(BISMARCK, ND) – Today, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) repeal of net neutrality rules are scheduled to take effect – so where does Kevin Cramer stand? Not with North Dakotans. Here are three important things to know about Cramer and his votes to undermine net neutrality and consumer protections for North Dakotans online:

1. Kevin Cramer voted against strong net neutrality rules. Despite the importance of a free and open internet for North Dakota consumers, small businesses and rural communities, Kevin Cramer voted to block the FCC’s net neutrality rules and voted against funding for the FCC’s net neutrality order.

2. Kevin Cramer voted to gut consumer protections for North Dakotans online.Last year, Cramer voted to block FCC rules that protect North Dakotans’ internet browsing history. Because of Cramer and his cronies in Congress, big internet service providers can sell consumers’ online browsing history without their permission.
   Cramer pledged to release his own browsing history, but we’re still waiting for him to keep that promise.

3. Kevin Cramer has been bought by the telecom industry. Kevin Cramer’s votes on internet freedom might not make sense to North Dakotans, but the puzzle fits together when you look at his campaign contributions. According to FEC data, Cramer took more than $70,000 from the telecom industry last cycle – making him one of the top recipients in the House of Representatives.

North Dakotans notice Cramer’s consistent betrayal of farmers and ranchers 

#TBT: Williston Herald excoriated Cramer for lack of leadership, politicizing Farm Bill in 2013

(BISMARCK, ND) – He’s at it again. Just like in 2014 when Cramer was roundly admonished by North Dakota media for his efforts that threatened to upend the Farm Bill over a politically divisive provision, Cramer set the stage this week to hold again hold the 2018 Farm Bill hostage over a partisan issue.

After rushing to take credit for the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture’s passage of the 2018 Farm Bill – which, having never been a member of the committee, he did not vote to pass – Cramer released a statement praising not the priorities for North Dakota farmers and producers, but a robust defense of the bill’s most controversial provision.

It’s been a rough few weeks for Cramer on Ag. Trying to convince farmers he’s fighting for their interests when he’s abandoned them to curry favor within his own party and the White House is no easy task. As the New York Times reported, North Dakota farmers and producers are well aware that he’s supporting the president’s devastating tariffs ahead their livelihoods.

“There he goes again – Kevin Cramer has never been there for North Dakota’s farmers and ranchers and, just like in 2014, he’s laying the groundwork to topple a strong Farm Bill over a political provision,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL. “Farmers and ranchers need strong crop insurance programs, robust trade opportunities and solutions that address a tough commodities market – but time and again, Cramer has left them in the dust for more powerful buddies in his party and the White House. North Dakota farmers and producers won’t be fooled by his efforts to take credit for a bill passing in the House Ag committee – where he refuses to serve – and on Election Day, they won’t forget that he left them behind.”

Politicizing the Farm Bill is nothing new for Congressman Cramer – the Williston Herald editorial board took him to task for his lack of leadership during the last Farm Bill debate:

… 

He needs to make the farm bill his No. 1 priority, whether it is pushing to reconsider the House version or passing the Senate version. 

… 

North Dakota voters have a history of electing candidates, not parties, and re-election is no guarantee for Cramer just because the vote is on his record.

They need to see real leadership, real influence and real fight in passing the farm bill.

Not just an under-whelming, uninspired “Yes” vote.

Meanwhile, Senator Heitkamp has always put North Dakota’s agriculture producers first – and ever since she was elected to the Senate, she’s served on the Agriculture Committee and helped push through a bipartisan Farm Bill. And when farmers and ranchers faced a devastating drought last summer, Heidi sat down and listened to their concerns. But she also got results – the Department of Agriculture heeded her call to increase staffing at FSA agencies, they expanded CRP lands and she successfully secured tax relief for farmers who suffered losses from the drought.

(BISMARCK, ND) — Yesterday, Governor Doug Burgum presented his guidelines for the 2019-2021 budget process that fail to address the needs of working families and pressing priorities of North Dakota.

“These guidelines are woefully inadequate to solve the problems facing North Dakota’s fiscal health,” said Senate Democratic-NPL Leader Joan Heckaman (D-23).”The state is looking at an $800 million shortfall that Governor Burgum seems to believe can be addressed by empty and vague platitudes about the power of innovation. North Dakotans need real leadership that supports working families and secures a better future for our children.”
“Governor Burgum’s budget plan calls for unrealistic and wrongheaded across the board cuts to our most important state functions and the salaries of public sector employees,” said House Dem-NPL Leader Corey Mock (D-18). “Reductions in state agencies and higher education will put North Dakota on the road to a serious fiscal catastrophe that states like Kansas and Oklahoma have not recovered from.”

Unsurprisingly, the Governor did not address rising property taxes his administration oversaw last year through the elimination of the property tax credit.

As more than 100 trade associations call for Congress to take action to protect Americans from tariffs, Kevin Cramer is nowhere to be found

Instead, Pass-the-Buck Cramer demeans farmers’ concerns by calling it “hysteria”

(BISMARCK, ND) – A New York Times report from Casselton found a brewing trade war could complicate Kevin Cramer’s attempts to woo the state’s soybean growers. The administration’s decision to prioritize the Rust Belt’s steel and aluminum industries could cost North Dakota farmers dearly – to the tune of a 25 percent tariff imposed by China. And Cramer’s refusal to push back on these protectionist policies could, in turn, cost him with North Dakota’s voters.

