489: 'Let's get back to making North Dakota better for its citizens'

Resolutions are, once again, causing headaches for North Dakota Republicans ahead of the 2024 statewide convention.

One party resolution to be voted on at the convention calls for laws that would put a pregnant woman who seeks an abortion in jail, along with anyone who helped her. Another denigrates public schools as places where children are indoctrinated. Yet another opposes vaccinations using demonstrably false information.

Rep. Jim Jonas, a Republican from West Fargo, was on the committee that screened these resolutions. He joined this episode of Plain Talk to talk about the process and why, from his point of view, most of them "don't align" with the majority of Republicans.

Jonas told co-host Chad Oban and I that he sees "authoritarianism" in the efforts to force elected Republicans to abide by policy resolutions developed and approved by a small sliver of North Dakota's Republican citizens. Jonas, a long-time educator, says he used to teach world history, and that this expectation of loyalty to party is the sort of thing you'd seen in places like China.

"I'm going to represent the people of West Fargo," he said, adding that many of his fellow Republicans "would like to do away with this process."

"Let's get back to making North Dakota better for its citizens" he said.

Also on this episode, Oban and I discuss Tom Campbell's decision to bow out of the NDGOP's U.S. House primary.

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