Legislative leaders to discuss ethics rules after guilty verdict

House Majority Leader Mike Lefor said it may be time for the Legislature to work with the Ethics Commission to clarify North Dakota’s ethics regulations after the Friday conviction of a state lawmaker of a conflict-of-interest misdemeanor.

“My thought is that I think it’s important for us to revisit Century Code, legislative rules and have a thoughtful, positive discussion with the Ethics Commission,” Lefor said. “Because I don’t think voting on a bill should rise to the level of a criminal act.”

Rep. Jason Dockter, R-Bismarck, was found guilty of voting on legislation he had a financial interest in. Lefor said Monday he disagrees with the verdict. House Minority Leader Zac Ista called for Dockter’s resignation.

Jury finds Rep. Dockter guilty of misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge

The financial interest in question involved a lease of a Bismarck building Dockter helped facilitate with the Attorney General’s Office in 2020. At the time, the building was already leased to the Department of Health. A company Dockter partly owns later bought the property and  acquired both leases. Dockter later voted on the Attorney General’s Office and Department of Health budgets.

North Dakota’s tangle of ethics regulations, most of which are rarely used, was complicated to explain during a trial before a 12-person jury last week.

Dockter was charged under a statute that says an official is guilty of a misdemeanor “if as a public servant he takes official action which is likely to benefit him as a result of an acquisition of a pecuniary interest in any property, transaction, or enterprise, or of a speculation or wager, which he made, or caused or aided another to make, in contemplation of such official action.”

The statute is 49 years old, according to Lloyd Suhr, Dockter’s attorney. To Suhr’s knowledge, Dockter is the first to be charged under it.

While some attorney general opinions mention the statute, there hasn’t been any formal judicial review of the law by the North Dakota Supreme Court, Suhr said.

“What I can tell you is that this is a very untested, and I think poorly written, statute with a lot of review that’s yet to happen,” he said.

In a Monday interview with Joel Heitkmap, a commentator for KFGO radio, prosecuting attorney Ladd Erickson said he also had some reservations about the statute. Erickson did not return a request for comment by the North Dakota Monitor by publication.

“This one could have gone either way with the jury,” Erickson, state’s attorney for McLean County, told Heitkamp. “I don’t think the jury verdict is an indication of whether a charging decision was ultimately right or wrong.”

He said he did not take the decision to charge Dockter lightly. Because he could not find case law on the statute, he was worried about applying the statute incorrectly.

Erickson ultimately looked to the Legislature’s in-house ethics regulations for guidance.

“I used the legislative rules that they imposed on themselves for how they handle conflicts, and I didn’t feel that those were followed,” he said.

The House and Senate both have rules that hold that a conflict of interest is only present if a lawmaker is voting on legislation that affects them “directly, individually, uniquely, and substantially.” This clause dates back to the early 1980s, the North Dakota Monitor reported previously.

John Bjornson, director of Legislative Council, said during the trial that the Legislature generally interprets this provision to mean that lawmakers should only consider recusing if they’re voting on legislation that is specially designed to benefit them and no one else.

But this is practically unheard of; Bjornson said he can’t recall a time when a North Dakota lawmaker has ever been recused from voting because of a conflict. 

Dem-NPL leader calls on Bismarck lawmaker to resign after guilty verdict

Rep. Emily O’Brien, R-Grand Forks, testified that, in her opinion, Dockter hadn’t violated the ethics rule. Erickson argued he did.

The Ethics Commission has provided some training to lawmakers on how to apply conflict of interest rules, but has also recommended that the Legislature flesh out its policies. The Ethics Commission in a 2023 advisory opinion said that there were some areas where the Legislature’s conflict rules were not up to the commission’s standards.

In March, Bjornson and Binstock told the North Dakota Monitor that the Ethics Commission and Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee would work together to bring the rules into harmony.

Erickson in his closing argument on Friday told the jury that the House and Senate rules ultimately didn’t matter, and that they should make their decision solely on the jury instructions read by South Central Judicial District Judge Bobbi Weiler, which closely mirrored the language of the statute.

Weiler did not sentence Dockter on Friday. Erickson told Heitkamp he won’t advocate for jail time and he doesn’t think the conviction should go on Dockter’s permanent record.

Suhr, Dockter’s attorney, told the North Dakota Monitor on Monday that the representative has not yet made a decision on whether to appeal.