Janet Anderson, Burlington

ND Legislators are elected by the citizens of the state and their salaries are paid by these same citizens. They are tasked with the job of representing all North Dakotans with integrity and honesty and with our best interests in mind.

Unfortunately, many of our elected officials in Bismarck do not seem to be doing their part to represent all of us and integrity and honesty do not seem to be high on their list of priorities. Whether it’s legislators being denounced by their own party for antisemitism or past legislators heading to trial for sex offenses, our elected officials are not leading by example.

However, beyond the newsworthy scandals, I am most disappointed in legislators who spread false accusations and who do not interact with citizens with civility. In the last legislative session, after speaking for around 2 minutes, I was asked to wrap-up (I’m not sure by whom) and as I did so, another legislator (again, not sure who) asked if I could be “muted” despite the fact that previous testimonies in support of the bill I was opposing were given between 4 and 8 minutes to speak.

That same legislative session, Senator Myrdal grossly misled a Senate Committee about an email I sent her and stated that I was promoting pornography to children. This year, Senator Paulson (from Minot) stubbornly avoided a simple question I had about a “fact” he stated at a hearing. Instead of answering a reasonably direct question, his email response included accusatory and insulting phrases like; “it seems to me that you may be feigning ignorance” and “If this section of the article I shared the link to doesn’t help you understand, I probably have no chance of succeeding in doing so.”

Shouldn’t we expect better from those representing us? Is it too much to expect common decency and honesty? How long will we let these sorts of behaviors continue and be rewarded?