North Dakota
At issue in a Billings County bridge dispute: When is a written promise not a promise?
MEDORA, N.D. — Dave Short stood on a high bluff and pointed down below to a stake driven into the ground on his family’s ranch along the Little Missouri River — a guidepost for bulldozers.
The stake on the valley floor marks the path of a proposed road that would lead to a bridge Billings County wants to build over the river deep in the heart of the Badlands.
Next, he pointed to a knob jutting from the top of the butte, a landmark that also lies along the path of the bridge a project backer once said would carry a thousand oil trucks a day on a road less than a mile from his family’s ranch headquarters.
Patrick Springer / The Forum
“That whole butte would be torn off,” Short said. Dust from traffic over the gravel road would force the Shorts to move their cattle feedlot to a new location. The road for the bridge would sever the ranch headquarters from the rest of the family’s sprawling land.
“We don’t want that road,” he said. “We don’t want that road for anything, and all that traffic across the flat, and all the dust covering everything. In the dry years, it’ll look apocalyptic.”
The Short family’s fight to save its land could depend on a legal question of whether a county commission’s agreement to surrender its eminent domain authority can bind a future commission — or, put another way, when is a written promise not a binding promise?
The ranch has been in the Short family for more than a century, when the family started ranching in 1904, during homesteading and the end of the open range ranching era.
Horse herds used to graze the plateau, where breezes helped keep away the flies. Trails created by the horses still etch the pasture with a trail leading to the craggy butte sculpted from the high plain.
The remote Short ranch, a few miles south of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch, now a unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, is quiet, with the rugged beauty of the Badlands left mostly undisturbed.
“That is why we’re trying to protect the ranch,” Short said. “The Short family has always been no-build. Leave this country the way it is.”
‘Least damaging’ location
For decades, Billings County has wanted a crossing over the Little Missouri River between the Long X Bridge, south of Watford City in McKenzie County, and the Interstate 94 bridge at Medora.
The gap between bridges means motorists can have to drive more than 70 miles to cross the river or take their chances during low river levels.
Billings County officials contend a bridge is needed for public safety, to allow faster emergency response, as well as for the convenience of ranchers, commercial traffic and tourists.
Patrick Springer / The Forum
The Short family counters, however, that there is no need for a costly bridge to serve sparsely populated Billings County, which has 1,043 residents, according to census figures. The vast majority of those reside south of Medora, Short said.
“There is no one out there to connect or benefit from it,” he said. “There’s less than 25 people north of Medora.”
The county’s quest for a bridge gained impetus after the oil boom in the early 2000s. At first, the county proposed a crossing near the historic Elkhorn Ranch in 2006 but abandoned that location after a public outcry.
An environmental review by the Federal Highway Administration examined multiple possible bridge locations and in 2019 chose the site on the Short ranch, which federal officials concluded was the “least damaging practicable alternative.”
“It’s not Billings County that’s choosing where this bridge goes,” said Tami Norgard, a lawyer for the county. “It’s the Federal Highway Administration.”
In April 2020, the Billings County Commission, acting on an agenda item described only as “eminent domain,” passed a resolution approving the use of eminent domain for the bridge project.
But the county’s plans to use eminent domain to take land for the bridge from the Shorts was derailed in the 2020 election, when Jim Arthaud, a leading bridge proponent on the Billings County Commission, was defeated.
In his place, voters elected Dean Rodne, an opponent of using eminent domain to take private land. Commissioner Mike Kasian, who earlier supported using eminent domain for the bridge, changed his mind and joined Rodne in opposing eminent domain.
With two of its three commissioners opposed to taking private land for the bridge, the Short family and Billings County signed a settlement agreement, with the Shorts signing in late July and the commissioners in August 2021. The county would look elsewhere for a river crossing.
In exchange for the county’s promise not to use eminent domain on Short family land for the bridge, the Shorts agreed to dismiss two lawsuits challenging placement of the bridge on their land.
Then, a new pro-eminent domain commission resulted when Steven Klym defeated Kasian in 2022.
