BISMARCK — The North Dakota House of Representatives on Friday, April 18, passed a number of changes to campaign finance disclosures.

Senate Bill 2156 was introduced by Sen. Sean Cleary, R-Bismarck, but has been amended by both the Senate and House since its introduction.

The version passed by the House solidifies reporting deadlines for political candidates, district parties and committees so they are based on dates — May 1, Oct. 1, and Jan. 1 — instead of a certain number of days before or after an election, with the exception of special elections.

It also raises the bar for when a contributor must be disclosed by a political candidate from those who donated $200 to those who have donated over $250 in aggregate during a reporting period. However, it makes it so the contributor no longer needs to be identified by their name and full address. Instead, they simply need to be identified by name, city and state.

The bill adds two new expenditure categories that can be used in reports — political donations and volunteer appreciation — and it changes fines for failing to submit a financial report on time. The fines for missing the first two deadlines were unchanged from Century Code, but the fine for filing over 11 days late would be raised by $300.

Candidates who file up to six days late would be fined $25; those who file between six and 11 days late would face a $50 fine; and filings more than 11 days late would result in a $500 fine.

The fine increase adopted by the House is less severe than the $100, $200 and $500 fines for failing to file on time passed by the Senate, and far less severe than the $100, $500 and $1,000 fines proposed originally by Cleary.

Rep. Vicky Steiner, R-Dickinson, said information on those who fail to pay their fines would be made publicly available as part of an incoming update to the Secretary of State’s website.

“We thought, ‘If there’s public disclosure, perhaps there would be pressure for that person to pay their fine,” Steiner said.

The changes to the reporting system would take effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

“This is going to make things much easier for us filers, much easier for contributors, and most importantly, easier for the public to look at our system that I believe is antiquated,” Rep. Scott Louser, R-Minot, said on the floor.

The bill passed the House in a 85-5 vote. It previously passed the Senate with a unanimous 45-0 vote. It now goes back to the Senate for a vote of concurrence. Louser indicated on the House floor that the bill would likely be going to a conference committee.

BISMARCK — While one North Dakota lawmaker’s vacation made recent headlines, a deeper look shows that more than half of the state’s legislators have missed time this session — absences for which taxpayers are footing the bill.

Rep. Lori VanWinkle, R-Minot, has been the subject of criticism this week for her

week-long absence to go on a family vacation

during session, but even after missing a week, she does not have the most absences in

the Legislature.

According to a report from North Dakota’s Legislative Council, 85 of 141 legislators have missed at least one day so far this session. There have been 195 total absences as of April 17, costing North Dakota taxpayers $41,535 in per-diem payments to absent legislators.

Those who have been absent most often this session say they were not on vacation. They had work, or medical and familial emergencies and obligations — with one exception.

VanWinkle missed seven of the 64 days of session bu April 17, making her the legislator with the third most absences this session.

Five of those days were taken to go on a family vacation

that House leadership said she did not inform them of beforehand. VanWinkle contested this, saying she did inform leadership.

VanWinkle said that she was singled out for her trip while other legislators did not receive the same level of scrutiny for their absences.

“I would suggest — if we’re really thinking that I have missed some sort of exorbitant number of days compared to everybody else — we should do an audit of absences, and that would probably be very appropriate to find out how atrocious my absences actually are in the greater realm of of everybody else’s,” she said Monday.

Rep. Landon Bahl, R-Grand Forks, has missed the most time of any lawmaker this session, with 10 absent days so far, according to the Legislative Council report on absences.

He said his absences are largely due to work. Bahl said he believes his district understands because it has a large number of business owners who want a “certain kind of representation.”

“I’m the vice president and COO of 322 Hospitality Group,” Bahl said. “So most of the time I will go back to Grand Forks to really touch base with leadership because we have eight different entities. … I’m constantly emailing and bouncing back and forth, because that’s my job. This is a part-time citizen Legislature.”

Bahl is the only representative besides VanWinkle to miss a full week of the session. He said he missed the week to travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the rights of fraternities and sororities in his capacity as a board member of the Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.

“I wasn’t skiing, as much as I love skiing,” Bahl said. “That would have been fun to be skiing, but I was in D.C. However, I will admit, it did feel like kind of a vacation, to be honest.”

Bahl said “99%” of the time he has alerted the House majority leader and the speaker of the House when he will be absent so they can prepare for it, and while he would not retroactively forgo his pay for days he already missed, he “absolutely” would in the future.

He suggested the Legislature look at instituting a rule for next session that lawmakers would not receive pay if they missed a day and were not sick.

Rep. Jayme Davis, D-Rolette, missed the second most time so far this session, with nine days absent.

She said she missed nearly a week of the session because of her father’s death and had to miss some Fridays to drive back to Rollette to pick up her mother, who has Parkinson’s disease, and drive her back to Bismarck for medical appointments.

She said none of her absences were for a vacation and that she communicated with leadership in advance of her absences.

“As much as I want a vacation, no,” Davis said. “I’m here to do a job I was elected to do, and so, unless it’s literally life or death, that’s probably the only reason why I would miss.”

She said the legislators were “all adults” and should be able to make their own decisions but added that elected officials should not be paid to be on vacation.

“You have 80 days. We know that,” Davis said. “If you want to go on a vacation, it’s your choice. You’re going to have to answer to your constituents, right? But that’s also not something that our taxpayers should pay for, right?”

Rounding out the top five most absent legislators are Reps. Matthew Ruby, R-Minot, and Alisa Mitskog, D-Wahpeton, who both missed six days of the session to date. Both said they informed leadership ahead of their absences.

