(breezy upbeat music) (breezy upbeat music continues) - Hello, and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll hear music from Thomas Anderson.

But first joining me now, is soon-to-be-retired, Grand Forks State Senator Ray Holmberg.

Senator Holmberg, thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you.

I'm enjoying this already.

- Senator, you're one of the longest, you're the longest-serving elected official in North Dakota and probably one of the longest-serving in the United States in service.

Tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background first, so before we get started with more questions.

- Okay.

I was a two-county boomer.

I grew up in Trail County, and then went to Grand Forks County.

And I hesitate to say this 'cause people will chuckle, but I was from Cummings, and I went to Climax High School.

And that usually gets them smiling.

And then I went to UND, got a degree.

And most of my career was as a faculty member and later a counselor at Grand Forks Central High School.

- Okay, when you were first elected in 1976, what got you interested in running and being part of the legislature?

- 1975, the federal court divided Grand Forks, Fargo, Bismarck, and Minot into specific legislative districts.

Prior to that, Grand Forks would elect eight house members at large and four senators at large.

And when they drew the lines, most of the legislators lived in one district, in the southern part of there.

So we had no legislators.

Our first meeting with it, we had to organize the Republican Party in District 17, yeah, in District 17 was, there were four people there, and three of those folks ended up in the legislature.

So it was in part, because of the federal government drawing the lines, and there was just no one else around.

- So why is it time to step away?

Why are you stepping away now?

- Well, you know, 46 years is a while.

One wants to go out when they are feeling good, and able to do everything.

And you wanna say, you know, at certain ages do you say four years is a big commitment?

And there are a number of folks there that I think can take over.

I was kind of surprised that at the end of the day practically all of the elected leaders in the legislature are leaving this particular year.

And I don't think that's part of a master plan.

I think it's just people were ready to leave, and they're leaving, either through redistricting or through losing reelection or endorsements or whatever it is.

So there's a number leaving, but there's always been a big churning in the legislature.

The folks who talk about term limits, forget that typically, there's about 1/3 of the Senate that turns over every two years.

So there's quite a bit of churning that goes on.

And then there's a few people that are there a long time.

- Yeah, when do you officially step down?

- November 30th.

New people take office on December 1st.

- Have any candidates emerged to fill your slot?

- The Republicans have endorsed Jonathan Sickler, and the Democrats have not, to my knowledge, endorsed anyone yet.

And I'm guessing they will, but they don't have much time.

Monday is the deadline.

- Yeah, so when you were first elected, did you ever dream you would be in the legislature for 46 years?

- No.

No, did not.

I enjoyed it.

I liked it.

And then I ran for reelection and ran unopposed, and I thought, well, this is not a bad gig.

And (laughs) then I ran a number of other times, so.

- Yeah, from your perspective, how has the legislature changed over those 46 years?

- Mm, well, there's a number of things.

First of all, the legislature was older when I came in, because most people who were in the Senate had been first elected when they were around 50 or so years old.

And I was 32, I think it was.

So part of it is the age.

I think part of it is the education level has gone up a great deal.

And the civility was different back then, than it has been creeping in, in the last few years.

And the other thing that makes it much more of a challenge than when I first went in, is society and legislators seem to have a lot less patience than they used to have.

They want the problem, the issue solved right now, today.

And with the advent of the kind of communications we have and social media, et cetera, in the old days, when I went in, you would get a scathing letter from someone.

And by the time you had actually written out an answer, got it typed, a day or two days had gone by, and you could reflect on it a little.

Much better than now, you get the text, and you immediately answer it, and you might regret it the rest of your life, but you got it off the table.

So part of that communication thing has been, I think somewhat of a challenge, particularly for those who had been there a long time.

- You know, for when you work at any area for a long time, you have relationships.

Who are some of your best friends or best relationships you've made over the years?

- Well, of course I came into office, Wayne Stenehjem and I were sworn in the same day, and we were always there until 2020, when and he went into the attorney general's office.

And then I had constant contact with him, and would stop in and have some terrible coffee in his office.

So he was one that I would certainly say that I had a lot of friendship with and visited with a lot.

- Yeah, and with his untimely passing, can you talk a little bit more about y'all's working relationship over the years?

- Well, we were on the same committees when he came to the Senate in 1980.

There were 40 Republicans and only 10 Democrats, but we were on the same committees.

So we got to play off each other.

And both of us have kind of a biting sense of humor, and used to have a lot of fun in the committees.

And we would work on some of the same bills.

We both got awards from the, for our work on public access to information and knowledge.

And as Wayne became attorney general, he worked on open records, open meetings.

