North Dakota
What's the cost of time off in North Dakota's Legislature? Here's who missed and why
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.
Who missed the most days so far and why?
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.”
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
“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.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
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.
Can the chambers withhold pay from lawmakers?
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 — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
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