North Dakota Secretary of State Michael Howe, shown here with the State Canvassing Board on Nov. 20, 2024, is working with the Ethics Commission on financial reporting rules for elected officials. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
(North Dakota Monitor) – The North Dakota secretary of state is working with the Ethics Commission to propose changes to financial disclosure rules for elected officials, including filing statements every year, making the forms available to the public online and adding fines for noncompliance.
Secretary of State Michael Howe presented a draft proposal to the commission that also would require elected or appointed officials to disclose if they sell or lease land or buildings to public agencies. Howe said the proposal is a concept draft and his office plans to work with a lawmaker to introduce a bill in the 2025 session.
Currently, candidates for elected office are required to disclose financial interests on a statement of interest form with the Secretary of State’s Office to get onto the ballot. But if that candidate is elected, they are not required to update that information while in office. The forms are public records, but not available electronically.
The draft proposal would require that information to be updated annually.
“I believe in most cases, there wouldn’t be much updating to do. It would be a simple hit submit of your previous information,” Howe said. “But if there are changes that you need to disclose, you would have that opportunity to look back and disclose that year after year.”
Howe said his office is working on a new campaign finance website for the 2026 election cycle that could host the disclosure forms.
Howe and the Ethics Commission also discussed possible fines for not complying with the reporting requirements, including a $2,500 fine for falsifying information and a $1,000 fine for failing to report. There could be smaller fines for filing after a deadline.
Rebecca Binstock, executive director of the North Dakota Ethics Commission, said the enforcement of the policy is still being discussed. The Secretary of State’s Office is not an investigative agency.
The draft proposal also would require that candidates and office-holders disclose public agencies that they had sold or leased land or buildings to. They would also need to disclose agencies to which they sold goods or services of more than $5,000.
Under the draft proposal, the disclosure requirements would apply to all elected and appointed officials already obliged to file statements of interests. Local elected officials in cities with a population under 5,000 and school districts with under 1,000 students enrolled would not be subject to the annual filing requirement.
Members of the Ethics Commission said Howe’s draft was a good start to improving the state’s transparency rules.
“I look forward to a really good discussion during the legislative session,” Binstock said.
North Dakota lawmakers have previously rejected proposals to increase the transparency of financial disclosures. A bill proposed in 2017 would have required statements of interest to be published online and available for free. The effort failed, with the Legislature voting to commission a study of the issue instead. The study did not lead to any policy changes.
Reporting earlier this year by the North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica highlighted shortcomings in the state’s financial disclosure rules. Gov. Doug Burgum did not have to disclose his financial ties to oil and gas companies under North Dakota’s rules, but he did have to disclose those under federal rules when he ran for president.
Similarly, Gov.-elect Kelly Armstrong disclosed more information about his oil and gas holdings when he became a member of Congress than he did as a state senator. Armstrong has said that he favors transparency but making disclosure rules too onerous could discourage people from joining the citizen Legislature.
The reporting also showed that Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring has not listed on his statements of interest his ownership stake in Red Trail Energy, a Richardton ethanol plant.
Several current and former elected officials have a financial interest in property that is leased to state agencies but that arrangement is not required to be disclosed on statements of interest, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported in 2019.
Rep. Jason Dockter, R-Bismarck, part owner of a building that is leased to the Attorney General’s Office and Department of Health, was convicted by a jury earlier this year of a conflict-of-interest misdemeanor related to voting on bills related to budgets for both agencies.
The North Dakota Ethics Commission was created by a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2018. It has the authority to adopt and enforce ethics-related rules in the areas of transparency, elections, corruption and lobbying.
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