After concluding there wasn’t a viable alternative, the new commission majority decided to ignore the agreement signed the year before by the former commission — meaning the Short ranch was once again in the crosshairs of the long-sought bridge.
The county offered the Shorts $20,000 per acre for permanent easements, an offer the family rejected, saying it had no interest in selling any land.
Billings County then exercised an eminent domain provision under North Dakota law called “quick take” that allows it to deposit money for land it has deemed necessary for a public project.
In August 2023, Billings County deposited three checks totaling $52,371 with the clerk of courts, allowing it to take possession of a strip of the Short Ranch.
And, once again, the Shorts were back in court. Because an appeal couldn’t stop the county from proceeding with construction on land it owned, the Shorts filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Bismarck arguing that their constitutional rights were violated.
“The County has gone back on its word, torn up a contract it had agreed to, and taken concrete steps toward condemning the Short Ranch,” the lawsuit said.
In rebuttal, the county argued its lawyers made clear before the agreement was signed that the commission that signed the agreement couldn’t bind a future county commission.
Arguing that bulldozing the buttes to create a road path leading to the bridge would cause “irreparable harm,” the Shorts asked a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction blocking construction until the legal dispute is decided.
“The County’s attempt to take the Shorts’ property will irreparably harm this beauty, forever changing the largely untouched landscape of the Shorts’ property,” the lawsuit said.
The Shorts’ lawyers took the case to federal court because, under North Dakota’s quick-take eminent domain law, a legal challenge in state court cannot block construction even if the dispute hasn’t been decided.
The ability of the state and its subdivisions to take land even before a court has heard challenges gives the state immense power over private landowners, Short said.
“I think most North Dakotans don’t realize the government has that sort of authority,” he said.
Derrick Braaten, a lawyer who represents the Shorts, said governments are increasingly using their power to acquire land through quick take.
“There’s no limit on when they can use it,” he said.
Tim Purdon, another lawyer for the Shorts, added, “It short circuits due process procedures,” with an expedited process that diminishes a landowner’s right to be heard.
‘A contract says what it says’
The crux of the Shorts’ federal court challenge is a claim that the Billings County Commission’s decision to ignore the settlement agreement signed by a previous commission constitutes a breach of contract.
Patrick Springer / The Forum
But the county argues that under case law one commission cannot “surrender” its “sovereign eminent domain authority through agreement with a landowner.”
Norgard explained her assertion of the inability of one commission to bind a future commission by giving up its eminent domain authority in the commission’s regular meeting on July 6, 2021, several weeks before the Shorts and commissioners signed the agreement, according to minutes for the meeting.
Sandra Short, the family matriarch, and her daughter, Sarah Sarbacker, were present at the meeting, according to the minutes.
Precedents upholding the inability of one commission to bind a future commission are a matter of “black letter law,” a position the county argues is well supported, adding it is “the consensus among jurisdictions that the right of eminent domain cannot be contracted away or restricted.”
But lawyers for the Shorts argue the signed settlement agreement is a contract that must be upheld.
“In the law, a contract says what it says” and cannot be modified by “oral side deals,” Purdon said.
“Contracts dealing with real estate have to be in writing,” he said, adding the signed agreement does not include a provision for the county to reconsider. “It doesn’t say the county can change its mind later.”
U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor issued a preliminary injunction to bar construction before the dispute is decided.
“The record establishes a probability of success on the merits of the Shorts’ breach of contract claim,” Traynor wrote in his decision. “The Shorts entered into a settlement agreement with the then-Billings County Board of Commissioners.”
The judge added that the commission’s rescission of the agreement after the election is “contrary to the plain language of the Settlement Agreement.”
Billings County is appealing Traynor’s order to the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
‘We just want to be left alone’
The Short ranch has been in the family since 1904. Hugh Connorran Short was a land salesman for the Northern Pacific Railway, whose work took him to Billings County.
He liked the area and bought out a horse ranch. The Shorts continued raising horses but later switched to cattle.
During hard times, the Shorts were forced to sell some land but managed to rebuild the ranch, which now sprawls over 3,000 acres. Another branch of the Short family owns an adjacent 3,500-acre ranch.
