Ethics deadlock breaks, issues remain

Issues surrounding the North Dakota Ethics Commission, its operation and scope of authority continue, while its membership solidifies.

Commission Membership Stabilizes

As we’ve written previously, the membership of the Ethics Commission has been in a state of flux and a point of conflict for months. Last week, the stalemate broke when former Commissioner Murray Sagsveen announced the withdrawal of his name from consideration for appointment to the Commission, coming to grips with the obvious deadlock his potential appointment had created.

Although Sagsveen’s term expired months ago, he has continued to serve, with no apparent authority to do so. When this odd arrangement became a very public controversy, he requested an “opinion” from the Commission’s attorney, Logan Carpenter, as to whether his continued presence on the Commission was allowable. The attorney opined that it was, but the North Dakota Attorney General’s office reportedly disagreed.

Nonetheless, Sagsveen continued to “serve”.

Meanwhile, North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong sent Sagsveen a letter last month, stating that his continued service was no longer needed, nor supported by a consensus of the three officials tasked with reaching unanimous agreement upon who will be members of the Ethics Commission—the Governor, Senate Majority Leader David Hogue, and Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan—and essentially nudging him to step down.

He did not.

The appointing authorities had been deadlocked on Sagsveen’s appointment, with Hogue and Hogan supporting it and Armstrong opposing it, prompted by objections to some of Sagsveen’s perspectives on the Commission’s authority and his actions while on the Commission. The Governor’s position has not changed.

While Sagsveen’s withdrawal from reappointment consideration may have been a welcome break in the standoff, he coupled it with an indication that he intended to continue to serve until the vacancy was filled, despite the conflict that stance has caused. Sagsveen’s term — actually an appointment for less than a year, to fill out another’s unexpired term — was completed in August. His insistence upon remaining came to a speedy end, with the prompt appointment of a replacement.

With Sagsveen’s application for reappointment off the table, the appointing trio wasted no time filling his vacant seat, agreeing to appoint Fargo attorney Mark Western to the position.

That appointment boosts Commission’s membership, after the recent appointment of former ND Office of Management and Budget Director Pam Sharp, who is associated with a Bismarck lobbying firm, to fill another vacancy. One vacancy remains to be filled.

The long-delayed progress in settling the membership of the Commission may be seen as some resolution of some of its recent issues, but more controversy continues, as questions and challenges to the Ethics Commision’s role, authority and actions remain.