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MINOT, N.D. — Gov. Doug Burgum is pouring money into North Dakota's legislative races again. He spent well over $3 million last cycle, and he's close to a million in this cycle with the June primary vote less than a month away.
And you know what? There isn't a thing wrong with Burgum spending that money.
There are a few things wrong with the way he's going about things, though.
First, let's acknowledge what an unusual election cycle this is. There are a lot of contested primaries in the legislative races. Far more than usual. In a typical year we might see a half-dozen or so competitive legislative primaries. That's when the candidate endorsed by a political party's local district is challenged by another candidate in the June primary.
This year there are 24, including 21 among Republican candidates and 3 among Democrats.
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Why so many this year?
Part of it is that this is the first election after redistricting. The way the new district boundaries were drawn after the most recent census, some incumbent lawmakers got lumped in together. But perhaps a bigger driver of the intraparty competition is the divide in the North Dakota Republican Party between traditional conservatives and a new wave of Trumpy populists.
The party is fractured, and that's showing up in the legislative primaries.
And that's the context for Gov. Doug Burgum and his political spending. Which, again, I don't have a problem with, but the way he's doing it will do more harm than good I'm afraid.
First, there's the fact that, given the way Burgum's committee — the Dakota Leadership PAC — is constituted, he doesn't have to disclose the spending. So he's not.
He could choose to anyway, but he's not required to by law. Last year lawmakers, despite a lot of griping in their chambers about executive branch meddling in legislative branch elections, killed a bill that would have created a reporting requirement for committees like Burgum's, so I doubt the governor is feeling a lot of pressure to disclose.
And maybe that's not a big deal. What would we learn from a disclosure? That Burgum's money is being spent on a lot of advertising? We know this. We can see the mailers flooding mailboxes.
The bigger problem is that Burgum and his people aren't talking about what they're doing. Gov. Burgum consistently declines to comment on the donations. His people are just barely communicating with the public.
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Levi Bachmeier, Dakota Leadership PAC’s chairman, and Dawson Schefter, a spokesman for Burgum's campaign, emailed our reporter Jeremy Turley only the most superficial of statements about the committee and its spending.
"Bachmeier and Schefter did not immediately respond to a detailed list of questions from Forum News Service about Burgum's donations, including what political campaigns Burgum's funds will be put toward, if any," Turley reported.
That's such a terrible look.
If they believe what they're doing is right and proper, why not be open about it? Why not take questions? Why not make the affirmative case, to the press and the public, for what Gov. Burgum is trying to accomplish?
The way Burgum and his people are handling things, they look furtive.
Cynical.
Dishonorable, even.
I can't help but think back to Burgum's first campaign for governor when he flooded North Dakota's electorate with the same sort of scorched-earth tactics, slamming the Republicans in the legislature as the "good old boys club," etc., etc.
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It worked. He's the governor now. But at what cost? I think, in private moments, Burgum might admit that the approach, while effective, also made enemies where there needn't have been any.
Burgum has enormous financial resources he can marshal to influence state politics, and I don't begrudge him that.
My point is that there's a better way to do this stuff. One that's more open, and more honest, and less cynical.