Donald Levingston Short, who represented North Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1965, lived on the ranch his entire 78 years. He was Dave Short’s grandfather and Sandra Short’s father-in-law.
Contributed / Short family
The family is trying to have the ranch, which occupies a scenic valley of the Little Missouri River for 12 miles, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ranch has a dozen buildings, including three original log cabins.
When Hugh Short started ranching, he qualified as a big rancher as of the end of the open range era, with herds of 500 horses, which he sold to buy 1,000 head of cattle. During the heyday of the open range, in the 1880s, a big ranch had between 10,000 and 25,000 head of cattle.
During a severe drought in the late 1970s, the Shorts sold their cattle. Dave Short, whose father was afflicted with disabling arthritis, sought opportunities off the ranch after graduating from high school and found a career in heavy equipment sales.
For more than 30 years, the ranch has been run by tenant ranchers, but the family is preparing to resume operations, likely in partnership with another rancher, Dave Short said.
Although absentee owners, the Shorts have allowed hunting on their land and take their stewardship role seriously.
“The spectacular land is what I’m fighting for,” Dave Short said, pointing to majestic buttes, banded by varicolored layers of sediment, that dominate the austere landscape. “It’s personal. We just want to be left alone.”
Filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court
North Dakota
Shelly Frances, Minot, Chapter 7
Garrett Joseph Farnsworth, Bismarck, Chapter 7
Aaron James Goette, Horace, Chapter 13
Destinee L. Reed, Grand Forks, Chapter 7
LaWayne and Ruthanna Smith, Surrey, Chapter 13
Sabrina Marie Odegaard, formerly known as Sabrina Marie Wagner, Dickinson, Chapter 7
Krysti Mae Bench, formerly known as Krysti Mae Gainey, Fargo, Chaper 7
Tera Carleen Geyer, formerly known as Tera Dutchak, Dickinson, Chapter 7
Heath Alan Schaffer, LaMoure, Chapter 7
Nicholas Duane Noel, Fargo, Chapter 13
Jason Walter Lautt, Jamestown, Chapter 7
Bryan Lee Drinkman, Grand Forks, Chapter 7
Melia Kay Thompson, Grand Forks, Chapter 7
Roger Pelzer, Minot, Chapter 13
Jason Valentine and Amy Marie Keller, Bismarck, Chapter 13
Jaden Allen McGregor, Horace, Chapter 13
Rodney John and Jennifer Rebecca Brown, Williston, Chapter 13
Kayden Michelle Pavlicek, Dunn Center, Chapter 13
Minnesota
Bankruptcy filings from the following counties: Becker, Clay, Douglas, Grant, Hubbard, Mahnomen, Norman, Otter Tail, Polk, Traverse, Wadena and Wilkin.
Tyler Erick Nelson and Lisa Ann Nelson, formerly known as Lisa Costello, Dilworth, Chapter 13
Ethan Kenneth Edwards and Katherine Elizabeth Edwards, formerly known as Katherine Thornsburry, Park Rapids, Chapter 7
Amber Rae Durkin, formerly known as Amber O’Beirne, and James Robert Durkin, Bemidji, Chapter 13
Sierra Jade Ileene Isum, East Grand Forks, Chapter 7
Elizabeth Charlotte Smith, also known as Betsy Smith, Ogema, Chapter 7
Rebecca Lacey and Matthew Ian Angell, Alexandria, Chapter 7
Chapter 7 is a petition to liquidate assets and discharge debts.
Chapter 11 is a petition for protection from creditors and to reorganize.
Chapter 12 is a petition for family farmers to reorganize.
Chapter 13 is a petition for wage earners to readjust debts.
Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.
FARGO — Terri Hedman has voted in North Dakota elections for 40 years, but during the coronavirus pandemic, she said she made the switch to mail-in and absentee ballots.
She’s cast her ballot at her south Fargo home ever since, she said, adding she appreciates the ease of voting ahead of the election.
