Now it moves to the Senate where I think it will do as well.
Go Sioux!
More from my blogging partner (boss) at Say Anything.
HB1263, instructing the State Board of Higher Education to keep the Fighting Sioux Nickname, just passed the state House by a 65 – 28 vote. HB1263 was sponsored by House Majority Leader Al Carlson. Other Sioux-related bills, HB1257 and HB1208 both failed by wide margins obviously because the House found consensus behind Carlson’s bill.
“This isn’t the most important bill this session,” said Rep. Carlson. “But it’s important to a lot of people.”
Opponents to the bill, including Grand Forks’ Rep. Elliot Glassheim, called it legislative overreach. He argues, as Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem does, that the state legislature doesn’t have the authority to pass this legislation.
Which is actually correct (would that these critics were more in tune with the state constitution when it came to, say, the unconstitutional nature of economic development spending). The state constitution establishes the State Board of Higher Education as an almost totally unaccountable 4th branch of the state government. Outside of funding, and approving board appointees, the state legislature has almost no control over higher education in North Dakota.
And that’s a big problem that goes far beyond the Fighting Sioux nickname. That the SBHE is trying to get rid of the nickname over the protests of a majority of the public is an example of just how arrogant and drunk with power they are, and from there we go to their endless demands for more funding despite huge double-digit increases in their state budgets every legislative session. We look at the waste, fraud and abuse in the higher education system.
What the Fighting Sioux nickname debate illustrates is that the state’s higher education system needs to be less autonomous and more accountable to the elected representatives of the people.
