Sign North Dakota Permission Slip Myself

Document type sign permission slip north dakota myself

our duck speaker will share some information with you about one of the ballot measures this fall in North Dakota Jeff Simon is executive director of the Western Dakota Energy Association which represents cities counties and school districts in the oil gas and coal producing counties Jeff is chairman of a coalition called North Dakotans for sound government a group of business and energy companies including the lignite Energy Council that is urging the citizens to vote no on measure 1 please welcome Jeff Simon thanks for death and reduction Kevin we had a chance to chat a little briefly beforehand you know Kevin and I are both big global warming' fans so we had a chance to catch up a little bit on some of the latest that's going around you know I tend to be a little bit of a joker sometimes but this is a very serious issue I want to talk to you about today you know this measure one has been billed as an anti-corruption measure and for a time you know the the standard school of thought was this is a slam dunk it's gonna pass easily until the greater North Dakota chamber held its policy summit in the middle of August and one of the reasons I think you should probably vote no on this is the fact that the greater North Dakota chamber had a hard time finding someone actually willing to speak against an anti-corruption measure this thing is fraught with all sorts of problems and I'm gonna go through them with you but I mean the fact that it it would tend to stifle free speech that's the real concern about this measure as I say there's probably about a dozen good reasons to vote no on this I'm gonna go through a few of them first thing off this is a constitutional measure and enactments like this really don't belong in the state constitution this measure contains about 1,400 words the purpose of the Constitution the way I think about it is to establish you know some basic principles not overly prescriptive kinds of things this is more like legislation and the problem with it is because it's a constitutional measure if it should pass the legislature has no power to fix all these problems that that are within it so I'm gonna start going through those with you first up you know I said as a build as a as an anti-corruption measure which you know sort of kind of sucks you in nobody's in favor of corruption right but here's the thing most of the money behind this measure came from out of state money I mean it's out of state and special interest groups that put all the money into this only four thousand two hundred and fifty dollars has come from North Dakota citizens in us they've gotten over a half a million dollars in how to state special interest money much of it from represent us which is an organization that generally promotes measures that regulate political speech and the fact of the matter is when you try to regulate speech you tend to discourage that speech so what's uh what's the problem here the proponents of this measure claim that they have a right to know who's spending money to influence our elections well we already require political candidates to file campaign finance disclosure any amounts over two hundred dollars they're reported so you know we would kind of tend to know who's influencing that election ballot measures we have a right to know who's spending money there well yeah we have a law on the books already any contributions over 100 dollars to ballot measure committees have to be reported to the Secretary of State's office and it's disclosable that's available online the ironic thing about this this measure because it actually it would actually raise that limit to $200 and you know we wouldn't know like for example when we relaxed those reporting requirements right now any out-of-state contributions from organizations like represent us have to be disclosed as well the individual contributors so these are some of the individual contributors who help get this on the ballot now you got to ask yourself what does Tyler Perry care about policymaking in North Dakota but you just need to know that a lot of the money that got this measure on the ballot came from these out-of-state groups so the first amendment thing I mentioned I call it an attack on on the first amendment actually I called it a solution in search of a problem as well this is a kind of paraphrased it's a big long sentence in section 1.2 of the measure that describes who has to disclose their contributions so if you look at the plain language of that it would require public disclosure of the ultimate and true source of funds spent in any amount greater than $200 in any medium to lobby or otherwise influence government action so that means anybody who engages in public policy has to report that so but the problem with that is if you look at the language of the measure here oops went back one too far there are no exceptions right now lobbyists have to file expense reports so we you know we know lobbyists have to disclose anything that's valued at more than $60 that's given to a public official but this would pull in all kinds of people private citizens if you if you live out of town you drive to miss Bismarck to testify on a bill or to appear at a PSC hearing or any board or state commission or even if you're involved in some type of public-private partnership if you have a state contract for something like that you're you're in the process of influencing public policy the language is so broad that it would encompass all sorts of people for example all the trade unions any member of a union the unions employ lobbyists the unions would have to disclose the names of their contributors their names the names of their members and the amount that they've contributed charitable organizations would have to report their donors this is so extremely broad that it would even include churches churches do a lot of social service work in partnership with state government so they're attempting to influence state government action as well so can you imagine churches would be required to disclose the names and addresses of their parishioners and how much they put in the collection plate that's exactly that's just how extreme this measure actually is it's so bad you probably heard this last week the American Civil Liberties Union which is generally viewed as a left-leaning organization has come out on record in opposition to this measure as well because it the ACLU believes this is an affront to freedom of speech the thing of it is when you're forced to disclose those sorts of things it tends to discourage your participation you're you're you know a little bit afraid about maybe having your name disclosed and maybe being subject to harassment there's an example of that in our history if you look at the n-double-a-cp ruling of 1958 lost the slide anyway the n-double-a-cp in 1958 had a case with the state of Alabama the the state of Alabama actually demanded that the n-double-a-cp disclose its member lists so can you imagine 1958 the civil rights movement is happening out there and all of a sudden the n-double-a-cp is being asked to disclose its members and what would they be subjected to harassment intimidation or even worse the Supreme Court took a look at that case and it ruled unanimously that the government could not force groups to disclose their lists you know on that basis I think section 1.2 of measure 1 would ultimately be found unconstitutional if it were challenged and