(upbeat tense music) - This is North Dakota Legislative Review here on Prairie Public.

I'm Dave Thompson.

Thanks for joining us.

Our guest today is State Representative Steve Swiontek.

He is from Fargo.

Representative Swiontek, thank you for being here.

- Thanks, Dave.

Really looking forward to visiting with you.

- And this could be very interesting show because you were in the legislature in the late 1970s.

- That's correct.

I was first elected 1976, and then we had two year terms then, so I was reelected in '78, '80, and '82.

So I served eight years in the legislature of '76 to '84.

- And then you took a break.

- Then I took a break.

My wife is expecting our first child and then my career at Gate City, so I had to make a choice as far as politics or career.

And so, I decided to do that.

- So what motivated you to run again?

- Well, Dave, I never expected.

I mean, this was 38 years later that this came about, and it was due to reapportionment.

And so, Cass County gained another legislative district.

So I was approached by individuals in the Republican party asking, would you be interested in running again?

And Mary Anne and I talked about it and I said, well, thanks, but no thanks.

I mean, we had that experience and what a privilege to serve those eight years.

And then more calls came about.

So we decided, yes, let's give it a shot.

So it was a two-year term because of reapportionment, even districts.

So I was fortunate enough to get elected in two years ago and it's a purple-leaning blue district that I serve.

And then I got reelected for a four-year term this year., this last year.

- Well, I wanted to go back and let's talk about some of the differences that you've seen from 1977 through now.

- Sure.

Well, first I remember that back in 1979, you and I first met.

- That's correct.

- And you know, when I look back at that, you definitely are a seasoned veteran reporter here.

You know everything and was happened and what's going on and everything.

And I think that's really great to have that out here from your perspective.

But I don't think legislators now, especially in the Republican party, appreciate what experience that some of us have had before.

So for example, in 1976, the House of Representatives was evenly divided 50/50, 50 Republicans, 50 Democrats.

And we had a Democrat governor, Art Link.

And so, when you compare ourselves to what went on with Minnesota is trying to organize and everything, I have to compliment both the Democrats and Republicans for getting done and getting it accomplished in that short of time.

Also, the voters in 1976 changed the Constitution to allow us to go from 60 days to 80 days.

That's when it happened.

So the '77 session was really the first session that you could serve up to 80 days.

- So let's talk about that '77 session.

50/50 split.

How was the power shared?

- Well, it was interesting.

We had Earl Strinden, a great individual, a wonderful leader, Republican side, and Dick Backes on the House side or I'm sorry, on the minority or Democrat side.

So they shared roles.

It was the speaker of the House was a Democrat, the appropriations chair, and finance and tax chairs were Republicans.

So they kind of evenly divided it as far as that and then they had roles of where they would rotate.

One leader would be the floor leader for that week, another one would be a floor leader for the next week.

- And despite what, there was some thoughts that there was a dissension between the two leaders.

There really wasn't that much.

- Dave, they were, Dick Backes the Democrat leader was a very wonderful guy.

Oscar Solberg was a speaker of the House, very, very classy individual.

You know, you had the fights in the floor of the House and I remember at times Earl Strinden would say, "Well, here the Democrats are lining up the chairs a deck of "Titanic" and we're gonna go down."

And then it would be that give and take, it was done.

And then you left the floor and we'd go out and we'd visit, we'd talk.

We'd even have dinner together, both Republicans or Democrats because we knew we got to know each other that way.

And even though we may agree to disagree, we all had a responsibility to work together.

So that was different then.

- Yes and I've heard many stories about camaraderie.

- Yes.

- And how people shared a lot of things and would go to somebody's House and play games.

- Absolutely.

- Still a good time.

And it wasn't ranker.

- No, in fact, in the morning I remember having breakfast down there and everybody would sit, I mean, it would be Republicans, Democrats, everyone sitting down together and there was an empty chair or whatever at the table for breakfast or whatever, hey, join us.

