Fighting Sioux Petition Question

[firewall]

I asked the following question on another topic thread on ss.com as well as twice to Joel Heitkamp and Mike McFeely. (By email) Neither addressed it. I’m wondering if one of our legal students, or professors, can help. My question is:

"Are the petitions submitted to the North Dakota Secretary of State to keep the Fighting Sioux nickname subject to the Freedom of Information Act and Open Records Law? Can the public, North Dakota residents, obtain those petitions to be viewed and, at personal expense, make copies?

Any help is great appreciated.

[firewall]

Here is the answer to my question:

Yes, petitions submitted to the Secretary of State’s office are “public records” under the North Dakota open records law.

My office is now reviewing the petitions for sufficiency of signatures as required by N.D.C.C. § 16.1-01-09.1 (8) and N.D.C.C. § 16.1-01-10. It is very important for us to maintain the integrity of these petitions because they are the basis on which a measure is certified for placement on the ballot and, in some cases, may ultimately be necessary evidence in any court proceedings. Therefore, we are reluctant to allow a person to review the petitions unsupervised until our review is complete.

However, by law, public records (such as these petitions) may be copied and provided to a requester upon payment of a fee. Under N.D.C.C. § 54-09-04(1), the Secretary of State’s office must charge 50 cents per page for copies. There are 603 petitions, each having three signatures pages. It is estimated the fee would be approximately $904.50 to provide a copy of each of the three signature pages in each petition. Under the open records law, N.D.C.C. § 44-04-18, a payment would be requested in advance before the copies are made.

If you decide that you are interested in receiving copies of all, or some, of the petitions, please contact the Election Division at 328-4146 or at soselect@nd.gov .

Al Jaeger

Secretary of State

Okay, the door is open if anyone, one side or the other, wants to know just who signed these petitions and where they are from. Specifically, I want to know who from Fargo is signing for no other reason other than to stick it to UND and see us dismissed from the Big Sky. I'm looking forward to some interesting reading.

Thank you Secretary of State Jaeger for your answer. I had repeated requests to Fargo media, specifically Joel Heitkamp and Mike McFeely who, for whatever reasons, ignored my requests. I really want to know if Mr. Heitkamp is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

[Hawkster]

I've got another question on the petition. I remember a fair amount of ND law from my Poli Sci days. If a legislative bill contains an emergency clause and is passed by 2/3 of both houses and is signed by the governor, it becomes law immediately. (so far, so good).

If a law with an emergency clause is referred, the law remains in effect until it is voted on in the next statewide election and the results of the vote become immediate upon the votes being counted and certified. (rather then be suspended until the vote)

So, why didn't the november repeal bill stand until the June primary? The bill removing the name went into effect immediately, so I'm guessing it had an emergency clause, and I'm sure it got 2/3 majority in both houses.

The reason I remember the way referals work is because of the ND Sunday opening law. In 1989, Sunday opening had the emergency clause and went into effect immediately. That way, when it was referred, (and it was), ND still had Sunday opening until it was voted on in June of 1990, almost a year and a half later. That way people would get used to Sunday opening and it would pass.

So, why didn't it apply in our case? I just can't figure out what was different, but obviously something was. I'm not sure it would have made any difference on the end either. We'd still be at the mercy of the vote and still be dangling in the wind.

This scenerio only applies to emergency clause bills, btw.