Letter: Democrats fought for an economy that works for you
Assistant Minority Leaders Sen. Josh Boschee and Rep. Gretchen Dobervich recap the highs and lows of North Dakota's recent legislative session.
This legislative session, Democrats again advocated for targeted investments in our communities and stood against proposals that targeted the most vulnerable among us. Whenever possible, we joined a bipartisan governing coalition to pass good laws and block the most extreme Republican bills.
That’s how we helped to deliver a significantly larger primary residence property tax credit and increased investment in childcare–both proposals that Democrats originally introduced in previous sessions. Democrats also fought for rural North Dakota by introducing a new rural endowment fund, advocating for investments in rural wastewater infrastructure, addressing rural grocery access, and leading the way on rural emergency services funding. We proudly stood with our Tribal Nations to combat the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous persons, and we continued our successful advocacy for North Dakota’s veterans and healthcare consumers.
Despite these important victories, the session was also marked by too many missed opportunities to move the state forward and too many close calls on bad Republican bills. This was especially true in public education. The Legislature again failed to extend no-cost school meals to all students. Instead of fully funding our public schools, Republicans attempted to divert public tax dollars to private school tuition through voucher and educational savings accounts schemes, which Democrats helped to stop from becoming law. The session also saw insufficient investment in housing and transit, with the GOP supermajority shortchanging these crucial community infrastructure opportunities. The state’s renters likewise were left empty-handed, receiving no relief from rising rents and seeing Republicans block efforts to protect renters from abusive landlord practices.
Democrats also worked to strengthen our ethics laws. We successfully stopped a Republican effort to handcuff the investigative work of the Ethics Commission, but the Republican supermajority still failed to fully fund the commission and rejected Democrats’ proposal to require public officials to report known instances of child sexual abuse.
Amidst the missed opportunities and successes this year, one issue cast a shadow over the entire session: the chaotic, failed policies of the Trump administration. Already, our neighbors have felt federal cuts to everything from rural infrastructure to care for the disabled. Republican lawmakers ignored Democrats’ calls to protect our communities from these cuts, instead opting to roll back proposed state investments in anticipation of further harmful federal impacts to the state. We now fully expect to be called back into a special session when President Trump and his GOP enablers in Congress make cuts to healthcare, SNAP, Social Security, education, and countless other programs our citizens count on. If that happens, Democrats stand ready to fight for all North Dakotans, just like we did in the 69th Legislative Assembly.
Sen. Josh Boschee, D-Fargo, serves as the assistant minority leader of North Dakota's Senate. Rep. Gretchen Dovervich serves as the assistant minority leader of the North Dakota House of Representatives.