Murphy’s Law Blog

You may recall that the last couple of sessions the Legislature “bought back” 12 percent of county budgets to take the pressure off of property taxes. Last session we worked hard to make it a bill that would fund the state mandated part of social services that are delivered by the counties. It failed even though the Governor was pushing it, so the buyback continued. This...

Discussions with the Water, Tax, Transportation and other Worlds have us coming to conclusions that will go to the floor within the next week and then to Conference Committees. One experienced lobbyist stated that, were he a betting man, he would put a grand on the Legislature lasting at least to day 75 of the 80 allowed. Leadership has stated that they are trying to be...

Yesterday was spent partly in Senate Finance and Tax as the committee worked on HB1361 which is about property tax caps. Each of the Senators has a position, with Chairman Cook stating that for the past five budgets, Morton county has not had a mill increase, but with a 3 percent cap they probably would have had one every year. Senator Laffen said he was against it on the...

Big news. Today, upon the 5-0 Do Not Pass Recommendation of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the floor unanimously followed that lead on HB1282. It failed 46-0 with only one Senator absent. It would appear that the Commodity Groups were heard. It was a big water day in Senate Energy and Natural Resources. They took more testimony on Quick Take – this time on the House...

On Tuesday, the Grower’s board had a meeting in Fargo that touched on many issues including subcommittee meetings for a Legislative update, a Membership meeting, Communications and other business. I took off for Bismarck early that evening. Wednesday saw DOT discussing their budget in front of House Appropiations. The day ended at the Water Commission building where current...

Since I last blogged, Thursday and Friday happened. On Thursday, commodity groups lined up to testify against HB1282. It was held in a larger room which was a good thing. Many of the NDSGA board members were there, with President Craig Olson standing up for our group. Craig used some impromptu humor to give the room a needed laugh and around 3:00 p.m. the hearing ended with...

Monday saw two different discussions on water. One a noon meeting with a Bismarck geologist about nutrient management and how to get Agriculture involved. The other was a late afternoon meeting with a legislator about his vision to reform how ND manages its water. Whether a specific bill or getting the big picture from various players, water is always a big issue and our...

This blog got delayed due to technical issues… OnThursday, March 2 there was a hearing for SB2047. This bill came out of the Water Topics Overview interim committee and then through Senate Natural Resources to eventually pass and cross to House Natural Resources. The hearing was all in favor, no opposition. Like its counterpart that passed the House (HB1244), SB2047 is...

On Wednesday, the Legislature reconvened and I listened to a couple of Senate Finance and Tax bills that potentially could have gone sideways but it looks like they will stay in bounds. HB1044 related to the uniform definition of a primary sector business. The new crush plant planned for Jamestown, for instance, can qualify for a 10-year (Ag related) property tax exemption...

On Tuesday morning the House passed the Public Service Commission (PSC) elevator bill as amended without any dissent. As passed, HB1126 makes little change from the way the law has read for the past several years. It does make a change allowing electronic communications for the subsection on insolvency as well as a fiscal note of saving $88,000 from the PSC budget due to...

Back from the break that I had arranged before I took this job, I have spent the day catching up on Legislative activity. On SB2225, the trespass bill which would automatically post all land, I spoke with Senator Kelly Armstrong this morning. He related that at this point it has been amended to a pilot program consisting of 5 counties that could apply. It has components...

Just when I thought this legislative session had reached a fevered pitch, it dawned on me that was not the case. Instead, I had a real fever and had to take some time away last week. Now back at it, the last couple of days have been in Fargo at the Northern Soybean Expo along with many of you learning about commodity markets, plant genetics and how funny John Phipps of the...

Eight hundred nine pieces of legislation were “dropped in the hopper” or introduced this month. Other than a possible Delayed Bill or two, that should be it. Now it’s about survival in some form or another to avoid extinction. Very few bills that become law are able to ditch alterations. Maybe in Nebraska (the only state with one chamber) it happens less, I dunno. My point...

A lot going on that has effect on producers these past two days. Yesterday in the Senate Ag Committee were two bills that took the entire day. The first, SB2245, was about 45 minutes long and is a farmer-friendly idea about using state owned land for wetland mitigation by creating a kind of wetlands bank. The idea is that a farmer who wants to make a swap could potentially...

Today was a big step in reduction of property taxes for ND. This bill, SB2206, is the culmination of an effort that began in 1997 to take responsibility for state mandates that the counties had to pay for where Social Services were concerned. Last session had a buy back for program services and this bill eliminates the 20 mill Social Services levy so that counties cannot...

It’s been kind of a long week and its Tuesday. This is nearly the end of new bills dropping as 40 came in last night. From now on there are only delayed bills and that means single digits at most. So it is done raining bills and we will understand the bigger picture to a greater degree by the end of next week or so. There are some gorillas in the room concerning...

Yesterday, the House Ag Committee heard testimony on the Public Service Commission elevator bill (HB1126). I had to be hopping in and out of that one to cover some of the Human Services budget hearings – as the largest single budget of our state government it is deemed relevant to try to understand at least at a basic level- and, much more directly relevant, the Quick Take...

Today the joint Ag committees (both House and Senate) meet and listen all morning to ND Agricultural Experiment Station and NDSU Extension Service priorities. This happens every session and I was involved as a senator on Ag committee back in 2011 so I know what the freshmen legislators are going through as program after program is explained. As producers, you might be...

I woke up last night thinking of how to explain what goes on in the ND Capitol during the legislative session.  Not that you growers are lacking in intelligence in any way, but one does need to be there for a while to grasp the nature of that whirlwind. Starting out these first two weeks in January as another set of eyes for your benefit leads me to say that it is certainly...

Blog #2 You probably know the ND Public Service Commission (PSC) regulates elevators/grain dealers. You may know that the PSC eliminated the Licensing Director and is re-configuring those responsibilities into a Compliance Director that will spend one-third of their time on licensing. You might be aware they have introduced bill HB1126 which upon passage would also take...