Plain Talk

In 2019, state Rep. Karla Rose Hanson, a Democrat from Fargo, introduced a red flag bill. It would have created a judicial process through which guns could be taken away from people exhibiting troubling behavior. I was among the many critics of the bill, and it failed decisively, early in the session, in the House. But is there merit to the idea, if not Hanson's specific bill? She joined this epis...

We live in a political environment where it seems everyone is trying to undermine the public's trust in our election laws. From the right are baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. From the left are claims, such as the one made by Democratic Sec. of State candidate Jeffre Powell, that when politicians talk about election integrity it's a "code word for voter suppression." State Rep. Mi...

"We can't get enough school counselors." That's what Congressman Kelly Armstrong had to say on this episode of Plain Talk. We've all be talking about how we can make our school after in the wake of another horrific tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, and much of that has been focused on proposals that would make our schools seem like prisons, with more law enforcement on campus and more restrictions on buil...

Governor Doug Burgum is spending big to influence the North Dakota Republican Party's legislative primaries. The people on the pointy end of that stick, namely the Bastiat Caucus wing of Trumpy populist candidates, don't like that so much, and they've even come up with some dubious legal arguments claiming it may be illegal. Are they right? Almost certainly not. But even beyond the legalities, is...

Minot, N.D. — In 2021 the Atlanta Braves won the World Series. Among those receiving a ring? Scott Davis from right here in North Dakota. Davis spent years serving our state as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He's in the private sector now, helping private organizations with their outreach to Native American communities, and some of that work has been for the Atlanta Braves. That team has a Na...

MINOT, N.D. — Terrible news from Texas. Another mass shooting, this one taking the lives of 21 people, 19 of them school children. My Wednesday co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the shooting, the reaction, and the exhausting debate we have after every one of these incidents on this episode of Plain Talk. Also, Roscoe Streyle, a Republican primary candidate for the state House in District 3, discusse...

Minot, N.D. — Marvin Lepp would like to be North Dakota's next secretary of state. He's running as a Republican, though he said on this episode of Plain Talk that the office "really ought to be nonpartisan, and he's running on election integrity. He said he got more involved in politics in recent years during the debates over pandemic-era policies like business closings and mask mandates, and when...

Jeffrey Powell is an administrator at Mayville State University and the Democratic-NPL candidate for Secretary of State. He was endorsed by the party's executive committee (he made a late decision to run so didn't attend the party's state convention in Minot) and in November will be facing off against one of two potential Republican candidates. State Rep. Michael Howe is squaring off with Bismarck...

This year's primaries, from local legislative races to the national midterms, are in many ways a referendum on the influence of disgraced former President Donald Trump and his movement's on-going influence on the GOP. What did we learn after this week's primary elections? And the fundraising numbers we're seeing in North Dakota's Republican legislative primaries so far? We talked about it on this...

When it comes to regulating air quality - both in terms of health and cosmetic measures like visibility - North Dakota does an excellent job. We have some of the cleanest air in the nation. Ours is one of only four states to have never violated a federal air quality standard protecting health or the environment. We've been building on that excellent record too. "Since 2002, total emissions from co...

Minot, N.D. — Will the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the Roe v. Wade precedent and make bans on abortions constitutional again? Will the federal government create new law regarding abortion, either codifying it as legal or creating national restrictions? And what are the political ramifications for all this? Sen. Kevin Cramer discussed these issues on this episode of Plain Talk. He also reacted t...

On January 6, as rioters were infiltrating the U.S. Capitol building, New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin was in the building with many of our national leaders like Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Kevin Cramer. He and co-author Alexander Burns tell that story in a new book, just released this week, called "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future." Martin spoke with co-host...

When President Joe Biden, as one of his first moves in office, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline it was "a symbol" for the oil and gas industry that the political situation would be hostile to them in the coming years. That lead them to curtail their investments in new production capacity, something that, per Smith, speaking on this episode of Plain Talk, is now contributing to higher fuel prices...

