Nonetheless, there’s plenty going on in Bismarck. Here’s a look at what Grand Forks legislators are doing:
Holmberg on Grand Forks’ slice of pork
Sen. Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, holds one of the most important positions in the Legislature: chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. With his hometown closely watching negotiations on the budget, the Herald asked for his perspective on the state’s big bonding package, which could distribute significant sums of infrastructure funding to Grand Forks and around the state.
In recent weeks, Grand Forks City Hall has been at first elated, and then disappointed, at various versions of the bonding package that’s being negotiated in Bismarck, as total funds in the bill have soared above and slipped below $1 billion and as other parts of the package — like interest rates on state funds — have risen as well.
“I visited with (Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski) about the fact that it is a moving target — that, don’t grab your smelling salts because you hear something,” Holmberg said. “Because it might be totally different a week later. The Legislature is in the process of gathering information. At the end of the day, it’s going to revolve around how much of an appetite there is for the amount of money that would be in the bonding bill.”
Pressed on when he thinks that will happen — and one that he, personally, would like to see in the bill — Holmberg said it’s likely to take weeks before negotiations have firmed up into a final bill.
“Clearly UAS (funding) is (a) top priority,” he said of the bill’s final scope. But he said that some of the larger items in the Legislature — like decisions on higher education funding — aren’t in the bonding bill.
“These things constantly change,” Holmberg said of big spending packages like the bonding bill. “And I really mean that.”
Vetter sponsors religious freedom, pandemic law
Rep. Steve Vetter, R-Grand Forks, is the primary sponsor on a bill that would curb the government’s ability to curtail religious services and gatherings during the pandemic. It’s the fulfillment of hopes he’d expressed as the session began, when he’d voiced concern that other states had regulated attendance at church gatherings.
“I don't like the government telling church and religious organizations when and where and how they can operate,” Vetter said in an interview last month, praising a November U.S. Supreme Court decision rolling back restrictions on religious gatherings in New York. “I don't believe it's in their purview to be doing so.”
RELATED: District 18: Scott Meyer, Steve Vetter and Corey Mock prepare agendas for 2021 legislative session
The new bill, HB 1410, includes language that would limit the state health officer and the governor’s ability to ban or severely restrict religious activity. Neither can “substantially burden” religious practice, unless an order would fulfill “compelling governmental interest.” Religious practice could only be treated differently than similar, secular activity in extremely narrow cases — for instance, when there’s “convincing scientific evidence that a particular religious activity poses an extraordinary health risk.”
The bill also includes similar language requiring the state not to restrict the religious practice of prison inmates, residents or patients cared for in the Department of Human Services. Vetter said that the bill grew larger than his original plans as he realized how much more religious protection could be placed in North Dakota law.
“Really, we don't have all this stuff in law, and so why not?” he said
Vetter co-sponsors transgender athlete bill
Vetter is also a co-sponsor on a bill that would effectively bar transgender athletes from playing many high school and college athletics under their identifying gender — mandating that schools that receive public funding do not allow anyone “who was assigned the opposite sex at birth” to play on a men- or women-only team.
HB 1298 has been criticized by advocates for sexual minorities, who say it singles out transgender students, either barring them from teams they’ve already joined or by forcing them to choose between sports and their identity. The state high school athletics association already has bylaws that regulate transgender students’ participation in sports — notably, with transgender women required to undergo testosterone suppression for a year prior to competition.
RELATED: North Dakota lawmakers propose bill that would limit transgender athletes
Vetter, though, argues the bill is about fair play, especially for any female athletes who would be disadvantaged by playing a sport against someone who was male at birth.
“I don't believe it's fair having biological males compete against biological females. A fairness issue, to me, is what it's about,” Vetter said.
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Sen. Ray Holmberg says North Dakota budget still a moving target - Grand Forks Herald
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