On Tuesday, voters in North Dakota won a landmark victory against dark-money political spending in their state. With 54% support, voters passed Measure 1, a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment establishing a new right to know the true, original sources of money being spent to influence North Dakota elections and government.
Measure 1 was placed on the 2018 ballot in July by the petition signatures of over 36,000 North Dakotans, thousands more than the number required by the state. The campaign to pass the amendment was spearheaded by a group called North Dakotans for Public Integrity, comprised of over a dozen leading North Dakotans from across the political spectrum, including former elected and appointed public officials, educators, public policy specialists, and attorneys.
Unsurprisingly, a laundry list of special interests and dark-money organizations came out of the woodwork in an effort to defeat Measure 1. These groups spent over $500,000 on paid communications that sought to spread misinformation about the measure, in some cases using tactics that exemplified the very problem of unaccountable campaign spending Measure 1 was designed to stop.
But despite being outspent substantially by these opposition groups, the campaign to win a groundbreaking new constitutional right for transparency prevailed.
“We’re so proud of all of the people in our state who stood up and called for a government that works for the ordinary people of North Dakota, not just special interests,” said Dina Butcher, President, North Dakotans for Public Integrity. “Our campaign to pass Measure 1 was opposed by many powerful and entrenched interests who did everything they could to keep voters in the dark—interests that benefit greatly from using unaccountable political spending to keep government in our state tipped in their favor, at great cost to North Dakotans. But today, more North Dakotans than ever before stood united around this issue and demonstrated that our government belongs to us.”
