Port: Local lawmakers should limit legislation ahead of 2027 session

MINOT — North Dakota's lawmakers have no shortage of ideas. Whether they have enough good ones is another question. With Legislative Management having concluded its interim meetings this week, lawmakers should consider whether their workload has gotten out of hand. According to Legislative Council, lawmakers introduced 1,020 bills and 69 resolutions during the 2025 session, the most since 2009. In 2017, they introduced 779 bills, a nearly 31% increase in eight years. Remember, this workload is handled by part-time lawmakers who have no offices, and no staff, during sessions held every other year with a constitutional limit of 80 days per biennium. That's a lot of legislating in a very short period. Particularly when we consider that lawmakers must also spend their time scrutinizing agency budgets, listening to constituents and overseeing the machinery of state government. Are these extra bills worth it? Consider some of the nonsense lawmakers debated last session.

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