Instead of standing up for North Dakota, Kevin Cramer has abandoned his constituents (and his tweets in support of them). Cramer is once again toeing the party line, wagering with North Dakota farmers’ livelihoods that tariffs are a part of the administration’s ‘master plan.’ And farmers are taking notice.

Highlights from the article below:

New York Times: Across Midwest, Farmers Warn of G.O.P. Losses Over Trump’s Trade Policy

• Here in the largest soybean-producing county in the country, a snowy winter has left North Dakota farmers like Robert Runck with time on their hands before spring planting — time they have spent stewing over how much they stand to lose if President Trump starts a trade war with China.
• “If he doesn’t understand what he’s doing to the nation by doing what he’s doing, he’s going to be a one-term president, plain and simple,” said Mr. Runck, a fourth-generation farmer who voted for Mr. Trump. Pausing outside the post office in this town of 2,300, Mr. Runck said the repercussions could be more immediate for Representative Kevin Cramer, a Republican whose bid against Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, has been complicated by the proposed tariffs. “If it doesn’t get resolved by election time, I would imagine it would cost Kevin Cramer some votes,” he said.
• From the still-thawing soybean fields of North Dakota and Kansas to the corn and pork farms of Iowa, voters across the political spectrum say the president’s attacks on American economic rivals could do grave damage to an already unstable commodities market.
• Instead, there are already whispers, in Washington and in agriculture states, that the president is risking a replay of President Jimmy Carter’s grain embargo on the Soviets, which contributed to the massive losses Democrats suffered in 1980.
• Indeed, after a year in which Mr. Trump only mused about pulling out of Nafta and was stymied by Congress in his attempt to slash the Agriculture Department’s budget, there is now a sense in the farm belt that Mr. Trump’s yearning to punish China could inflict real economic and political damage on his own political base.
• “This is the first time it’s in your face, especially to us in the Midwest,” said Ed Schafer, a Republican former governor of North Dakota who was agriculture secretary under George W. Bush.
• There may be no other race in America that is at once as significant as the Senate contest here and as shaped by whether China’s tariffs take effect this year. Most of North Dakota’s votes are in the eastern end of the state, in the Red River Valley — a region that also happens to be home to the three largest soybean-producing counties in the nation.

From broken promises, added debt and kickbacks for the Koch Brothers, Cramer tells tall tales on taxes

(BISMARCK, ND) – On Tax Day, you’ll hear a lot from Kevin Cramer and Mitch McConnell’s D.C. smear machine about the partisan, Washington Republican tax bill. But they’re not telling you the whole story.

Here are 5 things you won’t hear from Cramer or McConnell – his party boss – on Tax Day

1. The tax bill will add nearly $2 trillion to the deficit – much more than previously anticipated. 

By voting for the partisan, Washington Republican tax bill, Kevin Cramer added nearly $2 trillion to the national deficit – far more than previously anticipated. But despite these facts, Cramer has laughed off the deficit and even lied to voters, saying the bill would pay for itself.

2. You still can’t file your taxes on a postcard, despite promises from Cramer.

In addition to lying about the cost of the bill, Kevin Cramer told North Dakotans that they’d be able to file their taxes using a postcard. Despite Cramer’s claim, the tax bill still leaves many complications for families and small businesses and fails to deliver on Cramer’s postcard promise.

3. Health care costs are skyrocketing because of the tax bill. 

By gutting parts of the Affordable Care Act through the partisan tax bill, Cramer voted to raise health care costs for families in North Dakota and across the country. Thanks to changes Cramer supported, the independent Congressional Budget Office estimates premiums could jump nearly 35 percent.

4. Walmart isn’t a tax bill success story. 

Kevin Cramer loves to tout Wal-Mart as a tax bill success story. But behind their PR blitz, Walmart is closing more than 150 stores across the United States and more than 60 Sam’s Club stores, including one in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

5. Cramer voted to give massive tax breaks to the Koch Brothers – who are supporting his campaign – and to corporate executives.

Kevin Cramer doesn’t want you to know that his deep-pocketed political supporters benefited from the tax legislation – he even went so far as to lie and say the tax bill wasn’t supported by the Koch Brothers. But just recently, the out-of-state billionaire Koch Brothers ran a smear campaign against Heidi – using a body double to fool North Dakotans. But Cramer doesn’t want folks to know that the Koch Brothers ran away with billions from the tax bill, as corporate executives and the top one percent got more than 80 percent of the economic gains.

• Senior Senate GOP officials have grown concerned that Rep. Kevin Cramer’s penchant for controversial remarks could damage their chances at one of the party’s most prized opportunities to pickup the crucial seat occupied by Heitkamp, a rare Democratic statewide officeholder in the conservative state. Cramer’s latest remark: Defending Sean Spicer this week in the aftermath of the White House spokesman’s widely condemned comments about Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.
• The maneuvering comes as some influential Republicans now are fearful that Cramer could damage their chances if he commits gaffes like GOP candidate Todd Akin did in 2012 when he cost his party a chance to pickup the Missouri Senate seat.
• “On paper, it looks like he could win, but he also appears to have a few Akin-like tendencies that make a lot of people nervous,” said one Senate GOP campaign veteran, who, like other top Republicans, asked for anonymity to assess the field candidly.
• Cramer has made other controversial remarks in the past, including after Democratic women wore white to highlight the women’s suffrage movement during Trump’s speech to Congress earlier this year. Cramer called them “poorly dressed” with “bad-looking white pantsuits.”