Earlier this year, End Citizens United, a left wing group hostile to unfettered political speech, gave North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp an award.

The recognition was for her work on federal legislation which would inhibit the ability of private citizens to voluntarily give money to private groups for expenditure on political activities.

Because it’s not like this is a free country.

Anyway, in a statement accepting the award, Heitkamp got a little sanctimonious about out of state money influencing North Dakota elections.

“Billionaires outside North Dakota who don’t know anything about our state shouldn’t be able to impact North Dakotans’ opinions or how they vote through secret organizations that don’t have to disclose their donors,” Heitkamp said in a release.

“It’s one example of the many problems with our campaign finance system, and it needs to change.”

Heitkamp, per this statement, mislikes the idea of people who aren’t North Dakotans influencing elections in North Dakota. A defensible enough position, I suppose, though perhaps not one entirely in keeping with the First Amendment.

But I digress.

One would hope, whatever you and I might think of the position Heitkamp has staked out on this

issue, that the Senator has enough character to practice what she preaches when it comes to her own political organization.

It turns out she does not.

Heitkamp and her political allies, afraid of a strong challenge from Republicans to her 2018 re-election bid, have already started campaigning in earnest.

There have already been campaign ads on North Dakota television screens touting Heitkamp’s re-election. Heitkamp herself, meanwhile, has already amassed a veritable fortune in campaign contributions. A treasure chest of funds aimed squarely at dissuading potential challengers from entering the race.

The problem? Most of the funds in that treasure chest are from out of state.

Back in April there was over $1.6 million dollars in fundraising reported to the FEC by Heitkamp’s campaign for the first quarter of 2017. Of that total, 93.2 percent of the individual contributions came from out of state citizens.

Earlier this month Heitkamp’s campaign reported over $1.2 million in fundraising for the second quarter of 2017, another huge number by North Dakota standards.

Yet the rate of donations from North Dakotans was even lower, sitting at 94.5 percent.

Again, Heitkamp doesn’t like the idea of people from out of state being able to “impact North Dakotans’ opinions or how they vote,” to use her own words. Yet her re-election campaign, an organization created for the express purpose of influencing opinions and votes, is funded almost exclusively by out-of- state interests.

The Senator needs to explain the disparity in her positions, because as it stands she’s doing a

whole lot of something she claims to oppose.

Port, founder of SayAnythingBlog.com, a North Dakota political blog, is a Forum Communications commentator. Follow him on Twitter at @RobPort