Gulleson Runs Attack Ad Alleging Ethics Problems For Kevin Cramer

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Written By:
Rob Port

Oct 3, 2012
9:52am

Things haven’t been going great for the Gulleson campaign. The national Democrats just hung her out to dry, pulling out their resources here and re-allocating them to other states, she had a terrible debate performance against Cramer recently and her campaign got caught lying about pulling out of a debate involving the Lignite Energy Council.

So, because she really doesn’t have anywhere else left to go, Gulleson has launched the first negative ad of the House race attacking Kevin Cramer in the context of a lawsuit filed by environmental extremist groups alleging unethical activity.

The real motivation behind that lawsuit filed against Cramer, and his fellow Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk, is to remove North Dakota’s local control over surface mining regulation. Groups like the Sierra Club, which is a plaintiff in the case against Cramer, have been filing similar lawsuits all over the country in the hopes of stripping the states of local environmental control.

In North Dakota, they’re using the absurd cover of ethical violations, claiming that perfectly legal and 100% disclosed contributions Cramer took from people who work in the energy industry (and political action committees representing those industries) are somehow unethical. Which is about like saying it’s unethical for farmers to contribute to the ag commissioner candidate, or that it’s unethical for teachers or teachers unions to contribute to a candidate for state superintendent.

These are the desperate accusations of a desperate candidate, but made all the more troubling as Gulleson clearly has little concern for what groups like the Sierra Club are trying to do for local control. Pam Gulleson clearly doesn’t stand for North Dakota’s right to regulate energy locally, and she obviously has little respect for free political speech.