- And then I came along, as you said, in 1979.

I started my career at a college in 1978.

So I came into the session, typical green reporter, not knowing what I'm doing.

So I just started asking questions and everybody was willing to talk.

- They were.

Absolutely.

And that session, when you look at 1979 session, so we were 50/50 in the '77.

'79 session went 2/3 Republican control, 2/3 majority in the House and 2/3 in the Senate, and a Democrat governor, Art Link.

So that was unique.

And then in the '81 session, it flipped and had 2/3 control in the House and the Senate.

And then went and had, had a Republican governor Al Olson.

- And then in, was it '83 when the Senate split?

- '83 was when the House, we became my last session, the Republicans were in the minority.

51 Republicans, 55 Democrats.

Now that's a different experience.

I mean, and you always wanna be in the majority, but yet it provided all of us an aha moment in saying, you know what?

You gotta work together and you've got to come up with solutions jointly, and that type of thing.

So, most of these, well, in fact, great percentage of the legislators on the House side, I think some on the Senate side may have experienced a Democrat majority in the Senate.

But Dave, they've never experienced that.

They don't know what it was like.

- No, I remember, I believe that the leaders were still there.

Earl Strinden- - Yes they were.

- Republicans and of course the House leader was the Democrat.

- Right, Backes.

- Backes and Strinden got along.

- They did.

- As we mentioned.

But I do remember going to one meeting and I think it was just the leadership was meeting to try to get the session settled.

There was more tension between the Senate and the House at the time, because that was Dave Nething, it was the Senate leader.

- That's really, I'm glad you mentioned that.

I just thought of that now, you brought that back in my memory.

In fact, Earl Strinden was kind of the mediator between Dick Backes on the House side and on the Senate side.

That's right.

I remember those.

'Cause we would sit in on those.

I wasn't on appropriations during those years, but you would sit in and just hear that what was going on back and forth.

So yeah.

- And just one more point on that.

You had mentioned how Earl Strinden was a brilliant man.

- Absolutely.

- And he got a lot of credit because it was '79, '77 session, he got the chairman of appropriations and finance and tax.

And a lot of people to this day who remember it said that was a brilliant move on his part.

- It was.

In fact, the big issues when you think about it back in the '77 session, Dave, were coal conversion tax 'cause lignite industry, lignite coal was really come to fruition at that time.

And so, the Republicans wanted to have a flat rate coal severance tax.

The Democrats wanted a 33 and a third.

- [Dave] Yes.

- And so Dick Backes and Earl Strinden both put in an envelope at the beginning of the session and saying, this is what we will compromise and agree to, and this is what the actual law will be at the end of the session.

So they put a sealed envelope, they both set it in separately, they gave it to the speaker.

And at the last day of the session, they both opened it up and Earl was down to, I believe, the penny as far as what the severance tax would be.

I think Dave, it was 9 cents a ton.

And I think that's how it was settled, was at the amount.

So he was brilliant.

Statistician.

- These are wonderful memories to remember how things actually worked at that time.

- They did, it really did.

In fact, when we talk about coming here and being interviewed by you, my first session, '77, was when we actually funded for the first time Prairie Public TV in North Dakota.

- And there was an interesting discussion on that.

- It was, it was really a debate between the House and of course the Senate was 2/3 control and very, very conservative.

And nothing wrong with that but they would just looked at things differently.

And it was either kindergarten or Prairie Public.

And so, Prairie Public went out.

- And we've been here since.

- That's right.

- And kindergarten is now.

- Kindergarten I believe happened the next session, '79 session.

And I remember serving on the conference committee on the kindergarten.

And I think we met 20 times on conference to get kindergarten approved.

And Earl, for whatever reason, kept me on the conference committee all those 20 times we met, made some changes.

So we got that through the next session.

- All right, now fast forward to when you returned to the legislature, when you walked in or the main differences you saw right away.

