Plain Talk With Rob Port

State Rep. Rick Becker, the founder of the Bastiat Caucus in the North Dakota legislature which claims that they, and not the much larger majority of their Republican colleagues, represent actual Republicanism, has announced a primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Senator John Hoeven. What does Hoeven think about it? He answered questions about that on today's Plain Talk, co-hosted Chad Oban who joins the show on Wednesdays. He said that he'll campaign against Becker the same way he campaigns every time he's on the ballot, which is by focusing on the things he's done in office. "It's a lot more than just voting no all the time," he said, touting his work across the aisle with people like Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. I'm not usually one for meme-based political arguments, but a friend shared this one after Becker announced his candidacy, and it seems apt: Hoeven also talked about the food fight which has erupted within the GOP about the Republican National Committ

What is 30 by 30? It's an agreement, pushed by the global environmental movement, that would see participating countries place 30 percent of their land mass and controlled waters into conservation by the year 2030. For some, this is setting off alarm bells. On this episode of Plain Talk, radio host, farming/ranching activist, and 6th generation Nebraska farmer Trent Loos talks about the proposal and what he sees as a risk to food security. To be clear, the government already controls a lot of American land. The feds control over 28 percent, and that increases to well over 30 percent when you include state lands. Loos says further push to take land out of agricultural production would exacerbate a problem that already exists. Every year millions of acres of arable farm land are lost to urbanization as our communities grow.

Senator Kevin Cramer, one of former President Donald Trump's earliest and most consistent supporters, does not support the RNC's censure of Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Trump supporters in the RNC are pushing the censure because Cheney and Kinzinger have been critical of Trump and have participated in the congressional inquiry into the January 6th riot. "We don't have the luxury of kicking people out of our party," Cramer said of the resolution. That doesn't mean he's supportive of the position Cheney and Kinzinger have taken on Trump and the January 6 inquiry. On this episode of Plain Talk, he said he likely agrees with much of what the resolution says, but he doesn't believe the RNC ought to be focusing on this issue. "I think it's unnecessary and unproductive," he said. Cramer also discussed how we're facing our entanglements with China, from the Winter Olympics to the debate over the Fufeng corn milling facility to be built near Grand Forks, as well as the situation in Ukraine, and our evolvin

In any sufficiently large group of people, you're going to have some undesirables. Whether it's a church congregation or a political party or a sports team fan base, if you look hard enough you'll find some people who just aren't very good people. But what happens when a certain type of behavior becomes the defining characteristic of a group of people? Robert Wheeler as a representative of the very Trumpy Bastiat Caucus faction of North Dakota Republicans, ran for chairman of the NDGOP last year. This week he was involved in what law enforcement alleges was a felony DUI accident, severely injuring his wife. He is also facing charges for disorderly conduct and preventing arrest because officers say he physically resisted them when they tried to arrest him. If these charges are upheld - Mr. Wheeler certainly has a right to his day in court - they're just the latest examples of problematic behavior from people in the Bastiat Caucus movement. Sen. Jason Heitkamp showed up to the special session of the state legi

When the Capstone Classical Academy project was announced for Fargo, some people immediately looked at it through a political lens. It was called "Trumpy," by some. But is it? On this episode of Plain Talk, headmaster Paul Q. Fisher describes the philosophy behind the school's mission. They're hoping to provide the people of the region with an education rooted in classical education. That means the Greeks. The Romans. And, yes, the kids will be learning Latin. But Fisher stresses that it's not about promoting a certain ideology, but rather helping kids learn how to process information and think with reason and logic. Capstone is accepting enrollments now for the fall 2022 school year for pre-kindergarten through 6th-grade students. Fisher says they're at about 30 enrolled students so far, in the roughly three weeks since they've started, and they'll be holding classes regardless of how may students they get. The long-term goal is to build a campus on property that's already been secured, and begin adding gra

This week Governor Doug Burgum helped announce a nearly $2 billion investment in developing a datacenter in western North Dakota that would primarily be used to mine cryptocurrency. But that announcement was overshadowed, somewhat, by the extensive criminal record of the man who heads up the construction company that would build it. Jamie Selzler, the former executive director of the North Dakota Democrat Party, who has spent years working in online commerce, joins this episode of Plain Talk to discuss whether Burgum deserves criticism for being involved in the announcement, and if cryptocurrency mining is really a viable industry for North Dakota. Also on this episode, Jamie and I talk about the looming fight over a new appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Subscribe to Plain Talk on your favorite podcast service: https://www.inforum.com/podcasts/plain-talk-with-rob-port Subscribe to read Rob's columns: https://inforum.com/subscribe

A new survey from North Dakota United, the state's combined public worker and teacher union, finds strong evidence that teachers are feeling burned out. Why? A lot of the same reasons many of us are feeling burned out. It's politics and the pandemic and shifting attitudes about compensation levels. On this episode of Plain Talk, co-host Chad Oban and I interview Nick Archuleta, the president of North Dakota United, about the survey's findings. And, as Fargo looks to become home to a new private school affiliated with ideologically conservative Hillsdale College, we talk about the push for school choice policy. Should North Dakota taxpayers get to use taxpayer dollars to send their kids to a non-public school? Or even homeschool them? Archuleta joins Chad and I in that discussion as well. (Full disclosure: Oban's day job is at North Dakota United.)

