What to watch in North Dakota's Legislature: Common Core, tobacco taxes, surge funding
By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press
BISMARCK, North Dakota — The North Dakota Legislature will remain busy this week introducing and finishing voting on bills in their respective chambers, including those that address education standards, tobacco taxes and surge funding.
COMMON CORE
North Dakota’s House is slated to vote this week whether to repeal new state English and math standards that outline what students should know and when. The House Education Committee voted 9-4 last week to give the bill a do-not-pass recommendation.
Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, is sponsoring the legislation to repeal Common Core education standards for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Kasper and other critics believe the standards represent a federal takeover of education.
Backers contend the standards provide students with the critical thinking and writing skills needed for college and the workforce.
North Dakota adopted the standards in 2011 and began to fully implement them during the current school year. Assessments based on the new standards will start for all students this spring.
North Dakota School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said more than 130 educators from around the state were involved in helping develop the Common Core standards.
TOBACCO TAXES
North Dakota hasn’t raised it tax on tobacco since 1993 and the streak appears to have no immediate end in sight.
Rep. Jon Nelson, R-Rugby, is pushing the bill that would raise the state’s cigarette tax from 44 cents to $1.54 a pack, equal to the national average. Tax on a can of snuff would jump from 60 cents to $2.72.
Nelson believes the measure will save lives by deterring young people from taking up the habit.
Retailers have successfully fought off several attempts to raise the state’s tobacco tax in the past two decades, arguing that it punishes retailers and unfairly targets low-income North Dakotans.
The House Finance and Taxation Committee voted 12-2 to give the bill a do-not-pass recommendation. The full House will decide whether to reject the measure on smokes, chew and chewing tobacco.
North Dakota ranks 46th among states in the amount of tax smokers pay. New York charges the most state excise tax in the nation at $4.35. A $1.54-per-pack tax would put North Dakota more in line with neighboring states
SURGE FUNDING
North Dakota’s Senate already has approved $1.1 billion in special funding so that infrastructure projects can begin by this summer. The measure is slated to go before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.
The “surge funding” bill that would fast-track funding to cities, school districts and communities impacted by North Dakota’s exploding growth.
House budget writers have asked cities, counties and townships to provide a detailed listing of “shovel ready” projects and the estimated cost of each project that would be completed this year.
HEITKAMP BILL
A bill that would prohibit the governor from appointing a successor to a vacant North Dakota congressional seat is slated to be heard by the House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee this week.
Republican Rep. Roscoe Streyle, a Minot banker, introduced the bill, which is response to a rumored gubernatorial bid next year by popular freshman Democratic U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.
She’s been mum on the subject.
Heitkamp won’t be up for re-election in the Senate until 2018. Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple hasn’t said whether he plans to seek another term as governor.
Heitkamp is the only Democrat holding a statewide office in North Dakota. The former state auditor and attorney general unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2000.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/4d58129cf6c1441ba45a72e5de9185da/ND–In-the-Legislature
