Plain Talk With Rob Port

It's campaign season, and unfortunately in the news cycle that often means substantive policy discussions takes a back seat to aspersions and invective from political campaigns. We have a bit of both on this episode of Plain Talk. Yes, we talk about U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong throwing the first punch in what promises to be a nasty gubernatorial primary against Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller. And yes, we interviewed U.S. House candidate Tom Campbell, who said one of his primary opponents, Julie Fedorchak, has "threatened" him in an attempt to force him out of what is now a four-way race. But before we got to any of that, we had a conversation with Travis Finck, the executive director of North Dakota's woefully underfunded public defender system. Finck recently delivered a report to state lawmakers detailing problems he has with filling open positions and providing legal services to criminal defendants who have a constitutional right to them. He said his office is very close to telling district court judges that they ma