I'll admit, I wanted to use this interview to push Congressman Kelly Armstrong, a fellow baseball nut, to pass legislation to end Major League Baseball's ongoing lockout. But I controlled myself. After all, what kind of conservative would I be if I was pushing for that sort of federal intervention? Principle must trump emotion. What Armstrong and I did talk about was President Joe Biden's first year in office. As you might expect, this Republican congressman isn't impressed. He's also not impressed with Biden's leadership with Russia. Armstrong told me he hopes Biden is successful in handling the crisis in Ukraine, but he's afraid we're in for another debacle like the one Biden presided over in Afghanistan. We also talked about why it's important for America to counter the influence of countries like China and Russia, even when it's not always economically important to do so.

Why are so many judicial races in North Dakota uncompetitive? And not uncompetitive because the winning candidates dominate, but because they're usually running unopposed? Part of the problem is the pay Justice Daniel Crothers said on this episode of Plain Talk. He's served on the North Dakota Supreme Court since he was appointed in 2005. He ran for election to the unexpired four-year term he was appointed to fill, and for re-election to a new term in 2012, and now he's running for another decade-long term on the 2022 ballot. With history as our guide, he probably won't have an opponent. Since 1990 there have been just five competitive Supreme Court races on the statewide ballot. Crothers says that lawyers make a lot of money but judges, comparatively, do not. North Dakota already has a relatively small legal community, and finding people in that community who want to abandon their private practice, and it's pay, to become a judge. Crothers also talked about the on-going efforts to get court records online, w

"I've largely stayed out of that stuff," says Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski, speaking about national hot-button issues. He says he's tried to focus on local issues like public safety and infrastructure. But when the University of North Dakota announced they were pursuing a new policy that could punish people for using the wrong pronouns, and would allow access to even sensitive campus facilities like locker rooms based on the gender a given student or university employee identifies with, Bochenski felt he had to speak out. "I felt like there was a lack of transparency" in the way the rule was being developed, Bochenski said on this episode of Plain Talk. "Compelling speech and forcing ideology on our students, our children and our community is abhorrent," he wrote in a Facebook post touting a letter from the North Dakota Catholic Conference objecting to the policy. How have people responded to his public statements? "It's been mean on both sides," he said. Also on this episode, Jim Hobart, a pollster wi

"We have opportunities that are being missed," says Shannon Roers Jones. Roes Jones is currently a state representative, having been elected to the House from District 26 in 2016. She was just re-elected to that seat by a small but comfortable margin in 2020, and now she'd like to be mayor of Fargo. On this episode of Plain Talk, she talks about why she'd be better for that job than incumbent Tim Mahoney, what the biggest challenges facing Fargo are, what it's like to campaign in Fargo's relatively new approval voting process, and what she'll do with her legislative seat if she wins this election. Subscribe to Plain Talk on your favorite podcasting platform: https://www.inforum.com/podcasts/plain-talk-with-rob-port Subscribe to Rob's writing and get all of the great Forum Communications content from news sites across the upper midwest: https://www.inforum.com/subscribe  

After more than two decades in the North Dakota legislature, having served in some consequential ways, as an influential appropriator and eventually leader the majority Republican caucus, Rep. Chet Pollert is calling it a career. On this episode of Plain Talk, he talked about that decision, as well as what changed during his tenure in office, and what challenges North Dakota might face in the future. "There was a decorum," Pollert said of politics when he first got started in the legislature. "There was a process...and we seem to have gotten away from that a little more." He said modern politics have become more personal, and more divisive. "I want us to be able to fight like cats and dogs but also be able to respect one another," he said. He has some personal experience with how personal state politics has gotten. Under Pollert's leadership last year, the state House took the extraordinary step of expelling a member for the first time in state history. Luke Simons, at the time a Representative from a Dickins

I make a living writing and talking about politics, and I divide the topics I cover up into two categories. First, there's the sexy stuff. The hot-button stuff. Topics that immediately stir up interest from the audience. It's the stuff we spend most of our time talking about. How big should the government be, and how much should it cost us? Stuff like that. Then there's the unsexy stuff. Like blockchain. What is blockchain? North Dakota Chief Information Officer Shawn Riley knows. He's an advocate for it. He tried to explain it to this humble political wonk on this episode of Plain Talk, and what he said makes a lot of sense. Blockchain is a way of recording transactions in a way that's simultaneously secure and transparent. He believes it could be used in everything from recording title histories for property to tracking mineral rights and, yes, even voting. Nerd stuff, I know, but the impact could be very sexy in terms of that thing we all care about, which is how much government is costing us. Riley estima

