North Dakota legislators held a press conference today to announce details for their $1.11B bonding bill. The bill would support several North Dakota projects. Please see the North Dakota Legislature's press release below for more details on the proposal. North Dakota Legislators Discuss Bonding Proposal   $1.11B proposal would fund economic development projects, infrastructure State legislators laid out a proposal today for a massive bonding program that would fund infrastructure and economic development projects across the state. The program, which would be funded by Legacy Fund earnings and managed by the Bank of North Dakota, includes funding for water projects, a carbon capture project, an ag development center, and the State Hospital, in addition to infrastructure dollars for counties and cities. Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, who has worked on the bill since last summer, said now is the time for bonding. “These are projects the state has committed to funding. I

The 67th Legislative Session began today. This Legislative Session will look and feel different from previous sessions; however, the capitol was filled energy and excitement as the legislators settled in to do their work today. Here are just a few differences you'll see this session. Remote Participation This is the first year that individuals will have the opportunity to provide testimony remotely during the Legislative Session. Legislative Council has put together a video demonstrating the processing for submitting written testimony which is available here.   In-Person Participation Visitors are still allowed to attend legislative committee hearings in person. The newly remodeled south entrance is the only public entrance to the Capitol. Upon entering the Capitol, in addition to the metal detector screening, everyone needs to complete a COVID screening wrist temperature check and answer a few questions on a machine like this: Many of the legislative committees have been moved to

The 67th North Dakota Legislative Assembly is set to convene next week on January 5, 2020. On the first day of the session, legislators will hear the Tribal-State Message, the State of the Judiciary Address, and the State of the State address. All of these presentations will be broadcast live from the Legislature's webpage. The links to watch are available at  https://www.legis.nd.gov/events/2021-01 . The pre-filed bills and resolutions have been posted to the North Dakota Legislature's website. There are 101 pre-filed bills and resolutions. The pre-filed bills and resolutions are typically appropriation bills, bills/resolutions from legislative management, bills/resolutions from interim legislative committees, and procedural agency bills. The pre-filed bills and resolutions can be accessed from  https://www.legis.nd.gov/news/prefiled-bills-and-resolutions-bill-tracking . That link also has information on the Legislative Bill Tracking System so that you can set up your own trac

The 67th Assembly of the North Dakota Legislature met December 1-3, 2020 to organize for the legislative session which will begin January 5, 2021. As part of the organizational session, senators and representatives are assigned to various committees in order to divide the work the Assembly needs to complete.  The League of Cities most often works with the Finance and Taxation, the Judiciary, the Political Subdivisions, and the Appropriations Committees; however, in the past the League has followed bills in all of the House and the Senate Committees.  One of the ways to be most effective with impacting the outcome of a bill is to find out which committee your bill is assigned to and to contact the senators or representatives on that committee regarding the bill. This can be particularly impactful if one of your legislators is on that committee.  Take a look at the picture included with this post to see which committees your senator and representatives serve on.

The NDLC Legislative Insights blog is a new tool that NDLC will be using to help city officials stay up to date on what is happening at the Legislature. This tool will be in addition to the other ways NDLC communicates with cities. Make sure to click the subscribe button at the top of the page to receive email updates as blog posts are added.  The blog is updated by your NDLC Lobby Team - Bill, Stephanie, and Blake  (pre-COVID).