Disgraced former state Sen. Ray Holmberg has indicated, through his legal counsel, that he will be pleading guilty to federal criminal charges related to international travel to solicit sex with children. "When that happens," Attorney General Drew Wrigley said on this episode of Plain Talk, "everything that we have becomes a public record."

An untold number of public documents, including email messages and more, are currently inaccessible by the news media and the public due to state law that exempts records related to on-going criminal investigations. But once Holmberg official pleads guilty, which will happen later this year, that exemption will go away, and Wrigley says his office will work to preemptively make as much information available to the public as possible.

Wrigley also spoke with me and my co-host Chad Oban about the on-going rift between North Dakota and Minnesota over fossil-fuel energy. Minnesota has passed a law mandating that all energy used in the state be from sources that don't emit carbon by 2040. North Dakota, which has successfully sued Minnesota over similar legislation in the past, and which provides the bulk of Minnesota's electricity, much of it from coal-fired power plants, is objecting.

Wrigley sits on the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which recently sent Minnesota a letter asking the state to reconsider or reform the law. "We're not at war with Minnesota," he said. "We're not even at war with their statute. But we could be."

Also on this episode, Gannon University Professor Jeff Bloodworth, who authored a recent Washington Post article about the struggles Democrats are having with rural voters, took our questions about how Democrats might go about fixing that problem.

"Urban educated liberals took over the Democratic Party and started booting out working class Democrats," he said. He argues that the party's leaders currently see little need to figure out why rural Americans aren't voting for them. "It's just easier to stereotype rural voters," he said.

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We covered a lot of ground on this episode of Plain Talk.

Rep. Brandy Pyle, a Republican from Casselton, joined to talk about her efforts to curb distractions from devices in the legislative committee she chairs, and to talk about the struggles our society is having with our phone addictions.

North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott also joined to discuss the State Board of Higher Education's decision to move on from his leadership. Hagerott characterized it as an amicable transition, though he acknowledged that he doesn't get along with one board member. "I'm not on his Christmast list," Hagerott said, though he declined to mention which board member.

Also on this episode, me and co-host Chad Oban discuss what we both agreed was a terrible, really bad, no good debate performance from President Joe Biden last night.

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The signature turn-in deadline for the committee backing a ballot measure to abolish North Dakota's tax on property value (but not, it's important to note, other types of property taxes) arrives on Saturday, June 29. The committee is expected to turn in the requisite number of signatures, which, if they pass muster, will kick off a repeat of a debate over property taxes voters here have had before.

In 2012 a similar proposal to eliminate the tax on property value was put before voters, and it failed spectacularly. A coalition group calling itself Keep It Local ND rallied to persuade more than 70% of voters to cast their ballots against the measure.

That coalition is back, and two of its organizers -- Andrea Pfennig from the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce and my co-host Chad Oban, whose day job is with North Dakota United -- were on this episode of Plain Talk to discuss it.

Their arguments against the measure? It would eliminate about $2.6 billion in revenues for local governments every budget cycle with no real plan for how to replace it. And those voters who are frustrated with the Legislature's impotence in addressing this issue should consider, they argue, that it would be that same Legislature tasked with coming up with a revenue alternative.

Also on this episode, Democratic-NPL U.S. House candidate Trygve Hammer, fresh off his victory in the June primary, joined to discuss his general election campaign. He wants to make it clear to North Dakota voters that a Democrat winning a statewide vote in North Dakota is "not impossible."

"I have an experience that's closer to what most North Dakotan's have experienced," he said, touting his military background and blue-collar resume. "I've been boots on the ground in the oil patch."

Hammer spoke about everything from border security to foreign affairs.

Of Ukraine, "Putin has to be stopped," Hammer said. "Putin is a butcher." In the middle-east, Hammer said Israel absolutely has a right to protect itself, but sees a toxic relationship between the Islamic extremists who are a threat to the Jewish state and its current leadership. "Netanyahu needs Hamas and Hamas needs Netanyahu," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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