Port: Failed U.S. Senate candidate Rick Becker backing initiated measure to abolish property taxes

MINOT, N.D. — Former state lawmaker Rick Becker, who left the Republican Party to run an unsuccessful independent campaign against U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, is the chairman of a new ballot measure committee taking aim at the state’s property taxes.

If successful, the measure would eliminate property taxes in North Dakota.

Becker’s sponsoring committee has a lot of familiar names on it, particularly from the culture warrior wing of state Republican politics that was

just successful

in getting control of leadership positions at the NDGOP.

They include former state Rep. Tom Kading, former secretary of state candidate Marvin Lepp, former Fargo City Commissioner Tony Gehrig, Sons of Liberty founder and NDGOP District 2 chairman Jerol Gohrick, and Travis Zablotney, the NDGOP chairman in District 5.

Becker has attempted this before. On March 16, 2020,

he filed an identical measure with the Secretary of State’s Office

to get approval for circulation, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the campaign never really got off the ground.

Another measure to abolish property taxes was on the ballot in 2012. The constitutional amendment was on the June primary ballot that year and got a shellacking from voters. More than 76% voted against it.

Would this measure meet a similar fate? In 2020, Becker argued that the state’s financial picture has changed. “He noted the Legacy Fund, which was set up in 2011 and has more than $6.36 billion in its balance,” April Baumgarten reported at the time. “By 2041, the fund that collects money from oil and natural gas revenues is projected to grow to $27.99 billion.”

The argument which carried the day in 2012 was focused on local control. While consternation with property taxes is always high in this state, voters feared forcing local governing entities, like school districts and park boards, to go crawling to the state Legislature for funding.

Also of concern was the elimination of property taxes putting upward pressure on other statewide taxes, such as the sales tax, or income taxes.

Those are likely to be the same arguments this time around, too, but will they get the same traction? The state’s politics have shifted, as evidenced by the changes afoot in the NDGOP, but have they changed enough to get this measure across the finish line?

Will taxpayer buy into the idea, promoted by Becker in 2020, that we can use Legacy Fund revenues and other state reserves? to replace property tax revenues? Will Becker’s political profile be a help or a hindrance? His Senate campaign last year garnered just 18% of the vote.

If this measure makes the ballot — and it will since pretty much anyone can buy their issue onto the statewide ballot under North Dakota’s ridiculously lax petitioning laws — expect the debate to be at least as heated as it was in 2012.