Follow-up: Ethics Commission Complaint Filed Regarding "Legislator Only" Lobbying Session

This morning, at the suggestion of the North Dakota Attorney Generals' Office, I filed a formal complaint related to unregistered lobbying and inappropriate use of public funds.

On Tuesday, I wrote you about the “Legislators Invite-Only” meeting being called by the consultants connected with the $300,000 grant awarded to AE2S Communications to “educate” the public on CO2 development.

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Yesterday, I received a called from a staff attorney at the North Dakota Attorney Generals’ Office with the fastest follow-up to an Open Meetings Violation Inquiry that I have ever experienced.

The AG’s attorney stated that they do not believe that the meeting would be a violation of Open Meetings Law UNLESS a quorum of any legislative committee were to show up.

However, because it is “legislator invite only” if such a thing were to occur, the only people who would know are the organizers of the event and the legislators themselves. And obviously the legislators are not going to tattle on themselves.

It was strongly suggested to me that the Ethics Commission would be the more appropriate authority to file a complaint with on this matter.

So I did.

Below is the PDF of the complaint I f…