- Well, I don't believe I ever came back and was in the House chambers those 38 years 'cause it was a 38-year timeframe from when I was last in the session in the '83 to when I came back in this session.

And I think in the '23 session, I have to say it was emotional to begin with and think, oh wow, you're back here.

And at that time, I believe we had 100 House members at that time.

Of course we have a 94 now, Dave.

But just getting back into, it's kinda like riding a bike where once you got here, the negotiating sitting down with people and talking, that doesn't change.

There's some challenges with servant leadership and civil discourse, which we can talk about but the technology was the big thing.

If you remember we had those bill books.

- [Dave] The big bill books, yes.

- And we had a large number of pages that what they would do is everything was paper.

So you could have like a 50-page bill and if there was amendments, and I believe the House amendments were pink.

The Senate amendments were blue and I think the conference committee was yellow, if I remember it.

So they'd have to take that sticky glue and actually glue them into the page, into the books.

And so that you would have those and they had the bill books.

We didn't have technology, cell phones and everything.

In fact, my first session, we didn't even have landlines at each desk.

There was only, I believe the assistant, the majority leader, minority leader and the two assistants actually had phones.

Nobody else.

- That's right.

There was the phone bank.

- There was a phone bank outside.

So everybody would call in on a 1-800 number, they'd bring the pink slips down to you and then you would go out and actually use the, like the telephone booth to call.

- Now it must be a, it looks like that's rolled apart now.

- Now they've removed all the landlines from the chambers.

And so, you don't even have those anymore.

Everybody has their cell phones plus laptops and tablets that we have now.

And that has really changed.

Also, Dave, when you look at the ability of transparency and anyone in North Dakota, in fact all over the world, can really see what we're doing.

And I think that's healthy to see committee hearings and conference committees and as well as the full the House and Senate chambers and when we meet, floor sessions.

- And I remember there was some resistance when they decided to put cameras in the chambers.

I know there was some fight about that.

- Okay.

Really, okay.

- But that resolved itself.

- Right.

It did.

And also what I find very interesting is when you happen to miss a hearing a lot of us will go back and look up that bill number and then listen to the hearing.

- Sure.

- And I think that's really good.

- What about the issues?

What have you seen in terms of how the issues have changed?

- Okay.

When you look at the issues of course like public radio, public radio as well as public TV.

And kindergarten, cole severance, in the one year, I remember we got funding K through 12 at that time up to 47%, which was a big deal.

And then of course that's changed dramatically over the time.

What has changed, Dave, is that my first session, '77 I believe, we just had the first $1 billion appropriation.

And we had general fund and special funds and that was it.

You know, special funds were kinda the federal funds and maybe some trust funds, that type of thing.

But that has changed so dramatically.

So what I've seen is behavioral health has become a huge issue when it comes to, and I really attribute that to social media and the impact that social media has on students.

And the impact that has from bullying, all of those types of things.

And then also cultural issues.

That was like night and day when it comes to the culture issues that we have right now, which we didn't have at the time before.

- And course both are intertwined too.

- [Steve] Yes.

Yes.

- I think probably, you'd probably agree with me that social media can be a good tool, but it often is not so good tool.

- Absolutely.

I think that probably, I would agree with you.

I think social media, the internet has allowed us the opportunity to learn things and find out things.

But unfortunately there is a negative effect to it where what I found in comparison the previous sessions, Dave, is that people can make comments about you and never have to identify themselves.

And if I have a disagreement with you, Dave, I wanna say it to you, or if there's a letter to the editor or whatever, you write the letter to the editor and you put your name.

- You sign it, yes.

- And everything, that type of thing where people can make comments now and they hide behind that.

And it's just, I don't care for that.

(chuckles) - I wanted to ask you this just as an aside- - Sure.

- Been in my mind.

How do you think press coverage has changed of the legislature?

- I think what I've found is that, I think what you're finding, I mean you're one of the few that, I mean there are others there I should say that are there and they know what's going on and everything.

