Plain Talk With Rob Port

In 2018, North Dakota voters approved a ballot measure creating the state Ethics Commission. The commission was implemented in 2019, and that first year, it received just 2 complaints. There were 3 in 2020, 9 in 2021, then a spike (right around election time) in 2022 to 14. There were 14 complaints again in 2023, and so far in 2024 (another election year) the number has spiked to 25 as of July 25. Those numbers came from Rebecca Binstock, the executive director of the ethics commission, who joined this episode of Plain Talk to advertise the fact that the commission is currently accepting applications for new members (find more on that in their press release).  "Any North Dakota resident can serve on the ethics commission," Binstock told us, though there are some exemptions. For instance, if you're currently an elected official, or in a leadership position in a political party, you need not apply. But Binstock also discussed with my co-host Chad Oban the fact that the Ethics Commission has become much more vi