Senate Majority Leader David Hogue, left, talks to Gov. Kelly Armstrong. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor)
(North Dakota Monitor) – Gov. Kelly Armstrong issued seven line-item vetoes on six bills with many objections focused on policies he felt lawmakers “shoehorned” into budget bills or encroached on executive authority.
One line-item veto was of a section of the Ethics Commission’s budget bill meant to protect lawmakers from being prosecuted for conflicts of interest though he let a similar clause in the bill become law.
Both provisions, part of Senate Bill 2004, concerned lawmakers who have a special interest in the outcome of legislation. Under House and Senate rules, lawmakers are supposed to notify their peers when they believe they have conflict of interest with a bill so that their colleagues can decide whether to excuse them from voting. They may also seek guidance from the Ethics Commission.
In a line-item veto message, Armstrong said the provision “sends the wrong message to North Dakotans.”
The vetoed clause stated that if a lawmaker voted on a bill they had a conflict of interest with, but followed legislative ethics rules and/or followed informal guidance from the Ethics Commission, they couldn’t be prosecuted for any potential crime that stemmed from that vote.
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