“I’m a nurse. I like to plan ahead, and I like to make sure things are done,” she said. “I love the idea that I can vote and know that is a task that is completed.”
Hedman was one of 91,556 North Dakota voters who cast their ballots by mail or absentee in the 2024 general election. That made up 25% of the state’s votes that year, according to a Forum analysis of Secretary of State’s Office data.
Troy Becker / The Forum
“Vote by mail is critical for North Dakota,” Secretary of State Michael Howe said. “As a rural state, people can be hours away from a physical polling location. Voting by mail gives folks that option to vote.”
Another 27% cast their ballots during early in-person voting, meaning less than half of North Dakota voters went to the polls on Election Day in November 2024.
Cody Schuler, an advocacy manager for the ACLU in North Dakota, said he wasn’t surprised that mail-in and absentee voting have become more popular. Voting by mail offers many benefits, and people have many reasons for using that method, he said.
“That’s fantastic that people are exercising their right in a way that is easy and convenient for them,” he said in response to the 2024 numbers.
Absentee ballots can be requested 40 days before an election in North Dakota. Under a state law passed in 2025, mail-in and absentee ballots must be received by the county election office no later than the close of polls on Election Day.
That’s June 9 for the primary election and Nov. 3 for the general election this year.
Nearly 36,000 mail-in and absentee ballots have been sent to North Dakota voters as of Thursday, May 28, with 17,705 returned to election officials, according to state data. The state has 600,394 eligible voters, Howe said.
Of the state’s 53 counties, 34 are classified as vote-by-mail, meaning those counties automatically send out an application to eligible voters for mail-in ballots.
In the remaining 19 counties, voters must request ballots by mail.
North Dakota’s voting by mail process is “very secure,” Howe said. Voters have to prove that they have lived in North Dakota for 30 days prior to the election.
No one is sent a ballot unless a person applies for one, Howe said.
“Similarly, you are only mailed a ballot after identity verification,” he said.
Some counties depended on mail-in and absentee ballots much more than others, according to the Forum analysis. In McHenry County, 2,001 voters used the remote option, making up 72% of the county’s voters. Rolette County had the lowest rate of voting by mail or absentee with 11%, followed by Morton County (12%) and Cass County (13%).
Voting in person can be challenging, Schuler and Howe said. North Dakota law requires each county to have at least one polling place during elections, Howe said.
Nearly half of North Dakota’s counties only have one voting center, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Those polling places may be miles away, making it difficult for some to make it, Schuler said.
“We are a very rural state, and for many people, distance is an issue,” he said.
Eight counties allow early in-person voting up to two weeks before Election Day: Burleigh, Cass, Grand Forks, Morton, Sioux, Stark, Stutsman and Ward.
Early voting in Cass County runs 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 2-5 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 6.
Nine of Cass County’s 17 Election Day polling places are in the metro area. A Cass County resident who lives near Colgate, which sits on the Steele County border, has to drive 30 miles to the nearest polling place in Tower City to vote.
McHenry County’s lone polling place is Towner, which is about 50 miles east of Minot. The polling place is roughly 60 miles from the county’s southwest corner and 40 miles from Anamoose, a city of 212 people in the county’s southeast corner.
Many counties can’t have early voting or more than one polling place because they can’t find enough poll workers, Howe said.
“Each county is responsible for the cost of their election,” he said, adding counties have to pay poll worker wages and rent for polling places.
Voting is a fundamental right, Schuler said.
“Eligible voters should have as many opportunities and options to exercise that right as possible,” he said. “Mail-in voting is really an easy way to do that.”
‘Confident that my voice is heard’
Mail-in ballot voting has grown in North Dakota over the last decade, from 52,319 ballots, or about 21% of voters, in the 2014 general election to almost double the number of voters in 2024, according to state data.
Minnesota’s growth in absentee and mail-in voting grew more dramatically. Nearly 244,000 people, or 12% of voters, used the option in the 2014 general election, according to The Forum’s analysis of Minnesota data. That jumped to 41%, or 1.33 million voters, in the 2024 general election.
