Yesterday in Bismarck, Prairie Public news director Dave Thompson conducted his final interview with Governor Doug Burgum as he wraps up his time as North Dakota's governor. Listen to their conversation above.
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TRANSCRIPT
Dave Thompson:
Governor, I just wanted to start by asking you the question, why did you decide to run for governor?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
The single word was impact. Katherine and I had been doing some work trying to support different non-profits in the area. Some of those were around her passion related to the disease of addiction.
I was helping support the high school, now consolidated, because Arthur merged with Hunter and Erie, which became Dakota, which merged with Cass Valley North, which merged, became Northern Cass. But I was doing some work out at Northern Cass High School on helping them get computers. I mean, this is a while ago.
And then he said, well, how much does the state spend on K-12? And then when I found out it was a billion dollars a year, I came home one night to Katherine and said, maybe we should give our time, as opposed to just trying to give some dollars to one school. Maybe we could have a bigger impact.
And that's where the seed of the idea came from.
Dave Thompson:
Okay, when you announced, you decided not to seek the convention endorsement. And there were a lot of Republican bigwigs who were thinking that it was Wayne Stenstrom's nomination to have.
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, actually, I did try to seek the convention endorsement and came in third, but maybe that's a footnote in history we don't need to bring back up again. But I came in third there, but I had been clear that even though we're gonna go to the convention and respect that process, really felt it was important to have the, that all the voters in the state, have the primary voters have an opportunity to decide. Because in our state, generally that whoever wins the primary is gonna win the general.
And so if you're not having a competitive primary, then you're basically saying, in democracy isn't one or 2000 people making the decision for the whole state.
Dave Thompson:
So I have to ask you this question. You're from Fargo, and there are people in Western North Dakota who just don't like Eastern North Dakota, or used to be that way. How did you win them over?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, first of all, I've never really described myself as from Fargo, because I was, spent my first 22 years as an Arthur resident, because I was back there every summer while I was going to college. And then when I came back to, and was building Great Plains, for the majority of that time, where I raised my kids was on a farm outside of Fargo. So I had a rural address.
It was only about a year before I ran for governor that I ended up having a Fargo residence, a Fargo address. And that was partly because I was frustrated about, I couldn't vote in a Fargo city commission elections. It was, I was like, hey, I need to get, I'm getting impacted.
I'm in this, out of my farms in the extraterritorial zone, now as Fargo kept growing, I should get involved there. But, out West, I'd been going out West, particularly Slope County since 1975. Some of the first friends I made at NDSU my freshman year were from the Bowman-Amidon area.
So I started going out there for spring roundup and branding and pretty hard not to fall in love with Western North Dakota. And so I've never stopped going. And then in the 1990s, I became a landowner in Slope County and was, got involved in an operation out there where we were a cow-calf operation.
But then we're also, for a while, we were raising horses. We were raising bison. So I had a connection out there to the land, which I still do.
And I still deeply love that part of the state.
Dave Thompson:
And that's a message that you think got through to them?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
I don't know if it did or not, but we traveled when we were campaigning. We made a commitment to go to every community in the state with 500 people or more. We made a commitment to go to every single county seat.
So we were out there meeting people, talking to people. And as you would recall, a lot of yard signs started popping up because I think people liked the message. And 2016 was a year when it was good to be running as an outsider, running as a business person that had never held an office before.
And that was, again, and I think that was the beginning of a sentiment, both nationally and locally about that. And so the night that we were elected, first time we held office was the same night that President Trump won back in 2016. And so a good year to be an outsider businessman running for your first office.
Dave Thompson:
Let's flash forward from the election to what you faced when you became governor of North Dakota. You had some pretty hard economic decisions to make.
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, we did. I mean, the first day we took office, December 15th, 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline protest, as you know well, was running at full tilt. And also we were facing what I had campaigned on that we were facing a 1.1 billion shortfall. Turned out that we had to cut 1.7 billion out of the general fund budget. That's not something that had ever been done, maybe during the depression, but certainly hadn't been done in the last 90 years to actually make a cut, not just slow spending. So those were some difficult times, but worked well with the legislature, worked well building a strong team, really worked to try to change the culture within state government to, it wasn't about if you got a bigger budget, you were a winner and if you got a smaller budget, you were the opposite of a winner.
But to really say, hey, what we really have focused on is outcomes for citizens. We gotta make smart decisions about how we spend our scarce resources at the time to make sure we're delivering the services we need. And we got everybody geared around a purpose, which was empowering people, improving lives and inspiring success.
And bringing back the purposefulness of the work of state government, whether you're a public health nurse or you're a wildlife biologist, or you're driving a snowplow, or you're working in North Dakota Highway Patrol, law enforcement, North Dakota National Guard, you name it. We've got great public servants. And we just said, hey, we wanna learn from them.
We wanna respect them. We wanna get their ideas. And we went to work cutting red tape and we've cut a lot of red tape during our time in office.
And that's one of the ways that we've become more efficient.
