Say Anything Blog

The Grand Forks Herald has two articles up today basically advocating for some race-based hiring in North Dakota's law enforcement agencies.

First is this:

A look at the number of black law enforcement officers in North Dakota and nationwide:

Nationwide: About 10 percent of the 800,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the 18,000 departments nationwide are black.

North Dakota: There were 10 black law enforcement officers in the state in 2000. Census Bureau figures showed of the 3,570 officers, 54 were Hispanic officers and 435 were American Indians, who mostly serve on the state's four Indian reservations.

Cities: Fargo, Bismarck and Minot have no black officers. The North Dakota Highway Patrol, with 136 troopers, has no blacks in its ranks.

Comparing the national ratio of black to non-black officers to North Dakota's ratio is pointless. Blacks make up 0.6% of North Dakota's population. According to the article there are 10 black law enforcement officers among the state's 3,570 officers. That's .2% of the total number of officers. That's lower than the .6% that blacks make up in the total population, but it isn't far off the mark either, especially considering that most of the blacks who are living in the state are probably serving at one of the state's military bases and thus would be unavailable for hire in law enforcement.



Here's an excerpt from another article on the same issue from the Herald:

Law enforcement agencies across the state say they are trying to recruit more minority officers from the state and elsewhere, but they say the candidates don't exist.

"We work very hard and have tried every niche but we are not getting enough people to apply, not even white officers," said Col. Bryan Klipfel, commander of the Highway Patrol.

The lack of black officers is not unique to North Dakota, said Ronald Hampton, director of the National Black Police Association.

"Whether it's way down South or in North Dakota, it's the same issue," said Hampton, a retired Washington, D.C., police officer.

"The relationship between police and people of color has always been strained," Hampton said.

Hampton said a culturally diverse department is valuable. He calls it "respecting the collective of the people you're dealing with."

He said departments with no black officers have a tougher time luring black applicants.

"It's no secret there are very few black people in North Dakota, but there are black people who live there," he said. "You have to put together a strategy to hire officers, otherwise it's just lip service."

Marigny said the lack of black officers in North Dakota "is not an issue."

"I've been to pretty much every department in the state, and I've met with nearly every chief and sheriff," Marigny said. "I know that they are not getting applications because the pool is not that great for black candidates."

Yet now the state's two largest newspapers, the Herald above and the Fargo Forum two weeks ago, have come out with articles casting this issue as though it were a legitimate problem.

I don't think it is. For one, there just aren't a lot of blacks in this state who want to be in law enforcement. Should we start programs to encourage more minority applicants? Maybe, but I'd just as soon encourage any interested party to apply regardless of race. After all, the best applicants are going to be people who don't have to be convinced that law enforcement should be their career.

Should we start unequal, affirmative action hiring practices to boost the number of minority officers we have? Absolutely not. In a job as crucial as law enforcement we cannot afford to hire any but the best available applicants. Hiring one applicant over another because of his/her gender or race could very well result in somebody getting hurt or killed because we do not have the best officers on the street.

I am convinced that the racial makeup of our law enforcement officers is not a problem in this state. I think its clear that our law enforcement agencies are hiring the best officers available to them and certainly aren't engaging in any race-based selection.

That's how it should stay.

Approval for President Bush in North Dakota is at 43% according to SurveyUSA. That's pretty low for a state that had 62% of the population casting their votes for him back in November.

Why are they so low? Here's what one North Dakota leftist has to say:

Could North Dakota be rejecting the far-right neoconservative Moral Majority nonsense? It would be refreshing to see a return of Eisenhower-era Republicanism - those guys aren't the ones trying to tell you who to marry or willingly cutting 40,000 kids off of school lunches (though they may accuse you of being a Communist).

That's a typical reaction from the left to low poll numbers for the President, but is it true? Are people really getting down on the President because they're rejecting his "far-right" agenda? Certainly these same people knew what the President's agenda was when they put him in office, therefore I think that it is much more likely that the President is polling low because he's not accomplishing the "far-right" agenda Americans put him office to pursue.