I find that quite a number are listening to things through the live TV, viewing hearings and all of those types of things.

So they're keeping apprised of that.

It used to be that newspaper reporters, all the major TV stations were all out there.

They'd have a crew there on a regular basis.

The newspapers I remember that we'd get them on our desk every day.

You know, now we get just one of The Bismarck Tribune.

But that has changed where a lot of times I see what maybe we as individuals are making reporters aware of what's going on.

But in fairness to all of you, Dave, I mean I think about when we had 620 bills introduced on the House side, okay, we have to roughly in 35 days have to have a hearing on every single one.

They have to be voted out a committee and whether it's due pass or pass or do not pass and then vote on the floor of the House.

I can see that would be challenging for the journalism groups to be able to keep up with everything.

I mean, you look at that 620 and I believe there was probably about 300 and some or close to 400 in the Senate side.

So, you look at that and just trying to keep track of everything.

Well, it's fortunate that all of you and all of us are able to really utilize the internet to find out, okay, here's the bills and here's the categories and the sponsorship and that type of thing.

We didn't have as many bills introduced during those years and also was different.

I had to actually sit down with you if you were a fellow legislator and say, "Dave, here's a bill.

Would you be interested in signing it?"

You'd have to look at it, read it, and then you would initial it.

Now I would just send you a bill on the internet and say, would you be willing to co-sponsor this?

And you have a certain timeframe to get back to me.

And so, that's kinda changed where that interaction I think is important because you could if it's through the internet, you may just think, well, okay, I guess I'll do it or consider it.

But maybe if we did one-on-one, you may ask more specific questions on it.

That type of thing.

So that's what's changed as well.

- So there are a lot of good things that have happen now.

- Absolutely, there are.

Absolutely.

- Technology has become a good tool if it's used correctly.

- That's right.

That's right.

Absolutely.

- You know, it's fun because we have a number of new reporters in the press room and they're all very competent people.

- They are.

- And of course I've become the gray beard of the press room so they're asking me all sorts of questions like what's a hoghouse amendment?

And why is the board dark- - Right.

- During a verification vote.

So I've had to explain, but it's kinda cool.

- It is.

- To train the new people a little bit about what's going on.

- Well, you bring up a good point that the institutional knowledge that you have is really good.

Now, we have term limits now and I voted against term limits for House members and senators because it's only eight years and we are only there for really at a max of 320 days in an eight year period.

80 days every other year.

And when I think of the institutional knowledge that's gone, and when you look, when you really look and analyze it, there are people that are not staying there for decades.

I mean, if you look to see how many people were here 10 years ago or 15 years ago, they're not the same people.

They're gone.

But I think that knowledge, I mean, I look for example, I had a two year, plus I have this four year now, so I have a six year max.

I can't run again because I would go over the eight years, so it'd be 10 years.

Well, I'm not running anyway.

I mean I've clearly said that, no, I'm not running.

But yet you look at people that are in two years time, are gonna be gone, Dave, because of term limits and especially four years from now, you look at the Mike Nathe, Glenn Bosch, Pat Heinert, myself, the Jon Nelsons.

You look at all of the other individuals around the state that won't be here and you think of the knowledge that they have, the experience and the awareness to say to those of us, well, you remember, this is what we looked at two years ago.

And more background and kind of providing you an aha moment, saying, "That's right.

I forgot about that or I wasn't aware of that."

- So in light of that, do you support annual sessions?

- Yes, I do.

I think it's... First of all, I think that it will, we've had this annual session discussion even when I was there with the, it was the eight years.

- It's the annual annuals.

- That's right, that's right.

And I remember, if you remember Rolly Redlin from Minot would always bring up, Senator Redlin would always bring up about having annual sessions.

I think the time has come where break it out with whatever it is, 40/40 or whatever it might be, I think it will encourage more people to run.

