BISMARCK – Five North Dakota legislators – including four from Fargo – took a four-day, all-expenses paid trip to Antigua earlier this month on an unofficial trade mission paid for by the tiny Caribbean island country.
Rep. Jim Kasper arranged the trip for fellow state House Republican representatives Mark Dosch, Bette Grande, Ron Iverson and Blair Thoreson. All but Dosch, who’s from Bismarck, represent Fargo districts at the Capitol.
Two others, Rep. Dave Weiler, R-Bismarck, and Sen. Duaine Espegard, R-Grand Forks, were invited but did not go.
An Oct. 1 Antiguan government news release said the trip was to discuss Internet gaming.
“High on the agenda will be discussions on Internet gaming and the development of a corresponding banking relationship with the Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned bank in the United States managed by the legislators,” the release said.
The Bank of North Dakota is actually overseen by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which is comprised of the governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner.
The Antiguan news release goes on to say, “… the meetings during the coming week are very important, as the success of the Internet gaming industry is largely dependent on finding corresponding banks who will do business with Internet gaming companies.”
Kasper led the recently unsuccessful legislative charge to have North Dakota become the first state to legalize and regulate Internet gambling, which is now mainly run off-shore.
From the breathless reporting in this piece one gets the idea that this group of Republicans, led by Kasper, did something wrong (the state bank is not actually ran by the legislators!!!) in making a trip down to Antigua. Certainly this sort of thing has been getting a lot of media attention lately on the federal level with politicians from both sides of the aisle getting into hot water over trips paid for by lobbyists, but is this an instance of that same sort of thing happening on the local level? The ND Democrats seem to think it is as they're not typically in the habit of highlighting the legal goings-on of Republicans, but let's see what we find buried in the 26th paragraph of the article:
Unlike members of U.S. Congress and legislators in many states, North Dakota’s elected officials do not have to disclose trips and gifts furnished by businesses, lobbyists or other governments. No state law prohibits them from accepting trips and gifts and no law requires them to even acknowledge such trips.
Well what do you know. This group of Republicans did absolutely nothing illegal. So why then the long article? Why the snarky remarks from commenters over at the state Democrat's official blog?
I think these people would like North Dakotans to think that something fishy went on with this Antigua trip. Unfortunately for them, that isn't even remotely true.