And I've got a plaque from the auditors from, God, I can't remember there, was about '79 or '81.

So a long time we worked on those kinds of issues.

And you know, some people would say, well Wayne was just kind of a Johnny-come-lately.

But no, he was there on day one for open meetings, open records.

- Yeah, how long were you Senate Appropriations Chair?

- (counting softly) 20 years.

- So, that's a pretty important seat in the Senate side.

What's some of your biggest, and maybe proudest accomplishments?

Well, like not necessarily during those 20, but over the years.

- I would grab at two and maybe on my way home, when I leave here, (John laughs) I will think of two different ones.

One of them would be, I was there at the beginning when we started North Dakota's path down the UAS, the Unmanned Aerial Systems program, and have been with that as we have grown that particular program.

And now it truly is a statewide program.

One of the reasons I felt I could leave is, they didn't need a bullhorn from Grand Forks, because they have friends all over the state.

So that really was, I think one that I'm quite proud of.

And the other one is one that's much less in the news.

And that was way back in the day, in 1983.

We were able to pass a bill, allowing North Dakota residents to attend the vocational schools in Minnesota at instate rates, which cut the cost of someone from Fargo going to Moorhead Tech at the time, whatever they called it, AVTI, going over there, it cut their tuition in half.

And it was a savings of millions of dollars for North Dakota residents.

Since that time, a few years ago, they changed their program, and now they have out-of-state tuition is the same as in-state.

So that reciprocity bill is no longer really in effect, but it helped thousands of students attending.

And that was just great because they got their education.

- So why is North Dakota, maybe even in the more recent years, continued to be dominated by the Republican Party?

- Well, I've been there when the Democrats were in control more.

When I came in, I said in 1980, my first session, the House was tied between Republicans and Democrats.

In 1980, the Democrats had a bad year, and they went down to 10 people in the Senate and 40 Republicans.

The danger of too large a number of folks, is that you don't get the sense that there's anyone you have to worry about.

And there is less getting the other side of the story.

And, you know, you need, I think, a strong, but I'm not saying I want them to win, but you need a strong minority party to keep the majority party on the straight and narrow.

And when you get too large a majority, it gets a little sloppy, or can get a little sloppy.

But the Republicans took over, and within three election cycles the Democrats controlled the governorship and the Senate.

So we had eight years, I call it the Babylonian captivity, and during that eight years, the Democrats controlled.

And you find that there are still a few people around, Republicans, who served in the minority during that time.

And they have, I think, a different appreciation of what it is like to be in the minority, particularly a small minority in the legislature.

You use your gap, you lose your gavel, and you lose your voice a little bit.

- Well, let's talk a minute about UND being pretty crucial and it being in your own backyard.

You voted many times more like a moderate Republican, or maybe even a moderate Democrat when it comes to education spending.

Do you feel that your brand of republicanism is different than say a Republican in the western part of the state?

- Well, I think that you have that difference, not just in the east and the west, but even within communities.

But Grand Forks has had a very cohesive group of legislators on issues like UND and education I think going back many, many years.

They do a good job of actually voting as a block.

I think you don't see that in every community in the state.

But they have, and university has done well.

The challenge, if you are a chairman of appropriation, so you cannot be a homer.

You have to make sure that other folks are also happy.

And I'll give you an example.

The last two or three sessions the Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously on the higher education budget, which means that there was buy-in around the state.

And that even included the year where we cut higher education by 17%.

Those were unanimous votes.

- Well, can you talk, maybe turn in a little bit to North Dakota's economy.

Can you talk about that and the state of the economy currently?

- Okay, of course we have, because we are so dependent on commodities, we have ups and downs, ups and downs.

And when things go way down like they did in the mid 1980s, if you were the people in power, your side gets thrown out of office, which happened in the 1980s.

But I think right now, we're in a decent position.

We have, you know, oil prices are going through the roof, and our sales tax and these other things are running well ahead of what the projections were.

But the challenge is always the way the volatility in the world economy is.

We don't know what happens tomorrow or the next day.

So we plan ahead, we budget conservatively.

We also make sure we have some cream cans here and there that we can use if the budget goes south.

And so I think we're in decent shape.

I wouldn't be fearful of going back next January and handling the budget for the next biennium, 'cause I think we've set ourselves up in a pretty good place.

- Senator, with the booms and busts that you've seen, so to speak, is it easier to appropriate money when you have money or when you don't have money?

- It is easier when you don't have money, because most legislators, and I think people understand, you know, if there's no money, there's no money.

But if there's lots of money, there is always the fear that someone else is getting a little bit ahead of them, and they want more.

