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Wednesday, May 04, 2016

SALLY MORRIS: THE END OF FREE SPEECH IN NORTH DAKOTA?

With the national Republican competition now ended, North Dakota citizens have time to focus on our own issues close to home.  And there are many.  North Dakota has become a very important part of the energy as well as agricultural resources of our country and the free world.  This is still a bastion of liberty and traditional American values.  We have an opportunity this year to make a difference in the future of our state. 

But first, right out of the gate, we have a First Amendment crisis.  How important is the freedom of speech to North Dakotans?  Because in the view of Prairie Public Broadcasting it isn’t even a footnote.  Matt Olien, in charge of organizing and presenting a “debate” of gubernatorial candidates has decided all by himself which candidates you should hear from.  He has decided that we will get to hear Doug Burgum and Wayne Stenehjem.  We will not get to hear either Democrat or Libertarian candidates.  More importantly, he has decided – all by himself – that we will not be hearing anything from Paul Sorum, the only conservative running for that office.  I say “more importantly” because there is no primary race in either the Democrat or Libertarian columns, but there is a THREE-WAY race for the Republican nomination.

It was a stupid move from a marketing viewpoint for PPB because if anything, with Sorum in the debate there would be some vigorous debating to watch.  He is not afraid to challenge the wealthy and he certainly not afraid to challenge the establishment.  There seems little but personalities to differentiate between Wayne Stenehjem, current Attorney General, and Doug Burgum, who helped to finance and serve as Campaign Chairman of the current Governor.  They obviously have a lot in common.  It is which face you like better, not which policies you want to see.

This has been an uphill fight all the way for Sorum – local radio stations behave largely the same way that PPB behaves.  In the case of PPB it is a little easier to discern their reasoning.  After all, PPB gets nearly $2 million/year from North Dakota taxpayers and Sorum is the one many who is calling for serious cuts in excessive government spending.  Obviously, they think they will be in the “cuts” column.  And they should be.  Taxpayers have no further need of public broadcasting – there is a plethora of competitive commercial outlets. 

And speaking of those, it would seem that their ratings might deserve to go up if they provide something like real fairness in getting these candidates’ messages out.  If Sorum disagrees with Stenehjem or Burgum, why not get it out there?  It can only increase the interest on the listening audience.  Too often, though, some of these self-anointed opinion molders – Scott Hennen comes to mind – would really rather just tell you what to think or let you hear those of whom they approve, rather than give you what you might really want or need before you cast a vote. 

There are a lot of other issues to discuss before the primary closes the door on choice for North Dakota voters.  There is Common Core, property tax, federal intrusion in our state policy and government, excessive spending and taxing, energy, religious liberty, marriage and life itself.  But we won’t hear disparate views on these before the primary.  We won’t be allowed to know what all the candidates believe or what they would promise to do as Governor because that first issue – freedom of speech – has been circumscribed by both public and private entities in North Dakota, so you won’t hear from them.  Such a shame, when we have so much on the in the next four years in North Dakota.  You will hear the two media favorites, but if you want to know what Sorum thinks about these issues and what he is prepared to DO about them you will have to go to his website – paulsorum.com – to find out.  I would urge you to do so.  If you agree with him and his values are your values, vote for him in June.  If not, vote for the one you do agree with.  It’s all up to you now.

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