Dave Thompson:
Was it hard at first to gain the trust of Republican legislators?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, there was lots of, lots of, I don't wanna say ink about, printed ink about, oh, there's this conflict. I think there's, and when you have basically a single party state, when there's a super majority in both houses of the legislature, the competition isn't between the two parties. And oh, we've gotta really make sure the governor's on our side because we're gonna need his support to get the thing we wanna get passed.
The dynamics change when in whatever state you're in, in all 50 states, when you've got a legislature that's got a super majority, it's less about the other party and more about, becomes more about the legislature versus the executive branch. And we found a lot of common ground the last eight years in terms of working together, in terms of what we've been able to accomplish, whether it's infrastructure, innovation and education, trying to find common ground around income tax cuts. We made some progress on that, not as much as I would have liked to, but we did eliminate 60% of the, 60% of North Dakotans no longer paying income tax is a great thing when we're always competing with every other state for labor and workers to come here.
So that was, so, and of course now, I'd say that I'm leaving at a point when the relationship with the legislature is probably as high as it's been in the eight years, but it was no secret when I started, I think a super majority of the legislators had endorsed my opponent. So that was, so it was clear that some people were, hadn't supported us when we came in, but once you're elected, you're the governor for everybody, whether they voted for you or not. That's the approach Catherine and I have taken for every citizen of the state was we were, once we were elected, we were working for everybody, not just the people that voted for us.
Dave Thompson:
Now let's fast forward ahead to probably one of your biggest challenges as governor, I would think, was the whole pandemic and what you had to do. Looking back on that, did you think you made the right calls?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
I think we successfully upset an equal number of people on each issue. And in my estimation, we were, I mean, whatever it was that came up, we made a decision one way, one group was mad, the other group was mad. I think we stayed on the highway, we stayed out of the ditch the whole way through that.
And understanding it's easy to look back on something and when that thing started, nobody had any idea what we're up against. I mean, nobody, I mean, the first cases were, came out of the state of Washington and there was 35 out of 70 people died in a single nursing home. And I'm like, how many people do we have in nursing homes?
Turned out North Dakota had the highest concentration of people over age 65 incongruent living of any state in the nation. So it's like, I thought, are we gonna lose, we have 15,000 plus people in nursing homes, many of them across rural North Dakota, are we gonna lose half of our loved ones? And so, we especially focused on trying to make sure that we could protect those citizens that were most vulnerable.
And, but then on the flip side, we went through that initial phase and then we got back open again and we went into the next school year and schools were open and we were managing and running sports and doing all these things, even before we had a vaccine. And when much of the rest of the nation had schools shut down for a year and a half, we were shut down for just that initial period when first months in that spring when we didn't know what we were up against. Because our economy was going and largely open during that whole time, then when the federal dollars came in, we were able to do all kinds of things.
I mean, we basically funded, you know, what, 13 career and technical education centers across the state with federal dollars that other states were using to reimburse situations on healthcare. So I think we financially, you know, we were able to turn a billion dollars of COVID into a billion COVID dollars, we didn't spend them on COVID, we spent them on economic development that helped drive our economy forward. So I think there's a lot of people that worked super hard, healthcare professionals in particular, because we had a few moments that were a little scary.
I mean, we had a time when we were out of hospital beds, we had a time when we were, you know, triaging, we had a time when we had, you know, the funeral homes had, you know, renting trailers for people who had passed away because they didn't have enough room in their morgues. So I mean, we were up against it as a rural state with limited resources, but everybody pulled together and got through it in great shape. And we came out, we came roaring out of the other side, that's for sure.
Dave Thompson:
I have to go back to a phrase you used early on saying, take it outside. And I think a lot of people took that heed, me being one of them.
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, we certainly did. And I think you're playing into the double entendre, take it outside means like if you're two people fighting in a bar, let's go out, let's go out and duke it out in the alley. But we did have record attendance that year at all of our state parks.
We know that that was a great, great interest that helped drive our ability the following year to get the largest package ever passed through the legislature on improving the infrastructure in our state parks. We got a new state park approved at Pemina Gorge. We got an expansion going on at the newly renamed Rough Rider State Park, which is near Medora, which will be, that work will be finished ahead of the Theodore Roosevelt Library opening.
And that's a special place because they allow horsebacks, one of the state parks that has horseback overnight facilities. And you'll be able to ride horse from the Rough Rider State Park on the Monterey Trail and tie it up at a hitching post at the presidential library. That'll be the only presidential library in the country that you can ride a mountain bike hike to or ride a horse to.
Dave Thompson:
Well, one lingering thing from that whole discussion about federal funding during the COVID era was they put some guardrails on the emergency commission. And that's something you've been fighting against for a while.
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, I have because I think that they were, they created more problems than they solved. They tried to put some limits on the ability to accept federal grants between legislative sessions. We know that it's impaired our ability to move forward.
Some of the agencies have said, hey, I wanna come forward, but I know I'll run into the cap. I don't wanna do that. And so then they just sit on it.
And then the citizens, instead of us delivering a service or an innovation a year earlier, we wait and run it through the legislature. And I just feel like that's just unnecessary. The caps are so artificially low if they're gonna have them.
