Remember the big "to do" about Mitt Romney releasing his tax returns so Americans could see whether he's doing any fishy stuff with his money, like hiding money in off-shore accounts so that he could avoid paying his fair share of U.S. Taxes?!? Well... why shouldn't Jack Dalrymple do the same thing? 

What do we know about North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple and his financial situation?

• We know he was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• We know that, though he claims to have "grown up" on the family farm near Casselton, he attended a suburban Minneapolis prep school starting in 4th grade and graduated from that Twin Cities prep school in 1966.  
• We know he then went on to Yale University where he graduated in 1970.
• So we know he was not "growing up" in North Dakota from the time he was about 8 or 9 years old until he was at least twenty-two (22) years old.  (I'm not really sure where he was between being born in Minneapolis and starting prep school at age 8 in Minneapolis; not that it matters.)
• We know when he returned to Minnesota after attending college in Connecticut, he got involved in helping manage his family's North Dakota bonanza farm operation, which is/was the second biggest North Dakota recipient of farm subsidies between 1995 and 2010, raking in over $4 million in federal tax dollars. (Source.)
• We know that while he was Lt. Governor of North Dakota and being paid over $80,000 per year to do that job, he was also making $65,000 a year moonlighting at Dakota Growers Pasta company, which he then (while Lt. Governor) arranged to sell out to a Canadian company for $243 million, pocketing millions for himself in the transaction.
• We know he now is running for the open office of Governor in North Dakota.
• We know he raised $823,511.00 in campaign contributions, maybe 40% (or so) of which came from out of state.  We know his single largest campaign contribution ($26,050.00) came from Bob Mau, an oil company executive from Kenmare, ND. His second largest contribution ($26,000.00) came from New York resident Mike Tokarz, one of the brokers involved in facilitating the Dakota Growers sell-out.  
• We know this list shows who some of Dalrymple's high dollar ($5k and more) purchasers contributers:

(Source: ND Secretary of State)

Some of you may recognize the names of some of Dalrymple's high dollar purchasers donors.

Though the folks at the recent right-wing nut-job Conservative Political Action Conference ("CPAC") actually "celebrated" the Citizens United decision that's screwing up the American form of government, most mainstream Americans feel Citizens United was a horrible mistake that needs to be corrected.

A couple of you may recall that during the recent 2011 North Dakota regular legislative session, Grand Forks Senator Mac Schneider sponsored two bills proposing to expand the campaign finance disclosure for candidates for political office (and others).  (See SB 2262 and SB 2319)  These bills would have forced candidates for political office to disclose their income sources and financial interests, so we -- and competent journalists, if we had any -- could keep an eye on our elected officials' conflicts of interest and influence peddling. Both of Sen. Schneider's bills were killed by North Dakota's Republicans who want -- or need -- the citizens to remain in the dark about the level of influence peddling and corruption in the state.  

One thing lots of people forget around here is that we the People are in charge.  As Article I, Section 2, of North Dakota's constitution says, "All political power is inherent in the people." That's us, folks. It's not the legislature or the governor's office or the courts. The proverbial buck stops with us. If we don't like the way our state is being run, we have the power to do something about it.  

That's why I think we -- the people -- should demand that candidates for Governor of North Dakota should disclose at least five years of tax returns. The people, with the help of an aggressive press, recently forced Mitt Romney to cough up his 2010 tax return.  We learned several things from Romney's tax return, including that he loves America so much that he hides his assets off-shore so he doesn't have to pay his fair share in taxes.  We learned that he pays under 14% of his income in taxes, while most of the rest of us pay twice that rate. 

I'll start this.

As someone who can say with a straight face that I actually did grow up in North Dakota, I believe North Dakotans deserve to know about Dalrymple what Americans know about Mitt Romney.

I would invite you to join me in asking Governor Dalrymple, Paul Sorum and Democratic-NPL candidate Senator Ryan Taylor that they show they respect the people of North Dakota. Join me in calling on all three candidates to release copies of their 2005 through 2010 tax returns. 

We deserve to know all of these candidates are playing the tax game straight.

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