I think that's something to remember when these negative polls are hyped by the left. Negative numbers on the President do not necessarily translate into positive numbers for Democrats. Americans may not be very happy with their President right now, but if there were another vote between him and John Kerry today he'd probably win again. And that 62% of North Dakotans would probably vote the same way they did in the first balloting.

Because people can be unhappy with current leadership and still reject the ideals of modern liberalism.

Dakota Huseby:

We should have a discussion of what we do in Iraq. A national, intelligent debate of ideas is required for such serious times. Instead we got name calling and politics..I am bothered that the White House set the tone for the name calling this week by equating Rep. Murtha to Michael Moore.

The partisanship has been growing worse over the years but I think it reached it's tipping point. I hope President Bush watched C-Span last night, as my husband and I did and thinks back to his 2000 campaign of changing the tone and uniting not dividing and leads us into an area where we can at least agree to disagree and have conversations about important issues.

Wishing for a change in the "tone" of American politics is futile. It is a desire to return the politics of this country to a state that has never existed in its history. Contentious issues have always resulted in heated political battles. Back during the John Adams administration debate in the House resulted in one Representative (Kentucky's Matt Lyon) spitting on a political opponent during a floor debate.

We've certainly progressed beyond that, but the caustic nature of political discourse is neither something that is new nor something to be especially worried about. It has always been this way and it probably will always be this way.

I saw nothing that was troublesome in last night's activity in the House. Was the vote a political stunt? Sure it was. Just like the closing of the Senate by Democrats was a political stunt aimed at taking the national debate away from winning the war in Iraq, this particular stunt was about getting the focus back on winning the war.

Democrats showed, with their votes last night, that immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq is a mistake because we still have objectives to achieve there. This is the same position the President has. Now that we're all in agreement on it, maybe we can start talking about what we're going to do to achieve this objectives.

Hmm...

Grand Forks Herald - The recent Holiday Tour of Homes fund-raiser in Grand Forks violated state campaign finance law.

So says a Grand Forks man who has won in the courts before on the same issue.

Bill Couchigian, a retired electrician, said the event run by the Republican Women's Club included illegal contributions.

He cites state law that prohibits corporations, limited liability companies and associations from making direct contributions to aid "any political party, political committee or organization."

Four local businesses assisted in decorating the five homes on the tour, held Nov. 5-6. That help is a violation, Couchigian said, because the law says a contribution is "a gift ... or anything of value ... including any good or service of more than nominal value."

[..]

"This appears like corporate contributions, too," Couchigian said. "We took on Stenehjem over this and showed it can't be done. I can't read the law's language any other way this time.

"They broke the law. I would think the attorney general, secretary of state or state's attorney would be enforcing it."

Here's the text of the pertinent law from the North Dakota Century Code:

16.1-08.1-03.3. Campaign contributions by corporations, cooperative corporations, limited liability companies, and associations prohibited - Violation - Penalty.

1. A corporation, cooperative corporation, limited liability company, or association may
not make a direct contribution:

a. To aid any political party, political committee, or organization.

In order for their to be a violation of the law there would have to be a contribution from the businesses in question. According to the law I just linked to a contribution means "a gift, transfer, conveyance, provision, receipt, subscription, loan, advance, deposit of money, or anything of value, made for the purpose of influencing the nomination for election, or election, of any person to public office or aiding or opposing the circulation or passage of a statewide initiative or referendum petition or measure."

Now lets go back to the article:

[Clarisse] Fasbender said businesses do not donate money or decorations. "They bring their items and then they take them back," she said. "It's a display for them."

Georgia Heitmann of All Seasons Garden Center, which helped decorate two homes, said the nursery participates to showcase its products and design talents.

"Our product does not stay in the homes and we don't pay to have it shown, so I don't know what kind of a political contribution you can interpret that to be," Heitmann said.

Does this classify as a "contribution" under the definition of such provided by the law? Remember that the "contribution" must have "value" in order for it to count. Do goods brought by businesses for showcase in these homes and subsequently taken back have value for the Republican Women's Group in terms of influencing political issues?

Maybe...but how do you quantify something like that? What value does it have? That it attracted a few more visitors? What monetary value can you put on that?

I think this is an instance of the letter of the law being violated, but not necessarily the spirit.