Because there might be businesses, small business owners that'll say, "You know what, it's okay if you're gone for 40 days rather than 80 days or the weekends," that type of thing.

I think that's good and the concept now is even looking at the standing committees kinda being the interim committees.

And so, you're really not having a group of like, for example, education.

You're not having a diverse group of people from all different areas on the education committee.

You're kinda having that continuity of those education members through that process.

So I think the time has come and our budget is roughly little shy of $20 billion.

And that's about a third, a third, a third when it comes to a third general fund, a third special funds, federal funds and another third, all the trust funds that we have.

So I think the time has come, Dave.

- Yeah and when you're looking at the budget, I mean you had a billion dollar budget the first one.

- Right.

- And now it's 20 times that and there's an awful lot of things that are happening in North Dakota that need money.

- Absolutely.

We were struggling to retain people in the late '70s, and that really made a difference of how you look at things now.

- Yes.

It used to be the annual story, which is the state with the largest out migration and it used to be us all the time.

And now we seem to be one of the largest states within migration.

- We're one of the largest states and also with the Gen Z generation enjoying and coming here and wanting to work here and live here, have a family, whatever.

And I think that that's wonderful to see.

It really is.

Our generation when you look at the average age, how that has dropped dramatically over the years.

It's great to see.

It's probably in the, I think right above the 31, 32 years of age is the average age now.

And also our elementary schools.

I mean, we're seeing growth in the elementary and high school because of people coming in.

- Yeah and that begs a question too.

There have been discussions about finding ways for building projects for local K-12 schools.

I know that's still a big discussion going on.

And of course you've got colleges too.

- [Steve] Right.

- And so your subcommittee's looking at colleges.

- Right.

In fact, I was appointed to the appropriations committee two years ago.

And so, I'm vice chair of the Education and Environment Committee and Mike Nathe is a chair and he's a great chair in the committee.

And so, we have seven people on there.

And that's been different too, Dave, where you divide the appropriations into three different divisions and those seven individuals really dig into the budgets where it used to be the whole appropriations committee would look at it.

And I think that's really good 'cause in our division we have commerce, we have higher education, we have attorney general, we have K through 12 CTE, governor's budget.

I mean, it's even out to the Minot State Fair to everything in that area.

So, we're dealing with billions of dollars in our area.

So, and it's time-consuming but yet we really wanna dig into it.

- Well, we've got about a minute and a half left.

I wanted to talk about a couple of issues- - [Steve] Sure.

- That are pending.

- [Steve] Okay.

- One is the new state hospital.

What's your position on that?

- I believe we need to have one and that's one of the divisions that's looking at it and they're looking at roughly right now, I think about a $320 million hospital.

And I think it's desperately needed for the behavioral health issues that we're dealing with that of individuals that have to be in that type of facility.

- Following up, bonded or paid for?

- I believe that bonding is okay to do.

I think that's that's fine be able to do that.

- And that's been a sea change too lately.

- Never did that.

- No.

- The previous sessions.

- But now you're looking at bonding rates were pretty good for at least for a while.

- Absolutely.

I think it's appropriate.

- So I'm going to ask you another question.

- [Steve] Sure.

- I ask everybody who's on the show, when is Signing Day?

- I would say it's going to be 77 days, so I believe that probably will be around April 28th, I think.

- Okay.

I asked the question because Representative Nathe told me he was thinking 65 days, but now he's thinking more of what you are.

- Oh, okay.

- 77 days.

- [Steve] Right.

- Yeah, we're getting close to that and we're getting close to the third period of the hockey game, so.

- [Steve] We are, that's right and that's gets very interesting too, Dave.

- Sure does.

- Well, thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

I really enjoyed it.

It was really Enjoy.

Thanks, Dave.

- Representative Steve Swiontek, our guest this week, on North Dakota Legislative Review.

And for Prairie Public, I'm Dave Thompson.

(upbeat tense music)