History
The father of the North Dakota initiative process was L. A. Ueland of
Edgeley, a state legislator who served on the executive committee of the
National Direct Legislation League from its founding in 1896. If Ueland was
the father of the process, however, Katherine King of McKenzie was the
mother. Mrs. King, married to Royal V. King, in 1902 organized a state
chapter of the League. Mrs. King’s League won passage of Ueland’s I&R
bill through both houses of the legislature in 1907, despite opposition from
Prohibitionists who feared the possibility of an initiative to repeal the state’s
anti-liquor amendment.
The 1907 I&R amendment needed to be approved by the legislature
twice, in two successive sessions with an election in between. In 1909 the
legislature reversed itself and killed the I&R amendment. Mrs. King and
Ueland pressed on nonetheless, and won the necessary legislative
approvals in 1911 and 1913. The I&R amendment finally went to the voters
for ratification in 1914 and passed.
The watershed event in North Dakota’s century of statehood was the
agrarian revolt of 1915-1916, which spawned the Non-Partisan League,
one of the most successful state-level reform organizations in the nation’s
history. In that revolt, which was dramatized in the 1979 movie Northern
Lights, farmers united against an unresponsive state government
controlled by banks, railroads, and big grain dealers.
The League put seven constitutional amendment initiatives on the
1918 ballot. All seven passed by similar majorities of about 58 percent.
Taken together, they brought about a revolutionary change in state
government by:
• Reducing the number of signatures required for initiative petitions
• Forbidding the legislature to exempt any bills from referendum petitions
• Abolishing the requirement that proposed constitutional amendments
be approved in two successive legislatures (in favor of a single
approval)
• Authorizing the legislature to classify personal property for purposes of
tax exemptions
• Authorizing the legislature to impose an acreage tax on land to insure
crops against hail damage
• Authorizing the state to issue up to $10 million in bonds rather than the
existing $200,000 limit, allowing mortgages on state industries
• Authorizing the state, counties, and cities to engage in business
activities, thus clearing the way for bills that set up the state-owned
bank, mill, and grain elevator, which continue to operate to the
present day. Considered “socialistic” enterprises by critics, they
provided a model for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley
Authority.
Bankers and grain dealers sponsored an initiative backlash against the
state-owned industries in 1920, gaining voter approval of measures
requiring public audits of such industries, banning real estate loans by the
state bank, and limiting state bank deposits to the assets of the state,
rather than including local governments’ assets. But North Dakotans in
1921 defeated four initiatives to further restrict the operations of stateowned
industries, including one that would have abolished the state bank
outright. In 1922 voters again confirmed their support for the state bank by
approving an initiative doubling the state’s bonded indebtedness limit so
that the bank could make more farm loans.
A state record of 18 initiatives qualified for the ballot in 1932. Among
the measures passed by voters were initiatives reducing property taxes,
prohibiting crop mortgages, banning corporations from farming, reducing
salaries of judges and state and local elected and appointed officials,
reducing officials’ travel expenses, and abolishing the requirement of
published, public notice regarding auction of land to pay delinquent
taxes.
In 1938, North Dakotans passed an initiative providing for pensions for
senior citizens, and in 1940, they approved measures earmarking sales tax
revenues for schools and welfare and increasing funding for financially
distressed schools. In 1944, the voters initiated over $12 million worth of
bonds to match federal funds for highway construction, and in 1948, they
voted to ban parking meters. Notable initiatives passed in the 1950s
include a conflict-of-interest measure prohibiting legislators from doing
over $10,000 worth of business annually with the state or local
governments (1954), and an initiative that set up a $1 million college
student loan fund from state bank profits (1955). In 1962 voters struck a
blow for ballot-box freedom by passing an initiative abolishing the
requirement that they publicly state their party affiliation when they vote.
In 1963 Robert P. McCarney, a Bismarck auto dealer, sponsored three
referendum petitions to block tax increase bills which just been approved
by the legislature. Although the state’s voters upheld each of the bills,
McCarney was not about to give up. Years earlier, as chauffeur to Non-
Partisan League Governor (and later U.S. Senator) William (“Wild Bill”)
Langer, McCarney had learned the value of tenacity in politics. Over the
next 17 years, he sponsored 10 successful petition drives for initiatives or
referendums on tax issues. In 1978 his initiative to lower the North Dakota
income tax on individuals, but raise it for corporations, won - the capstone
of his activist career. It is still said in state government circles that North
Dakota’s tax structure is more a product of McCarney than of the
legislature.
In 1980, before he was elected to Congress, Byron Dorgan sponsored
an initiative to more than double the tax on oil production (from 5 percent
to 11.5 percent). Despite strong opposition from oil companies, it passed
with 56 percent of the vote.
The other most hotly contested initiative of the state’s history was a
1978 measure to establish a state agency to regulate health care costs.
Sponsored by state Insurance Commissioner Byron Knudsen, it provoked
intense opposition from hospitals’ and doctors’ organizations, which raised
$175,000 for their effort to oppose it - a huge amount by North Dakota
standards. Voters rejected the initiative by a three to one margin. Since
1978, numerous other issues have been voted on through the initiative
process – term limits and environmental regulation – to name a few.
However, even though North Dakota ranks as one of the top five most
prolific initiative states since 1904, not a single statewide initiative has
qualified for the ballot since 1998.
Excerpted from the Initiative & Referendum Almanac by M. Dane Waters.