Port: Does anyone know what the purpose of North Dakota’s ethics commission is?

MINOT — North Dakota’s ethics commission was created about a half-decade ago by way of a ballot measure approved by voters.

I was against it. Government ethics commissions are a nice idea on paper. In practice, they’re either ineffectual or used as a political weapon for partisan purposes. An instrument of innuendo and recrimination, not transparency and accountability.

But North Dakotans approved the creation of a commission. We have it now. And, other than asking for more money from the Legislature —

the agency requested a nearly 85% increase in their funding earlier this year

— I’m not sure what it is they’re doing.

During the legislative session earlier this year, I reported on an elected lawmaker who was also on the payroll of the gambling industry. Rep. Mike Motschenbacher, a Republican from Bismarck, is also the executive director of the North Dakota Gaming Alliance and frequently contacts state gaming officials who are confused about how to handle him.

Is he an elected official? Or the representative of a rapidly growing,

$2 billion industry?

“He is contacting me as ND Gaming Alliance not as a Representative,” state gaming division director Deb McDaniel

wrote in a 2022 email I obtained.

“I don’t mind meeting with him but what am I supposed to do or say about any bills he thinks are going to be introduced?”

Don’t you suppose this might be something the Ethics Commission might want to look into?

“Under Article XIV a lobbyist may not knowingly give, offer, solicit, initiate, or facilitate a gift to a public official and a public official may not knowingly accept a gift from a lobbyist,” the commission’s website states. “A gift is defined as any item, service or thing of value not given in exchange for fair market consideration.”

Don’t you suppose that putting a lawmaker on the payroll might constitute a problematic gift? Maybe there’s a loophole if we conclude that the gambling industry is getting “fair market consideration” for Motschenbacher’s work.

There are other examples, too.

A sitting lawmaker, Rep. Jason Dockter, is mired in the middle of a scandal

concerning what appears to be a sweetheart deal leasing office space to the state.

From 2013 to 2022, a powerful lawmaker, former state Sen. Ray Homlberg of Grand Forks, received over $125,000 in taxpayer dollars for “about 70 out-of-state trips that included meetings in Canada, Puerto Rico, Europe and across the U.S,”

as April Baumgarten reported.

The average spend on lawmaker travel during that time period was $9,200.

But, meanwhile, our ethics commission, touted by those who campaigned for it as a clearinghouse for accountability in state government, does nothing more than hold meetings and make vague allusions to ongoing investigations. Usually before requesting a bigger budget.

Maybe they’re doing things behind the scenes. They are obliged to keep much of their proceedings out of the public eye, for good reason.

Still, the commission was approved by voters in 2018, and if it has done anything to benefit voters since, I’m not aware of it.