So, oh yeah, much easier.

During the mid-80s, it was pretty easy, because there was no money there.

- Well, let's go back to education for a minute.

Universities are mandated by the the state constitution.

In your opinion, are there too many universities in the state or not?

- Well, that's a question that the people have to answer, and they've been asked from time to time.

And they have said they're happy with the number.

And you know, we've had measures on the ballot to remove the institutions from the constitution and just have them in state law.

And the voters see right through that, because they know if it's out of the constitution, the legislature could close my school.

And they're, I think around the state, they're fearful that they would be the school that would be targeted.

So when we had a vote the last time, I think we had a vote on that, even communities like Grand Forks voted heavily against removing the names, in part because they felt why are you doing that?

And they fear, I mean, they shouldn't have feared that Grand Forks or UND, was gonna be closed.

But that's how the voters are.

And they've kind of stayed away from that, you know, removing those institutions from the constitution.

They're there, therefore we have to live with it, and we have to do what we can.

- Are you concerned about teacher retention in some districts, school districts?

- Yes, and it's not only in the smaller rural communities but in the larger communities too.

The number of folks that are in teaching, but are gonna leave, they present a problem.

We have started a big push this last session for working on technical education, career and technical education.

One of the challenges there is those people who might be going to teach mechanics, or might be gonna teach welding, can make a heck of a lot more money out there in the real world.

And I think that one of the factors that made a difference is the COVID years were not good for education.

They weren't good for the students, who I think, there's a lot of evidence that they really fell behind.

My grandson did kindergarten virtually, which is, how do you teach kids to sit down when you should sit down?

How you should interact with other kids when you're looking at a screen.

And teachers I think, there's a lot of burnout that has occurred.

And you've got situations even now, if you're in a school and you have third grade, and you have 22 kids, and the other third grade teacher is out for COVID, what they can do sometimes, is they just split the kids up.

And instead of having 22, you have 35 in your room.

Well, how do you plan?

How do you really do an outstanding job when you have all of that uncertainty?

So yeah, it is education, and teachers are important.

And I think part of it is the salary, but there's also the working conditions that are part of it.

- Sure, obviously there's a big anniversary this year of the flood of 1997.

Can you talk a bit about the flood, and how it impacted your city?

- It actually, I hate to use this phrase, but it kind of flushed out some areas of the city that needed some work.

So we ended up, I think, stronger than we were before.

I think that if you go into downtown Grand Forks today, it is totally different than it was.

And the university is vastly different than it was back before the flood.

The state stepped up.

And back then, the costs of diking were much less.

And you can't compare what Grand Forks had, as far as their state work versus the diversion in Fargo, because Fargo was vastly different.

And the number of tributaries and all that.

I mean, you can't compare.

But ours was $52 million of state money that went into our diking.

And it is, I don't wanna say held up, it has worked.

And we have not had huge threats since 1997.

- Yeah, so basically, your city rebounded over the years.

- Oh, yes.

I would say definitely.

- Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about, in the coming years, what do you think some of the key issues gonna be facing the state?

- Well, obviously the workforce is a huge issue, and that we don't have all good answers for that.

How do you get people into many of the jobs that we have, whether it's in healthcare, or anything else?

And part of the workforce issue is childcare.

Many folks don't make the connection, but if you don't have adequate childcare in a community, one of the spouses is going to very likely, stay home to watch the kids, which means there's one less person available for the workforce.

So that is a key issue.

And then it's the economy.

The state, because of national pushes, will have to deal with a lot of those cultural issues that are kind of like shiny objects, that everyone likes to look at and follow.

Because most of the time, they're pretty easy to report on, for example.

So that will be an issue.

Those cultural issues will certainly be before the next legislature.

- Senator, we may need to have you back again to talk about things after you retire, but what are your plans for retirement, anything?

- Relax, relax.

We got the grandkids, and maybe, if we're lucky, the oldest one will be attending UND this fall.

- Senator, what is it about North Dakota that you love?

- I love the people.

And I think the attitude of let's get it done, always, as Garrison Keillor would say a dark people, you know, they're always worried about what might happen and what may happen.

But they are good people.

They're solid and they're hard workers, and that is really fun to observe and have some influence on directions of the state.

- Senator, thank you so much for joining us.

And best of luck in your retirement.

- Thank you.

Thank you very much.

- Stay tuned for more.

(breezy upbeat music) Thomas Anderson is a premium classical guitarist and a professor of guitar studies at the University of North Dakota.

His passion is teaching technique to students and sharing his love for many different styles of guitar.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Pulse" this week, and as always, thanks for watching.

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