Josiah Roise

Josiah Roise, who was the first candidate to announce for Minot mayor, has filed petitions to be on the ballot for the Aug. 5 special election.

Roise said he turned in nearly 600 signatures, which is well over the 293 signatures required. Candidates become eligible for the ballot once the city validates an adequate number of signatures.

As he begins his campaign, Roise has launched his “constitutional mayor” website and plans to hold rallies in the community this summer.

Three others also have announced their intentions to run for mayor and would need to file by June 2. Running are acting mayor Mark Jantzer and council members Rob Fuller and Paul Pitner.

Roise, a Minot native, said his interest in city government peaked in 2020 after an LGBTQ+ rainbow flag was flown in front of the City Hall with the mayor’s permission. The resulting controversy led to the council developing a policy regarding flags.

At the same time, during 2020, there were a number of pandemic restrictions imposed nationally and locally that he felt violated personal rights.

“I didn’t have a particular interest in being involved to this degree in politics in years past. I’m a business owner – multiple-business owner. This always kept my hands full,” said Roise, who currently operates a rain gutter business. However, his objections to what was occurring pushed him to take a stand, leading him to become more politically active.

Roise said he is promoting himself as a constitutional mayor, saying anyone in public service should abide by and yield to the Constitution. He would like to see a single law enforcement agency for Ward County, headed by a constitutional sheriff. The role of a constitutional sheriff would be to enforce the constitution. Currently, he said many of the offenses people go to court for are not violations but are constitutionally protected activities. Roise said he has been in court many times for constitutionally protected behavior and standing up for his rights.

He appeared five times in North Central District Court between 2017 and last week on traffic violations, of which two were dismissed, court records show. His current open case is a speeding violation. He had five cases in South Central District Court, mostly traffic related, with two cases dismissed.

Roise said he’s been arrested and treated with excessive force at traffic stops for refusing to provide information that officers have no right to demand, such as where he was going, whether he had a gun in his vehicle or seeking his ID as a passenger in a vehicle stopped on a traffic violation.

When even the prosecutor agrees he did nothing wrong but prosecutes him anyway for standing on his constitutional, fundamental rights, something is wrong, he said, indicating the problem isn’t just affecting a few.

“There’s over 20,000 federal laws. There’s hundreds of state laws and probably dozens of city ordinances,” he said. “When somebody brags about ‘Well, I don’t get in trouble because I’m a law-abiding citizen,’ it’s like, how do you know? There’s over 20,000 laws to memorize and you probably don’t remember the 10 Commandments. So, how do you really know if you’re a law-abiding citizen? You just haven’t been caught doing things yet.”

Roise also would like to see the city eliminate fluoride in drinking water, preserve the life of its landfill by limiting use by outside entities and investigate replacing certain city services, such as snow removal and mowing, with private contractors. He opposes a $75 million investment into a new police station, which the city council also backed away from with a decision to include only remodeling in its Capital Improvement Plan.

“I’m against growing government – the size of government, the size of government staff – when our population is not growing,” Roise said. “We need less government. Smaller government will increase freedom.”

If elected, Roise said he would seek to gain support for his positions through leadership.

“As far as leadership goes, lead by example and by stats, by history, by everything that we can see that has worked versus everything that is not working,” he said.