• Heitkamp understands concerns from both sides on the food stamp issue but said that with two-thirds of wage earners in the U.S. making under $20 an hour it sometimes is tough to make ends meet. The senator said there are about 54,000 North Dakotans on food stamps and that 73 percent are families with children and 33 percent had family members who are senior citizens or disabled.

The former Senator writes in the Fargo Forum: “Borrowing money to pay for tax cuts at a time when we have a nearly $21 trillion federal debt is just plain nuts, and they know it.”

“The fact is, the so-called tax cut legislation was bad tax policy, terrible fiscal policy and even worse health care policy.”

(BISMARCK, ND) — Former Senator Byron Dorgan had some tough words for Kevin Cramer in the Fargo Forum. While Cramer takes to the airwaves to boast about the GOP’s tax scam, policy experts are weighing in on how this bill will bust the budget, reduce access to affordable health care, and ultimately leave the next generation holding an estimated $11.7 trillion cumulative deficit over the next 10 years.

Well, Senator Dorgan has had enough of the black slapping and self-congratulating coming from the Cramer Camp. Dorgan let Cramer have it, pointing out that the corporate giveaway is not only terrible for taxpayers, but also puts people who rely on Medicare at risk and undermines protections for the over 300,000 North Dakotans with pre-existing conditions who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health coverage.

Fargo Forum: Dorgan: Tax cuts balloon the deficit and damages Medicare

• Last week we learned that parts of the Medicare program will run out of money three years earlier than previously expected in part because of the tax cut legislation that was recently enacted.

• That bad news finally exposes the full truth about the damage done by the tax cut bill written by the Majority party in Congress and President Donald Trump. Not only have they borrowed trillions of dollars and ballooned the federal debt in order to cut taxes mostly for the wealthy, they’ve also injured the Medicare program at the same time.

• Borrowing money to pay for tax cuts at a time when we have a nearly $21 trillion federal debt is just plain nuts, and they know it.

• When the economy is growing we’re supposed to be paying down the debt, not increasing it. Yet, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper for Congress, the deficits will now soar over the next 10 years, pushing up the federal debt to amounts far greater than any year since just after World War II.

• Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., has been attacked for voting against the tax cut bill. Well, I’m glad she did. She had the courage to say no to legislation that massively adds to the federal debt and at the same time damages the Medicare program by many billions of dollars.

• Congressman Kevin Cramer, by contrast, boasts about his vote for the tax cuts. But he forgets to point out that he and President Trump added to the federal debt by nearly $2 trillion with those cuts and also hurt the Medicare program at the same time.

• They were warned, but they wouldn’t listen.

• The reason the tax cut bill also negatively affects the Medicare program was because of last minute provisions they added to the tax cut bill that eliminated the requirement for Americans to have health insurance coverage.

• But when they eliminated the mandate that everyone be covered by health insurance, they knew were undermining critical provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that are important to the American people.

• For example, the ACA prohibits insurance companies from denying health care coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It also keeps kids on their parent’s insurance policies until age 26. It eliminates the lifetime limits on insurance benefits.

• Those provisions and others will be gone if President Trump and Cramer get their wish.

• The fact is, the so-called tax cut legislation was bad tax policy, terrible fiscal policy and even worse health care policy.

• These are mistakes we can fix. But we need serious people willing to work on difficult problems to put our country back on the right track.

• Borrowing money to provide tax cuts was not smart fiscal policy.

• We need to start making hard decisions on things that matter most for our future.

Thompson: North Dakota’s Attorney General violated state law by joining lawsuit

(GRAND FORKS, ND) — This week, the Department of Justice announced that it would not be defending current laws protecting people with pre-existing conditions from a lawsuit in which – as it turns out – North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem has illegally attempted to commit State of North Dakota. Democratic-NPL candidate for Attorney General David Thompson today released the following statement:

“Wayne Stenehjem signing onto this lawsuit is not only unconscionable, because of its potential impacts for nearly 300,000 North Dakotans who have pre-existing conditions, but it was also illegal. If a judge sides with Stenehjem and the 20 other AGs who are pursuing this case, people with chronic diseases like diabetes or cancer will most likely be priced out of the insurance market with few options to get the high-quality care they deserve.

But that is not the end of Stenehjem’s mess. Not only is this Texas lawsuit aimed at hurting the most vulnerable members of our community, but Stenehjem is violating North Dakota Law by allowing the Texas Attorney General to represent the State of North Dakota as a party without our Attorney General safeguarding the interests of our State and its citizens. Under the law, it is clear that only the North Dakota Attorney General may represent our State in a court case such as this Texas federal court action. The Texas Attorney General may not legally represent the State of North Dakota as a party in that Texas case. Just like his behavior as a member of the Industrial Commission, Wayne Stenehjem is once again flouting North Dakota law, but this time in an attempt to strip sick people of important protections. For that reason, Stenehjem’s illegal attempt to have the Texas Attorney General represent the State of North Dakota in taking health care away from North Dakotans is disgraceful.”

Cramer previously accused people with pre-existing conditions of trying to “game the system”

(BISMARCK, ND) — Kevin Cramer is so worried about his record on health care that he keeps lying about it. Today, he claimed he supported protections for pre-existing conditions, but his claim couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s also rewriting history about the dangerous Washington Republican health care bills – including the tax legislation, which is raising health care costs – so we wanted to set the record straight.

“Put simply, Kevin Cramer’s record on health care is dangerous for North Dakota – now, he’s lying about it to climb the political ladder and further his own career,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL. “Cramer can’t hide from his reckless health care record of raising costs and gutting protections for hardworking North Dakotans. Cramer owes North Dakotans a straight answer – does he agree with this administration that coverage for pre-existing conditions should be struck down? We need a yes or no – not talking points from Mitch McConnell and his D.C. machine.”