Voting by mail in the North Star State has inched up over the years, with the high mark coming in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said. More than 1.93 million voters, or 59%, cast their ballots by mail, according to his office.
“I think it reflects our flexible menu of ways that people can vote in Minnesota,” Simon said. “I think people like that accessibility and choice.”
About 39% of Clay County voters mailed in their ballots in the 2024 general election, according to Minnesota Secretary of State data.
Minnesota law allows townships and cities with fewer than 400 residents to forgo setting up a polling place and hold elections entirely by mail, Simon noted. Towns like it for the cost-savings, and residents in rural areas like the option of voting from home instead of having to drive miles to a voting center, he said.
“That’s something that more and more cities and townships have taken advantage of as well,” he said of mail-in only elections. “It’s gotten good reviews from people who just want to be able to vote with ease in a way that makes sense for their own lives.”
North Dakota held its 2020 primary election completely by mail in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Roughly 160,000 voted in that election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Months later, more than 185,000 North Dakotans, or 51% of the state’s voters, cast their ballots by mail, according to state data.
“I think that opened up a lot of people to experience voting by mail for the first time,” Howe said. “I think people liked the comfort of it and liked the convenience of it.”
Overall, Howe said North Dakota does well at offering voting choices.
“That’s the beauty of North Dakota elections,” he said. “North Dakotans have the choice to vote in a way that is most convenient to them.”
As a nurse, Hedman said emergencies can happen, including on Election Day, that call her attention away from tasks at hand. Being able to plan ahead makes voting easier, she said.
“This way, I feel confident that my voice is heard,” she said.
More information on voting in North Dakota, including absentee voting, can be found at
sos.nd.gov/elections/voter
. Voters also can find Minnesota information at
sos.mn.gov/elections-voting
.
A new North Dakota Department of Public Instruction survey seeks statewide feedback on potential changes to how students are using technology.
Superintendent Levi Bachmeier, who
took over the state’s top education role
in November, said he hopes the survey results will inform policymakers on potential reforms to school-issued device policies across the state. During his first student Cabinet meeting, he said a Mandan freshman told him the devices needed to be a “tool, not a toy.”
“The world that these young people are inheriting requires them to use technology responsibly, but we know that these devices are just as addictive as substances,” Bachmeier said during a press conference Thursday. “And that can be just as true for the school-issued device in their hands as the cellphone they carry around in their pocket.”
North Dakota
banned the use of cellphones
during the school day during the 2025 legislative session, something Bachmeier said has received a near universal
positive response
during its first year in effect.
The cellphone ban triggered a migration of some students from using their cellphones to access YouTube and other social media sites to using their school-issued laptops or tablets, Bachmeier said.
The
survey
includes questions about restrictions on device usage in elementary school, a potential prohibition on taking devices home, built-in make-up days into school scheduling before using virtual instruction and whether the state should require districts to use monitoring software on the devices.
He added that some school districts already have monitoring software that tracks student technology usage, but it is not a uniform policy.
“It’s inconsistent,” Bachmeier said. “Our challenge is how do we find what’s the best that is going on in North Dakota and make that a reality for every student in our state.”
Sen. Michelle Axtman, R-Bismarck, a lawmaker who sponsored multiple education bills during the 2025 legislative session, said any potential reforms to technology policies should enhance instruction, support learning and allow students to develop interpersonal and critical-thinking skills.
“This effort today is not about eliminating technology from education,” Axtman said. “It’s about ensuring that technology serves learning rather than competes with it.”
Axtman said any potential changes to school device policies could be proposed during the 2027 legislative session and be implemented for the 2027-28 school year.
“By working towards clear statewide expectations for school-issued device use, we will help schools create learning environments that are more focused, more productive and healthier for students,” she said.
The
survey
can be filled out by any North Dakota student, parent, educator or community member through Aug. 1.
This story was originally published on NorthDakotaMonitor.com.
____________________________________
This story was written by one of our partner news agencies. Forum Communications Company uses content from agencies such as Reuters, Kaiser Health News, Tribune News Service and others to provide a wider range of news to our readers. Learn more about the news services FCC uses here.
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