Harebrained ideas allowed in the best of systems

Passing Dreams


 Sometimes being the best means you have to be willing to put up with the not-so-good.

Free speech, for example. In order to protect the right to be unfettered in speaking our minds we put up with some whose speech we find offensive.

Guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. In order to be as certain as possible that we don’t wrongly convict an innocent of a crime, we sometimes end up letting a guilty person go free.

North Dakota has arguably the best legislative process in the country. Any legislator can introduce any bill, and it’s guaranteed to get a committee hearing, a committee recommendation and an up or down vote by at least one chamber of the legislature.

We don’t have the objectionable political maneuvers that are common in most states. Committee chairs can’t stuff a bill in a drawer until it’s too late to be considered. Leaders can’t refuse to schedule votes on bills they don’t like. Political gamesmanship, while not completely absent, is limited.

It’s a great system. But it also means we’re going to end up wasting legislative time on some pretty harebrained ideas.

Of course, what’s harebrained to me might be enlightened to you, or to a bill’s sponsor.

But two weeks into the 2021 legislative session there are already a number of bills that are half-baked. Maybe a quarter-baked.

Several of them come from Rep. Jeff Hoverson, R-Minot, who is perhaps most famous at the capital as the legislator who two years ago objected to hearing a prayer from a Hindu cleric.

This session, Hoverson has introduced bills to prohibit any state or local government from requiring the use of face coverings; to remove the requirement that you have certain vaccinations in order to attend school, get a job or travel; and to make performing an abortion felony murder.

For obvious reasons, none of these bills is likely to get much traction.

Even legislative leaders who are proud that the state has become a leader in passing anti-abortion laws believe Hoverson’s bill goes too far. Among other things, you would be guilty of a felony for simply giving a woman a ride to an abortion clinic. Really?

The face mask bill further politicizes public health in the state, and takes control away from local leaders to respond to emergency situations. With a little thought, it’s easy to imagine several scenarios in which requiring face coverings would be important. Think SARS.

Then there’s the vaccinations bill, which seems to perpetuate long-disproven theories held by anti-vaxers. Proponents apparently don’t remember the deafness, cataracts and intellectual disabilities attributable to rubella, or the use of iron lungs and deformities resulting from polio.

There are more

Rep. Terry Jones, R-New Town, has introduced a bill to allow people to enter “American” for race when filling out official documents. Americans include people of many different races. Permitting them to identify their race as American would be like permitting them to identify “teenager” as their gender. If you want people to identify as American, ask their nationality, not their race.

Rep. Ben Koppleman, RWest Fargo, put in a bill that would require all businesses to accept cash for purchases. I get that there are a few, probably very few, North Dakotans who don’t like plastic and don’t have checking accounts. But this bill sticks government’s nose into private business. Will someone also find a reason to require businesses to accept Bitcoin? Or gold boullion?

Finally there’s Hazelton Rep. Jeff Magrum’s bill to prohibit a governor from endorsing a legislative candidate or making cash contributions to a legislative campaign. You can probably guess who Gov. Doug Burgum supported, with his words and his cash, in Magrum’s legislative race last fall. Yes, the best legislative system even allows for bills of retribution. But free speech also applies to governors.

What’s in a name?

Minot’s Rep. Hoverson identifies himself as a Lutheran pastor. Technically he’s right. He is pastor of Living Word Lutheran Church in Minot, which is affiliated with the Church of the Lutheran Brethren, a denomination with about 13,000 North American members.

Still, he’s not what most people think of when they hear the word Lutheran.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with 3.7 million members, is the most common Lutheran denomination in North America, including in North Dakota. It’s likely that most of us are thinking of ELCA churches when they think of Lutherans, or perhaps the 2.3-million-member Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

Hoverson, though, according to his church’s listing on the Lutheran Brethren web site, says the ELCA shifted to a “perversion of the gospel” and that it has “clearly left both biblical and Lutheran roots.”

Certainly he is free to hold that opinion, but it raises the question: Why would he identify as Lutheran when people might get the impression he’s with the gospel-perverted ELCA?

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