Grand Forks Dems blast special session priorities, call for focus on families

Grand Forks Democrats who are running for office criticized North Dakota’s Republican-led Legislature as reactionary and called on lawmakers gathered for a special session to instead focus on helping families.

The full Legislature will meet starting Wednesday for a special session called by Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong to consider regulating kratom and related substances. 

State lawmakers last year considered two bills related to kratom and ultimately approved a bill that called for a study. But a committee of legislative leaders chose not to pursue the study.

Armstrong in August declared a public health emergency, citing in part recent deaths linked to kratom and similar substances.

North Dakota Legislature prepares for second special session this year

Democrats during a news conference Tuesday said state leaders waited for kratom to become a crisis before acting.

“Now our legislators are scrambling to write legislation and policy on a drug that they could have spent the last year-plus researching, but they chose not to,” said Katie Benton, who’s running for District 17 Senate.

Republican lawmakers said during recent discussions of a Kratom Working Group that a lot of new information has come to light about kratom and similar substances since the last session.

Benton also blasted Republican legislative leaders for proposing a $35 million line of credit for the stalled Military Gallery construction project without first investigating why construction on the building started without the necessary private funding.

“This supermajority doesn’t govern by planning. It governs by crisis, and it’s costing North Dakotans in money, in stress, and in feeling ignored,” she said.

District 42 House candidate Nicole Derenne said lawmakers should have advanced a bill related to childcare funding for the special session. A bill sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, proposed $9 million in state funding to get some of the neediest families off of a growing waitlist for childcare assistance. A legislative committee in a split vote did not advance the proposal to the special session.

“We are calling on the Legislature to take up this bipartisan bill and provide emergency funding for the childcare assistance program to move families off the wait list,” Derenne said.

No pause on data centers but North Dakota special session to debate nondisclosure deals

Tyler York, a candidate for District 43 House, questioned why lawmakers aren’t doing more to address a housing shortage.

“This week’s special session proves the state government can move quickly when leaders decide something is urgent,” York said. “So why is housing not treated as urgent?”

York also called for a pause of data center development to give the state time to develop base guidelines while preserving counties’ ability to adapt stronger rules. 

A legislative committee is studying data centers and artificial intelligence ahead of the January regular session, but legislative leaders rejected a proposal for the special session to consider a data center moratorium. Lawmakers will debate this week a temporary pause on nondisclosure agreements for data centers and other industrial development.

Republicans hold all but 11 seats in the North Dakota House and five seats in the Senate. All statewide offices are held by Republicans.