Bipartisan Effort to Improve Quality of Life in Rural America

Former U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp speaks with FFA students at Central Cass High School. (Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – Former U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp used her home state of North Dakota on Wednesday for the first of a series of meetings she hopes will help policy affecting rural America.

“There has not been a kind of broad comprehensive look overall at rural policy … since during the Depression,” Heitkamp said in an interview Wednesday after the America’s Rural Future hearing at the Grand Farm research campus near Casselton.

The project is a partnership of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute. This project, led by co-chairs Heitkamp, a Democrat, and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, launched earlier this year.

Heitkamp said rural issues, such as housing and health care, are often treated separately instead of as related challenges. The group plans to make policy recommendations in the fall of 2027.