On a side note, Couchigian casts some aspersions in the article about the attorney general's office, the secretary of state's office and the district attorney's office not "enforcing" the law. He's way off base on that one. This violation, if it is one, would fall under the jurisdiction of the county state's attorney who can only act on it if there is first a complaint that has been investigated by law enforcement. Apparently, Couchigian ran to the press with this silliness before even bothering to report his concerns to the proper authorities.

Showing us all where his priorities lay.

Honestly, this seems like another issue where state Democrats are trying to make a lot of noise about an issue that really isn't that big of a deal. If the best they can do is criticize a bunch of little old ladies for displaying house plants during a home tour they must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

One almost has to wonder why the Grand Forks Herald even thought this was news.

Excellent...

The State Board of Higher Education today unanimously approved a resolution supporting the University of North Dakota’s appeals to the NCAA to keep its Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.

The resolution also encourages UND President Charles Kupchella to continue talking with the state’s American Indian tribes to find common ground on the issue.

Three member representatives of North Dakota American Indian tribes spoke in opposition to the nickname during today’s meeting at North Dakota State University.

Previously I had welcomed the new Bismarck Democrats website to the blogosphere and endorsed it as a "good addition to the North Dakota blogging community."

I now, formally, withdraw that endorsement. The administrator over there, Ryan G. from Flickertail Journal (CORRECTED PER COMMENTS: The owner of the site is Chad Nodland of Bismarck), is going to run the place as a liberal hate-hole. That sort of thing may fly in other states, but North Dakota politics are above hateful comparisons like that. I'm all for dissent and political debate, but I'm not giving my approval to blind hatred.

Not that anyone was paying much attention to the site anyway.

Hmm...

FARGO - The state Board of Higher Education will fund a plan to help colleges draw more international students, over objections from some board members that the program could actually hurt recruiting.

The $1.5 million plan will create a staff of half a dozen people to coordinate international recruiting among the 11 public colleges. The state currently has about 1,500 international students, not including about 500 Canadians.

"This is simply an aggressive, innovative and new way to attempt to address the demographic problem," Chancellor Robert Potts said today during the board's monthly meeting. "What we are doing right now isn't working very well."

North Dakota State University administrators objected to the plan because it will allow the schools to use agents, or "headhunters," to find students. President Joseph Chapman said it's unethical, and he is worried his school might be banned from participating in college fairs.

"I do not think, frankly, this has been thought through to my satisfaction," Chapman said.

Let me get this straight: North Dakota taxpayers are now going to shell out $1.5 million to recruit foreign students because we have too many white people at our universities?

I assume that "too many white people" is what Potts means by "the demographic problem."

Is that a problem worth $1.5 million? Is it a problem at all? Why would a student population dominated by white kids be any more of a problem than a student population dominated by other demographics? Why does the race of the students matter at all?

This sounds like a colossal misappropriation of public funds to me.

BISMARCK - North Dakota's treasury will make up the difference if federal heating assistance to low-income households falls short, Gov. John Hoeven said today. The expense could reach $5 million, which will come from savings in the state's welfare program.

About 15,000 North Dakota households benefit from the heating-aid program, said Carol Olson, director of the state Department of Human Services. It is normally financed by the federal government. North Dakota accounted for about $14 million in heating aid spending last winter, Olson said.

Congress has been debating whether to increase outlays for heating aid, because of sharply higher prices for natural gas and fuel oil, which are used to heat homes.

At a news conference at the state Capitol today, Hoeven said the state would provide the funds necessary to maintain the heating assistance program's present eligibility requirements.

There is absolutely no indication that federal heating aid is going to fall short of what is needed. The 15,000 North Dakotans who receive heating aid got over $900 each last year. That would cover most of my heating bill even at the high prices we're paying now, and I'm using natural gas to heat an older home that is something less than energy efficient. I don't foresee the state having to make up any difference at all.

That aside, though, Hoeven's statement is just plain common sense. After all, we're not going to let anybody freeze to death in their own home. State Democrats have been making a big deal about Hoeven "not having a plan in place," but that was all just empty rhetoric. North Dakota has always been in a position to help out on heating aid should federal dollars fall short.