There isn't a business in the country that runs at the scale of the state of North Dakota that can budget within like one-tenth or two-tenths of 1% over a two-year period. So even if you had the, even if the caps were set at a larger level, you'd have the ability for the thing. And the emergency commission is two-thirds legislators, includes the leaders and the appropriate shares.
And then it goes from there through the budget section. So, I mean, it is a mechanism that can work for emergency spending that occurs between the two sessions with the appropriate level of legislative oversight. So it's their tool.
I would just encourage them to make sure that their rules allow them to use it so the executive branch can keep serving all of our citizens in the way that we are intended to do that.
Dave Thompson:
And now we're here at the end of your term. What do you think are the high points?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, there's a number of things that are exciting, but certainly one of them is that we're a state that's growing again. I mean, demographics are destiny and the demographics of North Dakota haven't been this good since, you know, the night, or, you know, like probably 1900, literally when we had immigrants coming here in that first wave of immigration where many of our ancestors arrived here. But we, you know, we've got, we went from being one of the oldest states to now we're one of the youngest states.
And when you're one of the youngest states, that means you've got people that are staying here. Young people are staying here and pursuing careers and they're having families. I mean, that's the way that works.
I mean, when North Dakota was losing population in the 80s and 90s, all the people of childbearing age, all of our college graduates, we'd invest in kids from K through 12 through higher ed. We'd have quarter million dollars into someone over their lifetime with a great high school and college education. They'd leave and get a job someplace else.
Then they'd raise a family someplace else. And grandparents were here missing their grandkids. Now we've got kids that are staying, raising families closer, you know, multi-generational families tied together.
That's great. And it was just never before in, really in anyone's lifetime, anybody that's still alive today, there are probably very few people that would have been alive at a time when, and maybe never, but North Dakota having the highest net in migration of any states. We have 18 states that are losing population other ones are flat.
A few of them are growing. North Dakota is growing faster on a percentage basis in terms of net in migration in any state. That's never happened.
And that's just a, that's a compliment to every community, every employer, everybody in the state. So that's, all of that is a very exciting, bodes very well, because we have plenty of capital that wants to come to our state, but the issue is workforce. And when the demographics are in our favor, then we're going to have the educated workforce to keep strengthening and diversifying our economy.
Dave Thompson:
So if you're going to choose one accomplishment that's saying this is the be all and do all of everything, what would you choose?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, I think, it just seems like a simple thing, but when we can put $570 million of income tax back in individuals' pockets, you'll never know the thousands of stories that that made a difference in people's lives or what they were able to do or the debt they paid or what they purchased that helped another business prosper. I mean, that's, and then that's just going to keep happening. If we're not collecting those taxes, that number just keeps growing and growing and growing in terms of dollars that were left in the economy as opposed to come through the state.
And I know that we're going to continue to be challenged. We're not a Sunbelt state. We're going to continue to be challenged in terms of recruiting the workforce here.
And one of the ways to do that is to be a zero income tax state like nine other states, including Alaska, Wyoming, and Texas, who we compete directly for, for energy workers. You know, I think that would be, you know, with something that we got, you know, we got eliminated for 60% of North Dakotans. I wish we could have got elected, got rid of it for 100%.
Dave Thompson:
Does that think that you're saying is unfinished business then is to get that to zero income tax?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Yeah, and there's a path we can do it without affecting anything because our, when we took office, our endowments, like the Legacy Fund, the Common Cool Stress Fund, I mean, those added up to about 17 billion. Today, they're 35 billion. As those endowments grow and the earnings from those endowments come off, that can be the leg of the stool that didn't exist.
I mean, there's, you know, people who say, oh, we need three legs of the stool, you know, in terms of revenue sources for the state to make sure we're stable. But replacing income tax with endowment earnings is a pretty straightforward thing that we could just chip our way there. Lower income taxes a little bit this session, the next session, the next session, before you know it, by 2030, we'd be on, we'd be at zero income tax and our endowments maybe would double again.
I mean, we'd be a great, great position to be in in terms of attracting talent and capital to the state of North Dakota.
Dave Thompson:
What are you gonna do on your first day?
Gov. Doug Burgum:
Well, Catherine and I will be private citizens this Sunday the 15th for the first time in eight years and at eight o'clock on Sunday Mountain Time, I'll be attending meetings and visiting with people out in Medora about the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. And if I'm successful getting through the nomination process to be Secretary of Interior, that of course includes national parks, I'll be excited as Secretary of Interior to be back here for the grand opening in July of 2026, part of an official USA 250 event and very excited about that. I think that we could see record attendance at national parks around the nation.
Certainly the national parks will be participating as part of that USA 250 celebration and who better to celebrate that with than the individual that had the biggest impact on the national park system, Theodore Roosevelt. So I think a lot of people are gonna be seeing North Dakota for the first time. I would encourage anybody who's got any nexus to travel routes to or from North Dakota, to or from Western North Dakota, to or connected to tourism, get ready and make some investments because we're probably gonna be short of hotel rooms in North Dakota in 2026. A lot of people are gonna want to see the state.