Today on ‘What’s on your Mind’ with Scott Hennen, Cramer said he supports protecting pre-existing conditions coverage which was “exactly what we did in the American Health Care Act,” and that the “same thing, of course, was in the Graham-Cassidy bill.” Despite his efforts to mislead voters, Cramer has championed efforts to gut protections for preexisting conditions, which is exactly what both legislative efforts he pointed to would have done. Listen to his full answer here.

Here are the facts:

• DOES CRAMER AGREE WITH STRIKING DOWN COVERAGE FOR PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS? When asked about this today, Kevin Cramer dodged the question. But North Dakotans won’t accept his Washington, D.C. talking points – they deserve to know whether Cramer agrees with the DOJ that coverage for pre-existing conditions should be struck down.

• GAMING THE SYSTEM – Despite today’s two-step, Kevin Cramer has already showed us his true colors. In an interview with a conservative TV host, he accused people with pre-existing conditions like cancer, asthma or diabetes of trying to “game the system” by getting coverage. Watch for yourself.

• AMERICAN HEALTH CARE ACT – Kevin Cramer wants to rewrite history on his voting record. But the fact of the matter is that Cramer’s health care bill would have gutted protections for people with pre-existing conditions, thrown 30,000 North Dakotans off their care, slapped seniors with an Age Tax and raised costs for hardworking families.

• GRAHAM-CASSIDY – Once again, Kevin Cramer gets the facts wrong – this bill could have spelled disaster for the almost 300,000 North Dakotans with pre-existing conditions like cancer, asthma or diabetes.

From his Gardner is a “good man” remarks to siding against ND’s farmers, Former Grand Forks Herald Editor and Publisher Mike Jacobs runs down Kevin Cramer’s lack of judgment

(BISMARCK, ND)  — Kevin Cramer seems to be spiraling. From defending admitted peeping-tom Will Gardner to failing to pass a Farm Bill to sticking up for the administration’s misguided trade policies that are hurting North Dakota’s manufacturers and farmers, he’s consistently put his political ambitions ahead of hard-working families in his home state.

Today, former editor and publisher of the Grand Forks Herald Mike Jacobs joined the growing chorus of North Dakotans wondering why in the world Kevin Cramer would defend and endorse Will Gardner’s political career. Highlights from Jacobs’ column on Cramer’s campaign in free-fall below:

Grand Forks Herald: Jacobs: N.D. winds, and politics, blow hard

• A month ago Republicans were confident of a clean sweep on the North Dakota ballot in November, but contrary winds have begun to blow.

• Republicans lost a statewide candidate when Will Gardner withdrew from the race for secretary of state, leaving the party scrambling — and settling eventually on the very man they’d rejected at their state convention. He’s the incumbent, Al Jaeger, who will run as an independent. The secretary of state contest will follow the federal candidates on the ballot; in other words, Republicans will have to leave the column in order to vote for him.

• No one can be sure but it may be that Gardner would have survived the publication of his arrest record, but once exposed he quit the race. That might have ended the matter, but Kevin Cramer couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and he rushed to Gardner’s defense, calling him a good man and suggesting that he could be a candidate in another election some other time.

• Cramer is the candidate for the U.S. Senate, the top of the ticket race. His defense of Gardner didn’t do either of them any good politically; Gardner was a gone goose by the time Cramer said anything, and Cramer’s statement raised questions about his own political judgment, a quality already in question. Cramer consistently displays a premature naïve enthusiasm.

• Cramer has been an uncritical supporter of Donald Trump, not a political liability in itself, except that he’s been obsequious about it, suggesting, for example, that the president deserved the Nobel Peace Prize even before the North Korean summit. He was also an early apologist for Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, whose latest policy initiative is to end the renewable fuels standard, a move that would have a wallet-draining effect on North Dakota farmers.

• The standard is an example of how a little appreciated provision, like a well-placed bush, can cause the political winds to shift. Other examples include looming trade wars, one with China, which buys a big share of North Dakota’s soybean crop, and one with Canada and Mexico over the North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite initial opposition from the state’s congressional delegation, all Democrats at the time, NAFTA has proven to be very good for North Dakota. To these add the farm bill, defeated in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and resurrected in the Senate.

• It’s a sign of frustration that Republicans whined about Trump’s attention to Heitkamp, and there were worried suggestions that the president might forego campaigning against her, a decision that might doom Cramer’s chances.

As the Cramer-backed trade war heats up, North Dakota farmers need an ally

(BISMARCK, ND) — First, he attacked the White House. Now, Kevin Cramer is going after North Dakota’s farmers.

In recent comments reported after Senator Heidi Heitkamp brokered a meeting between North Dakota farmers and the Mexican Embassy, Kevin Cramer defended misguided and irresponsible trade policies by trying to shift the blame onto Americans who “don’t have a very high pain threshold.”

That’s easy for him to say, since it’s not his livelihood on the line. While farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers worry about how they will provide for their families, Kevin Cramer has a big money backer to make sure his campaign coffers are full.

“I’ll tell you who doesn’t have a high tolerance for pain: Kevin Cramer. Any time he doesn’t get exactly what he wants or confronted by facts that go against his narrative, the Congressman lashes out,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL. “North Dakota’s farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers need certainty in the market and deserve a representative in Washington who will fight for them. Kevin Cramer is willing to trade the financial security of farming families. That’s not sticking up for North Dakota.”