BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - North Dakota’s Legislature is headed down the session’s home stretch, but first must find consensus on a host of spending plans and other last-minute measures.
May 1 is the adjournment deadline this session, but lawmakers hope to be finished 10 days earlier to give themselves a cushion if they need to react to any continuing declines in state revenue or federal policy changes.
Most of the Legislature’s remaining time will be in conference committees to reconcile differing versions of bills endorsed in both chambers.
North Dakota’s Legislature opened the session in January with more than 800 bills. As of Friday, Gov. Doug Burgum had signed 210 into law.
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BUDGET PROGRESS
Budget writers continue struggling to adopt a balanced budget for the next two-year budget cycle. The most recent estimates are that revenues in the next two-year cycle will fall nearly $500 million short of the proposed $4.3 billion spending plan for the general fund, which is financed mostly by taxes on sales, income and energy.
Senate and House appropriation leaders say they each have less than a dozen agency bills to deal with this session - but they are the biggest budgets that include higher education, transportation, and health and human services.
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LEGISLATIVE FRICTION
Policy friction is commonplace between both houses of the GOP-controlled Legislature. The most recent example came after Burgum vetoed a bill limiting a governor’s ability to set salary bonuses for staff.
The Senate voted 33-13 on Thursday to sustain Burgum’s veto, a day after the House voted 84-7 to override him.
Burgum won his first veto fight with the Legislature by arguing the legislation improperly infringes on the executive branch.
Legislators easily passed the measure this session in response to then-Gov. Jack Dalrymple’s approval of nearly $100,000 in retention bonuses for five staffers in 2015.
House members held to their guns after the veto but senators had second thoughts. Many representatives grumbled that senators buckled to the new governor after he called and sent messages urging them not to override. Burgum, who is rarely seen in the halls of the Capitol, also stood outside the Senate chambers making his last-minute pitch to lawmakers.
Senators said the governor makes a good point that he and future governors shouldn’t be held accountable for the actions of a predecessor.
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“ANDREW’S LAW”
It’s been nearly three years since the body of 20-year-old North Dakota college student Andrew Sadek was found in a river. He had been shot in the head, and his death raised questions about the use of young, low-level drug offenders as confidential informants.
Sadek had been working for a regional drug task force before he died, after getting into trouble for small marijuana crimes.
His parents, Tammy and John Sadek, say potential informants should be better informed of their legal options to understand the risks they may be taking.
A House bill named “Andrew’s Law” that unanimously passed last month attempted to do that. The Senate version was rewritten and passed through the use of a so-called hog-house amendment that erases an existing bill and rewrites it. By doing so, the public can’t comment on the proposal because hearings already have been held on the original measure.
The Sadeks say the Senate version was gutted of its intent and they are upset.
A conference committee will attempt to reconcile both versions of the bill, likely this week.
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MEDICAL MARIJUANA
Besides budget writers, members of the House Human Services Committee are among the most exhausted-looking people at the Capitol.
The committee spent most of last week going line-by-line through an 82-page bill on how medical marijuana would be overseen in the state. The North Dakota Senate passed it last month by more than the needed two-thirds majority to amend the citizen initiative.
GOP Committee Chairman Rep. Robin Weisz said more than 40 amendments were made to the Senate version of the bill, in part to appease backers of the initiative. But those backers say they still aren’t happy with the proposed regulations and are threatening another citizen initiative if the current bill stands.
The House is expected to vote on the bill early this week. It will then go back to the Senate. If senators do not agree with the changes, it will head to a conference committee.
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