2024-03-25 23:59:54
BISMARCK — A legislative leader defended a colleague charged with a conflict-of-interest crime, arguing that the regulatory body that referred the lawmaker for prosecution is punishing legislators for breaking rules that are too confusing to understand.
“You can’t have sitting legislators looking over their shoulder every time we vote on something,” House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, said last week during a Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee meeting.
The Legislature is subject to oversight from the North Dakota Ethics Commission — established in 2018 through an amendment to the state constitution — on matters of transparency, corruption, lobbying and elections. The commission’s duties include adopting ethics-related rules, investigating complaints into potential violations, issuing advisory opinions and educating the public about government ethics.
The commission last year referred Rep. Jason Dockter, a Bismarck Republican, for prosecution for allegedly voting on legislation he had a financial interest in. The case is tied to a Bismarck building partially owned by Dockter and leased to the Attorney General’s Office. Dockter has pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge. His attorney has previously declined interview requests.
Rope. Jason Dockter, R-Bismarck
Contributed
Court documents don’t specify which vote or votes by Dockter triggered the criminal inquiry, though prosecutor Ladd Erickson confirmed the charge is related to the AG building. A review of the lawmaker’s voting record indicates he voted twice in support of the Attorney General’s Office budget during the 2021 regular session. The Attorney General’s Office previously confirmed to the North Dakota Monitor that the agency’s 2021-23 budget included rent for the Bismarck building.
Under state law, the Ethics Commission is required to refer complaints involving potential criminal activity over to law enforcement for prosecution.
Lefor questioned why Dockter should be charged for what the House majority leader sees as a normal part of the lawmaking process.
“To forward a criminal prosecution against a sitting legislator for voting on a budget is ridiculous,” he said during the meeting.
He also criticized the commission’s conflict of interest rules as “inconsistent” and “poorly drafted” — illustrating a broader clash between lawmakers and the Ethics Commission over how to enforce ethical behavior in the Legislature.
The House and Senate each have their own rules requiring lawmakers to declare a conflict of interest on any legislation that may affect them “directly, individually, uniquely, and substantially.”
In practice, the Legislature interprets this language to mean a lawmaker only needs to state a conflict when voting on a bill that benefits them and no one else. Lawmakers declared conflicts of interest only three times in 2023, according to the Legislature’s website.
The Ethics Commission has its own conflict of interest protocol, which is higher law than the Legislature’s and much more detailed. The rules, approved by the commission’s board in 2022, advise officials to weigh five factors when deciding whether or not someone has a recusal-worthy conflict of interest.
The problem is that the two versions, as currently written, don’t gel, the commission concluded in a 2023 advisory opinion.
That wasn’t made clear to Legislative Council, though, Director John Bjornson said. Until recently, he was under the impression that the Ethics Commission found the Legislature’s rules satisfactory.
Bjornson said he first learned that wasn’t the case from a North Dakota Monitor story published in February.
It’s been over a year since the advisory opinion was issued, and the Legislature’s rules have yet to be brought into compliance.
The Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee on Wednesday gave Legislative Council the go-ahead to continue working with the Ethics Commission to discuss revising the rules.
Bjornson and Ethics Commission Director Rebecca Binstock said they plan to meet soon to figure out next steps.
“There may be some misunderstanding among us,” Bjornson said. “And so we’re going to talk about it and see that we’re all on the same page.”
Lefor and Bjornson said they hope the Ethics Commission considers amending its rules to make them easier to understand.
“If you have a hard time interpreting it, it makes it very difficult to determine, ‘How do I comply with something that I don’t understand?’ ” Bjornson said.
Lefor also voiced concerns that requiring lawmakers to follow a more complicated set of rules would bog down the legislative process.
During Wednesday’s meeting, committee chair and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Jerry Klein said the Legislature needs to come to a consensus on the rules sooner rather than later, and must make sure lawmakers receive enough training to apply them appropriately.
“Going into the next session, we have to have clarity,” the Fessenden Republican said.
One training opportunity is coming up soon — the Ethics Commission on Thursday will host a webinar explaining how its conflict of interest rules work.
Officials who can’t make the webinar are welcome to contact the commission any time, Binstock said.
“If they have questions, they can reach out to the Ethics Commission, to our staff, and we will gladly help them walk through the process,” she said.
This story was originally published on NorthDakotaMonitor.com
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