Say Anything Blog

The Fargo Forum has an opinion piece up today about the Antigua trip I posted about yesterday:

When North Dakota legislators take an all expenses-paid trip from special interests that might have business before the Legislature, North Dakotans should know about it. When lawmakers characterize themselves as some sort of unofficial trade team on a visit to a foreign nation, North Dakotans should know about it.

And they should know about it before the trip, not after.

Alas, North Dakota law has no provisions for lawmakers to report such trips as long as no public money is spent. So when five Republican legislators, led by Rep. Jim Kasper of Fargo, jetted off to Antigua earlier this month, they were under no obligation to tell anyone about anything. Indeed, they didn’t say a word until Forum reporter Janell Cole got wind of the trip and began asking questions. (See Cole’s report in Sunday’s Forum.) Rep. Kasper said he intended to go public with the trip after he met with Gov. John Hoeven and others in state government regarding how the state could benefit from a relationship with Antigua. Hoeven said he knew nothing of the trip and didn’t expect he would unless public money were spent. . . .

We’re not concluding Kasper and his Republican colleagues broke the law. They did not. But the law’s loopholes are so big legislators can accept expensive trips paid for by the gambling industry and not report it. It would be no surprise if the impression left among North Dakotans was that the international gambling industry is buying influence in Bismarck.

Pointing out the fact that North Dakota has no laws requiring legislators to report trips paid for by lobbyists is a fair criticism. Such laws encourage transparency and public accountability, and that's a good thing.



Insinuating that the Republicans did something wrong by taking this trip to Antigua, however, is an unfair criticism (especially in light of the Forum's reluctance to be consistent with this criticism). These Republicans were playing by the rules. Certainly, after last year's legislative session, there is no secret about Rep. Kasper's feelings for our state and internet gambling. Further, his previous interactions with the gambling industry have been well documented and widely reported in the state.

For better or worse, Kasper supports the establishment of internet gambling in the state. Its no secret. That is his agenda and he has been forthright with the public about it. I, for one, support him in it. One can hardly criticize him for making perfectly legal trips in furtherance of that agenda, nor can be be blamed for getting some of his fellow legislators to go along with him. After all, isn't it a legislator's job to push for laws and initiatives that he or she thinks are best for the state?

I might be more worried about this had Cole's article about the trip to Antigua come out the end of November without Kasper making the trip public, but as it was the article came out just over a week after they got back. Kasper could very well have been planning on making all this public, just as he said, before he was pre-empted by the Forum article and a bunch of faux outrage from the state's leftists.

Frankly, Kasper could have handled it better. He could have announced the trip before they left, not so much because he had an obligation too but rather because it would have shut down the left-wing belly-aching we're hearing now before it got a chance to start.