I suspect if this measure somehow passes that it would be found unconstitutional in that action or that litigation would happen here's the other thing it sets up basically a new branch of government it creates an Ethics Commission basically a new unaccountable bureaucracy it it's a five-member Commission and it would apply to people at all levels of state government boards commissions some of those are volunteer boards and commissions but it would affect all those public officials the problem with that again there's really no direction provided the the measure provides no limits to its authority the Commission could even write its own rule which as you know administrative rules have the same effect as law and you know the thing that really bothers me about this you know we talk about corruption and I've asked the proponents we've asked the proponents of this measure the people who put it on the ballot what are you trying to fix where is the problem where is the corruption and generally speaking we just kind of get blank stares they really haven't specifically identified it they just say it's kind of well it's out there and you know I mean it suggests to me that this is just more or less a field would measure they put it on the ballot to do something but it could create like total havoc on our system and I'll tell you why so the Ethics Commission includes a provision for an anonymous hotline so you can call in or write an anonymous letter submit a tip about some type of unethical behavior well you know sometimes you don't want to necessarily have your name published but the problem with this measure here is our state constitution isn't going to allow the allegations that are submitted to the Commission to remain confidential the person might remain confidential but because we have open meeting and open records laws those allegations are going to be made public now can you imagine what happens if I mean you've seen the the Brett Kavanaugh hearings these allegations may be true may not be true but imagine if a candidate a week or two out from an election suddenly is accused of oh I don't know associating with a drug dealer then that's the accusation that falls in front of the Commission well now they have the power to investigate that but also the media has a opportunity to demand disclosure of that well you know we don't want the politicians hanging out with drug dealers and it could you know ultimately influence the outcome of that election and then later on it turns out oh that candidate was actually just meeting with a pharmacist you know I mean those that's that's maybe a kind of a silly example but those are the kinds of gamesmanship you know people could use this for partisan advantage it you know you could throw all kinds of crazy allegations in front of this Ethics Commission I mentioned at the outset this is a constitutional measure the proponents claim you know it's not their intent that some of these ill consequences happen but the fact of the matter is the legislature can't fix this I mean the the language is what it is the words are what they are and because it also provides for the opportunity for a citizen lawsuit you can almost guarantee that some of these things are going to happen because if they don't you know the legislature will be compelled to by a citizen lawsuit the language of the measure as you can see there the underlined language says that the legislature may not hamper restrict or in any way impair implementation of this article it could broaden it potentially but it cannot in any way contain it or restrict it in any way here's another thing about this measure that really kind of bothers me it it's sort of I guess I'd say attempts to suck in the voters by putting in there all sorts of good ideas that are already in the law you know banning candidates from using campaign contributions for personal benefit banning foreign contributions you know if you look at even aliy use of campaign contributions it's prohibited here's the statute chapter 16 that's already in law candidates can't use their contributions for personal gain foreign contributions banned from elections yeah that's already in state law too so why do we need to put it in a constitutional measure on the ballot we've already got it again fixing something isn't broken these are good ideas and voters who read this I mean I've had people say well I've read through that I don't see any problem with this well I don't see any problem with that either you know we shouldn't have foreign contributions they say we need a new you know conflict of interest standards for state government employees we've got a definition of conflict of interest now if there's any way and making a decision a state employee can somehow stand to benefit from a decision they're obligated to recuse themselves or you know step of step aside and not participate in that decision-making process it's already in the law it also has these other provisions that ban lobbyists gifts private lobbyists from delivering campaign contributions bundling is the practice that we've called it and prohibits public officials from lobbying for at least two years after they've left public office you know what I find bad about this is you know it sort of kind of attempts to taint lobbying as something that you know shouldn't happen lobbyists are educators I mean we generally will explain to legislators both sides of an issue we're not just all that one-sided about it I don't think the legislative process would function without lobbyists we're essential to the process how else would they get information if you didn't have lobbyists there and it's an open and honest and transparent process now as I said lobbyists are compelled to file disclosure reports their expenditure reports have to be filed annually so if this was on the books how would that change it what would it what would it improve it I mean I don't we've got it we've got a good process now I don't think we need to mess around with it and you know here's the other the other concern this is the very last sentence of the measure it would override any other provisions in the Constitution with which it might conflict so there are other protections provided in in the state constitution you're guaranteed rights article 1 the Declaration of citizen rights government is basically there for the protection and security of its citizens so people own the government but it could potentially override that everybody is entitled to write and speak as they please this potentially overrides that because it would discourage your participation in the public policy process you'd suddenly have to write down how much you're spending and and where your income comes from and then send that to the government and then it's in a disclosable database anybody could look it up they're gonna have your address and they can come and you know protest at your house or egg your house or whatever it's it's just really a really a terribly bad idea people have the right to assemble peaceably to address their grievances it's these are the kinds of protections that could be overridden by this measure I think it's a you know it's a big concern so with that I think I'm gonna try to get us back on schedule and I would urge you to to vote no on measure one I'd also point out real quickly you can find a website it's called nd measure one the number one nd measure one comm is the website for North Dakotans for sound government and 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