Will We Defund Prairie Public?

UPDATE: At 2:13 today the North Dakota Senate killed HB 1255 by a vote of 6-41. But the battle’s not over. Now we have to get money into the appropriations bill. Read on for the full story.

I’m writing this story early Monday morning. I’m writing two lead paragraphs, one of which I will use in the final version later today.

Here’s the first:

The short, chaotic life of North Dakota House Bill 1255, forbidding the state from expending “. . . any state funds or federal funds . . .  to directly or indirectly support public broadcasting”  came to a deservedly ignominious end Monday when the North Dakota Senate killed it and sent it to its grave. It had earlier passed the North Dakota House.

Or this:

House Bill 1255, forbidding the state from spending “. . . any state funds or federal funds available to the state officer to directly or indirectly support public broadcasting,” is on its way to the Governor after passing the North Dakota Senate Monday. It had earlier passed the North Dakota House.

No matter which one I write, I’m pretty sure the state will not have to enforce a law that says that. If it’s version 1, the issue is dead. The Legislature killed a bad idea.

But if it’s version 2, well, that’s what I want to write about today. Because if it’s version 2, I think the Governor will probably kill it.

You see, someone should have told that idiot Legislator Jorin Johnson from Fargo, and a whole bunch of his fellow Republican Legislators who voted for it, that North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong has a wife, Kjersti, who doesn’t just sit at home and play with knitting needles. She is very involved in important organizations in North Dakota. Including Prairie Public. Just a couple of years ago she served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Prairie Public. And, I suspect, remains pretty interested in it.

Back in January, when news of Rep. Johnson’s bill surfaced, I visited with Gov. Armstrong at an event at the North Dakota Heritage Center. I told him I thought might call someone I knew who had to sign off on that bill and remind him that his wife once served as Board Chair of Prairie Public. He smiled and said “We’re not going to defund Prairie Public.”

I wanted to ask him if he was hinting that he might veto the bill. But of course, Governors are not allowed to say those kind of things, so I didn’t.

But then a few weeks later the Governor was interviewed on KFYR Television in Bismarck, and he was asked if he would sign the bill if it came to his desk. His reply:

“I can’t talk about what I would sign and what I wouldn’t sign, but I will say Big Bird is a national treasure and Dave Thompson is a state treasure.”

Well. Want to hazard a guess on the possibility of a veto?

But that would not be the end of the story.  Because two more things have to happen after that.

First, the Legislature could vote to override his veto. No telling what might happen on that. The House passed the bill 61-32, two votes short of the two-thirds necessary to override. The Senate hasn’t voted yet as I write this.

And second, right now there is no money for Prairie Public in any appropriations bill in the Legislature. Armstrong asked for $2.8 million in his Executive Budget he submitted to the Legislature. Someone in the Legislature cut that to $1.2 million when the bill was introduced and submitted to Appropriations. And then the House Appropriations Committee zeroed it out before sending HB 1015 to the floor, where it passed and went to the Senate with no money for Prairie Public.

So even if the Governor vetoes 1255, and the Legislature fails to override it, somehow, someone has to put the $1.2 million back in the Appropriations bill in the Senate committee, and it has to pass the full Senate, and then it has to go back to the full House.

So no matter what happens today, taxpayer funding for Prairie Public has a rocky road ahead of it in the next few weeks. Fingers crossed.