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North Dakota: Junior Senator Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) Last Updated May 21, 2003
Byron Dorgan, who first held statewide office in 1969 and has often had the highest popularity ratings in North Dakota, was elected to the Senate in 1992. Dorgan grew up in Regent, North Dakota (population 268), where his family had a farm equipment and petroleum business and raised cattle and horses; he was one of nine students in his high school graduating class. After college and business school he worked for a Denver aerospace firm, then in 1969, at 26, was appointed state tax commissioner. His politics are very much out of the Non-Partisan League tradition: He has a strong mistrust of economic markets, a deep belief that government should intervene to protect the family farmer and small businessman, and a capacity to frame issues in a popular and unthreatening way. His first big issue, as tax commissioner, was taxing out-of-state corporations, which struck a chord in a state always hostile to big out-of-state money. To his work Dorgan brought the zest and cornball good humor that New Deal enthusiasts liked to summon up when liberals thought they represented the ordinary, inarticulate little guy, in contrast to the conservatives seen as old stuffed shirts. Dorgan ran for the House in 1974, and lost to Republican Mark Andrews. In 1980, when Andrews ran for the Senate, Dorgan was elected to the House. His lowest percentage in a House race was 65%, in 1990 against Ed Schafer, who was elected governor in 1992 and 1996. On the House Ways and Means Committee, he called for more tax audits, opposed intangibles write-offs for corporate takeovers, and opposed the use of high-yield bonds for corporate takeovers. Dorgan declined to challenge Andrews for the Senate in 1986, a race his successor as tax commissioner, Kent Conrad won, and he declined to take on 80-year-old fellow-Democrat Quentin Burdick in 1988. Only with Conrad's surprise decision not to run for re-election in 1992 did Dorgan finally run for the Senate. He and his Republican opponent both backed Most Favored Nation trade status for China (a major buyer of North Dakota wheat), but remained wary of free trade otherwise and opposed the regulations that have classified hundreds of seasonal puddles in North Dakota as protected wetlands. Dorgan won by a solid 59%-39% margin. In the Senate, Dorgan's voting record has been almost exactly the same as Conrad's; this is one case where senators of the same party from the same state have worked harmoniously together. They call themselves and Congressman Earl Pomeroy "Team North Dakota." Dorgan strongly backed fellow Dakotan Tom Daschle for Senate Democratic leader in 1994, and became an assistant floor leader; he considered running for whip against Harry Reid four years later, but withdrew. In December 1998 he became co-chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. Dorgan continues to be a champion of family farms, even as their numbers decline. He backed the big crop insurance and disaster relief packages starting in 1997. He has sought a ban on Canadian wheat imports, then a requirement that they all come in through one border crossing; he rejoiced when the special trade representative started investigating Canadian practices in October 2000 and brought a complaint to the WTO in December 2002. When George W. Bush signed the $5.5 billion farm relief bill in August 2001 he said, "This is just round one." Round two was the farm bill, when Dorgan and Charles Grassley led the move to limit farm subsidies. He argued that too much would go to a few rich farmers and feared that such payments would build opposition to the farm bill as a whole; anyway, not many North Dakota or Iowa farmers qualify for huge payments. It failed in committee, opposed by senators from states with big cotton and rice farms, but in February 2002, the Senate passed by voice vote a limit of $275,000 per farmer. As an advocate of the family farm, Dorgan opposes high interest rates and mergers, but does not see taxes as such a threat. During the 1990s he often criticized Alan Greenspan for backing high interest rates and he was one of four senators to vote against his reconfirmation as Federal Reserve chairman in February 2000. He opposed financial services deregulation in 1999--"that which is true in the 1930s is true in 2010"--and wants the SEC to regulate derivatives. He wants a more vigorous antitrust policy; he called for an 18-month moratorium on agribusiness mergers in 1999 and a two-year moratorium on airline mergers in 2001. He opposes individual investment accounts for Social Security and opposed full repeal of the estate tax. His 2002 bills to allow prescription drugs to be reimported from Canada passed the Senate, but in 2000 HHS Secretary Donna Shalala said she could not certify that this would pose "no additional risk to the public's health and safety," as the law required and so it had no effect; in 2001 it was clear that her successor Tommy Thompson would do the same thing, and the bill did not pass in the House. Dorgan tried unsuccessfully in 1998 and 2001 to add to the moratorium on Internet taxes provisions authorizing the states to establish a compact to set standardized sales taxes. As chairman of a Commerce subcommittee he held widely-publicized hearings in winter 2002 on malfeasance at Enron; executives were suitably denounced. "This is disgusting to me, corporate behavior without a moral base," Dorgan said at one point. But he did not get the records of Enron's partnerships. He heads the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the White House and has sponsored a bill to require presidential libraries to raise endowments capable of paying 40%, not the current 20%, of operational expenses. On foreign policy, Dorgan has been a prime mover in scaling back the embargo on Cuba. In 2000 he got the Senate to lift the embargo on food and medicine and to prevail against a House version that he said would limit financing of sales to Cuba. He was a strong but not successful supporter of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that Bill Clinton submitted to the Senate in September 1997. On North Dakota issues, Dorgan has sometimes disappointed environmental groups. In September 2000 he threatened to block EPA nominations unless North Dakota farmers were allowed to import a pesticide from Canada. Dorgan works closely with Conrad on water issues. They worked to limit the drawdown on Lake Sakakawea in the Missouri River and fought Missouri's senators who wanted more water let out to keep the barges floating on the river in their state. They succeeded in December 2000 in getting the $631 million Dakota Water Resources Act included in an appropriation; this would authorize diversion of Missouri River water to the Red River Valley in eastern North Dakota, and is opposed by Canada, Minnesota and many environmentalists. He voted against higher CAFE gas mileage standards for pickup trucks. Dorgan was easily re-elected in 1998. His first opponent was Fargo nudist rights advocate Crystal Dueker who said she would ''be the sacrificial virgin.'' She added, ''I fight to win. I know how to kick a man where it hurts.'' But she bowed out in March after Fargo police had her hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation. In November Dorgan beat state Senator Donna Nalewaja 63%-35%, carrying every county but one; the vote in Sheridan County was 423-423. His vote was highest among elderly North Dakotans, but he carried every demographic group by wide margins. After the 2002 elections, national Republicans started talking about taking on Dorgan in 2004. George W. Bush, who carried the state 61%-33%, would be on the ballot again, and they had a potentially strong candidate in Ed Schafer, who left the governorship in 2001 with high ratings. But Schafer, who lost a House race to Dorgan in 1990, seemed reluctant. "There's no question it would be tough. Byron is smart, and he knows how to run a campaign. He's had a lot of practice." Others mentioned as possible Republican candidates were Governor John Hoeven and motivational speaker and former LSU basketball coach Dale Brown.
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