Carbon capture and storage is a big deal for North Dakota. Not just because our state's economy is dominated by commodity-based industries - energy and agriculture - that emit a lot of carbon, but because the geology under our feet lends itself to storing captured carbon. There are billions in investments lined across several projects to not only capture and store carbon emitted in our state, but...

Minot, N.D. — Sen. Jessica Bell, a Republican from District 33, has a lengthy track record of reliably conservative policy making in the North Dakota Senate, which includes her consequential work to save a coal-fired power plant that employs, directly and indirectly, thousands of her constituents. Yet the delegates at the NDGOP's local district convention didn't endorse her for re-election. Instea...

North Dakota's initiated measure process has become a venue for deep-pocketed special interests to hire local fronts, pay mercenaries to collect signatures, and then pound their issues into the heads of voters with big-money marketing campaigns. What was intended to empower grassroots activists to keep state government honest has turned into a shortcut for political professionals to pretty much by...

Minot, N.D. — Ves Marinov serves the state of North Dakota as a member of the Highway Patrol. He's also a citizen of Fargo who is running for a city on the city's commission. He's campaigning on a platform of addressing crime, eliminating special assessments, moving the city to a ward system for its elected leaders, and making the city more efficient. But it's that first issue, given his day job,...

Medical marijuana is legal in North Dakota, having been approved by voters by way of a ballot measure. Recreational marijuana, however, has taken a rockier road. Multiple ballot measure campaigns have failed in the past. House Bill 1420, considered during the last legislative session, and which would have also implemented legalization of non-medical use of marijuana, also failed. But the proponent...

Ben Hanson made an interesting point on this episode of Plain Talk. He's a former state lawmaker and candidate for the Cass County Commission, facing off against Tony Grindberg, who is another former state lawmaker. His race won't be settled by approval voting, but he lives in Fargo where approval voting is used for local races. Fargo has a lot of candidates running for mayor and the city commissi...

"We all take it for granted," says Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, talking about energy that's reliably available and cost effective. She's running for the Public Service Commission, and she's the incumbent, only not really. She was appointed to the PSC by Gov. Doug Burgum a couple of months ago to replace Brian Kroshus who is now the Tax Commissioner. She's new to the job, in other words, though not to the...

I'm a baseball nerd. And a political nerd. And as a person with a foot in both of those worlds, I can say that there's a lot of overlap between the two. There's just something about baseball that appeals to people who are also deeply interested in politics. Anyway, today is opening day for baseball, so on this episode of Plain Talk, three political nerds - Congressman Kelly Armstrong, my frequent...

Minot, N.D. — "I would not vote for Nancy Pelosi" to be Speaker of the House. So says Mark Haugen, who received the North Dakota Democratic-NPL's endorsement at their state convention in Minot last month , and is currently running unopposed in the primary. He's far from a cookie-cutter progressive candidate for the Dems. He's pro-life, for one, at a time when it's hard to find any Democrats anywhe...

After all the Sturm und Drang, all the attack ads and recriminations, incumbent Senator John Hoeven bested Rick Becker in the North Dakota Republican Party's Senate primary. On this Plain Talk, Chad Oban and I wrap up what happened, and talked about what it might mean for the NDGOP and North Dakota politics going forward.

"The problem we've gotten into are the tactics being used," says former North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer. Schafer will be delivering a speech at what is expected to be an NDGOP state convention marked by factionalism and resentments, and his hope is to inspire delegates to find a sense of unity. This year marks the 30 year anniversary of Schafer's election, which ushered in the era of Republican d...

"There are some problems within the Democratic party in North Dakota that we need to fix." That's according to Trygve Hammer, a Marine veteran from Velva who just accepted the Democratic-NPL's endorsement to campaign for a seat on the Public Service Commission. He spoke about his candidacy on this episode of Plain Talk - he'll be running against Republican Sheri Haugen-Hoffart who was just appoint...