Ruby said he had a doctor’s appointment, National Guard duty and a son’s surgery to account for his days off.

Mitskog said she had never missed this many days of session before and felt bad about it. She missed days to attend some of her husband’s medical appointments in Fargo and Minneapolis. Mitskog said she wanted to be able to ask questions at his appointments. However, she said that her husband had just gotten out of an appointment Wednesday, which she had not joined him for because she felt she had missed too much session time already.

A respiratory infection earlier in the session and taking her mother to a medical appointment in Fargo account for her other absences.

Now deceased Rep. Josh Christy, R-Fargo, had 11 listed absences stemming from his hospitalization before his death on Feb. 18, 2025. His absences were not included in the number of total absences or the total amount of money due to absent legislators in this article.

There is a question on whether the legislative body can vote not to pay representatives for absences lawmakers feel are inexcusable.

There is a section of Century Code that says legislators are “entitled” to pay during legislative sessions regardless of their absence. However, there is a rule in both chambers going back before 1957 that states no legislator is entitled to “draw pay while absent more than one day without leave.”

This rule is likely why both chambers vote to excuse the absent members at the end of every day of session, Legislative Council Director John Bjornson said.

“Generally, the statute’s going to override a rule,” he said, but he noted Legislative Council would follow the direction of the presiding officers and majority leaders in each chamber if they asked Legislative Council to withhold pay for a representative.

He said Legislative Council received multiple inquiries Wednesday from legislators about forgoing pay for their absences, but no official requests had been submitted yet.

GRAND FORKS – Gov. Kelly Armstrong says North Dakota’s energy reserves gives it the power to push back against “liberal ideology” in the major tech firms that want to set up data centers in North Dakota.

Tech demand for North Dakota energy means the state can change tech companies’ attitudes toward fossil fuels, socially conscious investment and other issues that “started on Slack chats from employees in Silicon Valley,” Armstrong told attendees at an event at the University of North Dakota.

“We can help reset that narrative, because when they need you to make their next billion dollars in profits, their ideology will change real quick,” Armstrong said to the Grand Forks Herald when asked to clarify his comments.

Armstrong delivered a wide-ranging address to UND’s Memorial Union on Wednesday night before answering questions from students and Grand Forks residents.

He expressed concern about the decline of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights – protection from unreasonable searches and seizures – in the digital era and said people need to have more empathy and understanding for those who disagree with them.

“I’m going to let you in on a little-held view,” he said. “Fifty percent of the country isn’t evil, and 50% of the country isn’t stupid.”

Armstrong visited UND at the behest of the university’s chapter of Turning Point USA. The group’s national arm is well-known for its combative attitude against liberal or left-wing ideas, and advertises itself as empowering Americans to “rise up against the radical left.”

Asked about the group’s politics, Armstrong said he believes in respectful debate and that many of his best friends are liberals.

“I think it’s OK to fight for your ideology. I think how you do it is important,” he said.

Armstrong returned to North Dakota’s energy industry, particularly its oil and gas sector, throughout the evening, praising it for saving a “dying” western North Dakota.

He praised lignite coal as “cheap” and “reliable” and

alluded to long-considered plans

to sue Minnesota for its law requiring its energy suppliers to be 100% carbon-free by 2040.

“Right now, we’re suing them,” Armstrong said in his remarks. “They’re telling us how to produce the energy they need to keep the lights on in Minneapolis. My response? Just say ‘thank you, go produce your own.’”

Armstrong spokesperson Mike Nowatzki later told the Herald in a text message that North Dakota had not filed a lawsuit against its eastern neighbor, but “have warned (Minnesota) that its carbon-free standard is unlawful.”

Energy demand posed by artificial intelligence data center projects the state hopes to attract is expected to exceed the state’s entire production capacity,

the Forum reported

last year.

Around 55% of North Dakota’s energy generation comes from burning coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with 36% coming from its next-largest source, wind power.

Armstrong has extensive ties to the oil and gas industry,

ProPublica and the North Dakota Monitor reported last year,

with the governor telling reporters that oil and gas was the source of almost all of his personal income.

Attendees repeatedly raised questions of federal policy with the governor throughout the evening. Armstrong pointed out he has little sway over Congress or the executive branch as a state official, but weighed in on several issues.

In response to one atmospheric sciences student’s concerns about cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, Armstrong said “disruptions have to happen” for the U.S. to address its national debt.

Armstrong said the state would

fund three rural projects that had a combined $20 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants pulled

as part of Trump administration cost-cutting.

He characterized the projects as another example of government waste, though, saying that a federal agency “that was here to help Grand Forks in ‘97 after the flood now all of a sudden is handing out grants to build lagoons,” referring to a proposed $1.9 million wastewater lagoon in Fessenden.

He said North Dakota would “help in any capacity we can” to deport undocumented immigrants, but told another attendee he would support congressional efforts

to keep humanitarian parolees from Ukraine in North Dakota from being deported.

He said dismantling the U.S. Education Department was “a good thing for North Dakota,” saying states would be better served by receiving federal education funding directly.

Armstrong indicated, as he has previously, his support for

school choice legislation

in North Dakota but noted he has “two kids in public school and I think they do a fantastic job.”

He did not directly answer a question about whether he would sign a bill requiring school and public libraries to hide materials with “obscene” content from minors – legislation that

some have characterized as censorship

– but said he is a “free speech absolutist” and “fan of the First Amendment.”

“I don’t pretend to know what the next literary masterpiece is, but I want it in a library,” he said.

Joshua Irvine covers K-12 and higher education for the Grand Forks Herald. He can be reached at jirvine@gfherald.com.