That state Democrats had to resort using this rather silly non-issue shows just how slim the pickins are for partisans looking to score political points in a state with a Governor as popular as Hoeven is.

Fargo Forum - At 72 percent, North Dakota has the highest percentage of children under age 6 with both parents in the work force.

Yet the supply of licensed child-care providers meets only 25 percent of the potential demand.

That’s why North Dakota needs to do a better job of providing quality, affordable child care to stabilize the industry and help working parents, advocates said Wednesday.

Nearly 150 economic developers, business leaders, policymakers and child-care leaders attended a conference at the Fargodome on the role of child care in North Dakota’s economy.

Despite the high cost of child care, the industry struggles to make ends meet, said conference coordinator Linda Lembke, director of Lakes & Prairies Child Care Resource and Referral.

Low wages and lack of benefits create a high turnover of child-care workers, which causes quality to be compromised and leads to an unstable market.

“We’re really trying to engage those nontraditional stakeholders to help them understand that they have something at stake in having a stable, ample child care supply,” Lembke said of why the conference was offered.

I called this four days ago.

I've been saying this since this whole mess about "excessive" oil profits started:

A little-publicized provision of the tax bill passed out of the Senate Finance Committee on Monday calls for a one-time $5 bill tax on big oil companies, disguised as a complicated inventory valuation methodology shift. Of course taxing oil companies is the last thing we need right now, when every incentive to discover and extract more oil counts more than ever. CNN/Money reports one Wall Street oil analyst notes, correctly, that "The tax code isn't supposed to penalize investment. It's supposed to encourage investment. And this tax "won't lower gas prices even a penny."

Read the whole thing. And then thank Senate Republicans for not killing this stupidity which, if passed, will only result in more tax burden for Americans and an increase in the price of as.

And if you're a North Dakotan you can thank Senator Byron Dorgan who had a hand in coming up with this nonsense.

Posted in the forums:

There were two votes in the Senate [yesterday] on the need for more reports on progress in Iraq and for the White House to explain its strategy to win the war. The first was sponsored by Democrats, and it very nearly called for an exact timetable, and it failed 40-58. The second, a "compromise bill", and it passed 79-19.

The North Dakota votes are interesting.

Conrad voted against them both, a largely conservative position (he's with 13 other Republicans and NO Democrats). Dorgan, on the other hand, voted in favor of the first bill (with 38 other Democrats and a RINO) as well as in favor of the second.

Any thoughts on what this could mean? Remember, back in 2002 it was Conrad who voted against the "Joint Resolution" that sent us to war, with Dorgan for it. With these votes, Conrad appears to be aiming for a more conservative appeal, just in time for 2006.

Here's the vote tally on the first bill sponsored by Democrats. Here's the vote tally for the second, "compromise bill" that passed.

I think it's clear, from anyone looking at the way the North Dakota Senators vote in Washington, that they usually vote according to how the vote itself will make them rather than according to what the legislation will actually do. The ideal that Conrad is angling for more appeal to red state voters before 2006 balloting is spot on.

As for the bill itself, the one that passed, a lot of people on the right are angry about it. They're talking about the Republicans "caving in." I don't see it that way. Mostly because most of the bill's provisions are advisory. Like, for instance, asking the President to put forward his strategy for winning the war in Iraq.

Like he hasn't done that in every other speech since we invaded.

Plus, the House version of this bill that passed the Senate doesn't include any of these provisions and it doesn't look likely that any of them will be added. And if they are, it is not at all assured that they'll pass.

So, we'll see I guess. I like the idea of the Republicans showing some spine and the idea that they'd undermine the President (even in a sort of meaningless way like this) is troublesome, but "caving" on a largely symbolic bill is hardly cause to get very upset. A little peeved, perhaps, but not angry.

In the long run, I don't see this legislation making much of a difference if it even passes.

I found this interesting tid-bit over at Flickertail Journal:

The poverty rate for American Indians in North Dakota is more than three times the rate for North Dakota All Races population: 38% compared to 11%.

American Indians are nearly three times as likely to live in households without plumbing facilities as the general North Dakota population.

Unemployment varies from reservation to reservation, but averages 63% for North Dakota American Indians as compared to the overall U.S. rate of 5.1%.