We all know how divided we are as a country. Politics has always been an ugly business, but it's perhaps uglier right now than any time in recent memory. Given that, who would want to run for public office, and expose themselves to the brutal acrimony of an increasingly uncivil process? On this episode of Plain Talk, I spoke with two candidates for the North Dakota legislature about that very topic. Mike Motschenbacher is running for the state House in District 47 in the Bismarck area. Mason Wede is running for the state Senate in District 29. They're both Republicans, and they both say that, as bad as things are, it's a job somebody has to do. Our state, and our communities, has challenges. There are budgets that must be written. And if principled grownups aren't willing to do those jobs, who will? Subscribe to Plain Talk on your favorite podcasting service: https://www.inforum.com/podcasts/Plain-Talk-With-Rob-Port Want to read more of Rob's work? Get a subscription that works for daily newspapers across the

Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic malaise, America's employers have been in a crunch. Not only are their costs rising due to supply line snaggles, but many of them are having trouble finding and keeping workers. Jonathan Holth is one a North Dakota employer. He is a co-founder of the Toasted Frog restaurant in downtown Grand Forks, and has since opened additional locations in Bismarck and Fargo. He's also the co-owner of the Urban Stampede Coffee Bar in Grand Forks. On this episode of Plain Talk, he discusses what his business has been doing to keep workers on the job, which includes getting creative with leave time and other benefits. Among the creativity is an accepting approach to employees struggling with addiction. Holth himself is nearly 14 years sober, and was appointed by Governor Doug Burgum to serve on the advisory council for North Dakota's Office of Recovery Reinvented. Also on this episode, co-host Chad Oban and I talk about the upcoming anniversary of the January 6 riot in

One thing I think about, as our kids return to school from a long holiday break, is how hard it can be to get them back into the education groove. That challenge is perhaps on the minds of parents more so now than before, given the way COVID-19 has turned our lives upside down. In October Kirsten Baesler, the Superintendent of North Dakota's public school system, released data from testing showing significant pandemic-era declines among the state's students in proficiency levels for English and mathematics. How worried should that make you? Perhaps not as worried as you think you should be says Dr. Dann Conn. Conn is a professor of teacher education and kinesiology at Minot State University. He's also the co-author of a book, Unraveling the Assessment Industrial Complex, which calls into question the purpose and efficacies of the very testing regime being used to measure educational declines. "Kids are resilient," Conn said on this episode of Plain Talk. "They'll bounce back." He argues that parents, educat

Wayne Stenehjem, North Dakota's long-time Attorney General, announced recently that he'll end a more than four-decades-long career in elected office once his term is up next year. Who will replace him? The name you'll hear most often in those conversations is Drew Wrigley, who served two stints as North Dakota's U.S. Attorney, one under former President George W. Bush, and another under former President Donald Trump, and between them served six years as Lt. Governor under former Governor Jack Dalrymple. Wrigley joined this episode of Plain Talk to say nothing definitive about if he's running, though it sure seems like he is. In addition to speaking about what his approach to the office would be, what priorities he'd focus on, and his philosophy about the job of Attorney General, Wrigley hinted that those interested in whether he's running or not might want to check the candidate filings at the Secretary of State's office in the first week of 2022. This seems to me like a pretty good confirmation that he's run

It's been a wild year in North Dakota politics, from a lawmaker getting expelled from the Legislature for the first time in state history to a small group of NDGOP leaders walking out of their own party's meeting just last week. On this episode of Plain Talk I was joined by Chad Oban and Jamie Selzler, both former executive directors of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL, to talk about the year that was in North Dakota. We also talk about what next year, an election year, has in store.

Wayne Stenehjem has served the State of North Dakota in elected office for more than 40 years, from his stint in the Legislature starting in the mid-1970s to two decades serving as Attorney General. Now, he's calling it a career, announcing that he'll step down once his current four-year term is up. Stenehjem joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss it. To say that his career was consequential for our state would be an understatement. In the Legislature, where he served with two of his brothers, Alan and Bob, something he believes to be unprecedented in America's legislative bodies, he had a hand in creating the open records and meetings law state government operates under today. He pushed for a uniform court system, moving it beyond an antiquated system that saw different areas of North Dakota served by different sorts of courts. When he became Attorney General in 2000, the State of North Dakota didn't even have a crime lab to handle evidence like fingerprints and DNA. But it wasn't all serious business.

North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer joined this episode of Plain Talk and discussed all sorts of stuff. The January 6 committee, and what it's revealed about the way former President Donald Trump handled the riot at the U.S. capitol. The Build Back Better plan. The state of inflation. The retrenchment going on in the Republican party. Carbon capture. Also, the divides in the national Republican party are impacted the NDGOP as well. Cramer, a former chairman of the NDGOP, weighs in on some of the rule changes being discussed by his state party relating to how the party does its business around state conventions and endorsing candidates.