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No need for Legislature’s approval

Zac Echola

Fargo

The petty elites in the North Dakota Legislature would love nothing more than to entrench the deep-pocketed out-of-state interests who pay for their legislative races by protecting them from different deep-pocketed out-of-state interests who spend money to influence ballot initiatives.

Lazy bootlickers like Minot’s David Hogue seem to think the best way to combat out-of-state money in politics is by limiting the rights of North Dakotans, rather than limiting the influence of rich people over our politics. A bill in the Legislature would make every constitutional ballot initiative passed by the people of North Dakota also subject to approval of the following state Legislature. He’s not fooling anyone.

Every petition gatherer must be a North Dakota resident and every signature come from a resident. That’s the way it works, regardless of money. The bar is already high, since the Legislature shut down gathering signatures at the State Fair. After signatures, a majority of voters need to vote in favor of a measure. That’s democracy.

Additional legislative “review” and “approval” is a fancy way for David Hogue and his rich pals to call you … an idiot who doesn’t know how to vote correctly.

Money is speech, and the more money you have, the more speech you get. Assuming you donate to David Hogue, that means power. This is a blatantly anti-democratic bill.

If we want to deal with the influence of money, then do that. But they don’t want to do that! This bill is just rich people fighting other rich people for power. They want to limit our rights down to the point to where we eventually won’t vote. The House Majority Leader could well be anointed Supreme Ruler, handpicked by a secret council of creepy oilmen. Good Lord.

North Dakota needs more democracy, not less.

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