To varying extent, essentially every American Indian and Alaska Native community in America has experienced social and economic change, adjustment and adversity. Various federal policies to deal with or take care of Indian people have been implemented over the years. These policies have mostly compounded the socio-economic disadvantages facing Indian communities. While the policies were supposedly well intended, the federal agencies charged with ‘taking care of’ Indian people have been historically under-funded. The Indian Health Service is funded at approximately 40% of need. The Indian Health Service per capita expenditure in FY 1997 was $1,132, as compared to the U.S. health per capita expenditure of $3,261.

I've traveled most of North Dakota's reservation lands personally and I can attest to the sad state of things there. In the middle of the prairie you will often find housing developments and communities that rival even the most desperate inner-city ghetto for exemplifying the very bottom rung of existence. Abandoned cars and homes. Streets littered with garbage. Drug and alcohol addicts wandering about aimlessly. It's bad. There are exceptions, of course, but the overall picture is grim.



The situation is atrocious, but why is it so bad? The knee-jerk reaction (which comes mostly from the left) is that the government isn't doing enough for the Indians. There aren't enough education opportunities, employment opportunities, etc., etc. But that's baloney. You'll get no argument for me about the historical wrongs done to the Indians, but that's in the past. We need to start talking about the here and now.

Right now North Dakota's economy is booming. Unemployment rates in the major cities are under 2% and businesses are crying out for workers. Statewide unemployment is hovering around 3%, yet we're supposed to believe that unemployment on reservations is 63% because the government isn't doing enough to create opportunities for the Indians?

Give me a break. There are plenty of opportunities in this state for somebody who wants to work

Frankly, I think we are doing Indians in this country a grave disservice by perpetuating the reservation lifestyle. And I don't think it is the fault of the Indians themselves but is rather the result of the situation into which they've been born. I'd like to see some education/employment numbers for Indian families who live away from the reservation. I'm guessing the contrast between those numbers and the numbers detailed above would be stark.

We are pumping billions of tax dollars into a reservation system in this country that, clearly, is not working. I think it's high time we set aside these archaic leftovers from a by-gone age and encourage Indians to integrate with America's population. By all means the Indians should preserve their heritage and their customs for posterity, but if they want the benefits of living in modern American society than they're going to have to actually integrate with that society. No more living apart in isolated communities run by tribal governments.

I think Indians across the country would be the better for it.

Americans For a Fair Tax need some volunteers who can attend the North Dakota Farm Bureau convention in Bismarck on Thursday, November 17th. The volunteers would need to sit at the Fair Tax booth and hand out brochures from 6:00pm - 9:00pm.

The convention is taking place at the Ramkota Inn.

If you're interested email me and I'll pass your names on to the appropriate people. It sounds like a good time.

I'd be attending personally, but I'm going to be traveling most of the rest of this week and just can't make time.

Bismarck Democrats has launched.

It's got a slick layout. Looks like it will be a good addition to the North Dakota political blogging community.

Update:

Never mind.

Time Magazine has a ranking of America's governors out. Lousiana's Kathleen Blanco is at the bottom.

TOPEKA, Kan. - Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has been named one of the five best governors in the nation by Time magazine.

Sebelius, a Democrat, was elected in 2002 "by winning the governor's race in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats almost 2 to 1," the magazine said Sunday in a news release.

"Through spending cuts, fee increases and some borrowing, Sebelius was able to balance Kansas' budget in her first year in office without raising taxes or cutting funding for education," the magazine said. . . .

Time's worst governors were Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, Bob Taft of Ohio and South Carolina's Mark Sanford.

One has to assume that this ranking is a reflection of Blanco's horrendous handling of the Katrina disaster. The media and America's political left exerted a lot of energy blaming Bush on Katrina, but the people who were paying attention know where to lay the blame and Blanco deserves a lion's share of it.

On an unrelated note, it's odd that North Dakota's John Hoeven didn't make the top five. Our state has an unemployment rate hovering around 3%, an approval rating consistently in the mid-70's and a $100 million budget surplus. You'd think that'd warrant a top ranking.

I can't find the whole list, so who knows. Maybe he still did rank near the top.

Update:

Blanco lied, people died.