N.D. Legislator Seeks to Amend Open Meetings Law

A state legislator from Bismarck says he will seek a change in North Dakota’s open meetings law, after an attorney general’s opinion regarding Insurance Commissioner Jim Poolman’s trips to national regulatory meetings.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s opinion, issued at the request of Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck, said that Poolman or Insurance Department employees who attend National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ meetings are not bound by North Dakota’s open meetings law.

A meeting required to be open “does not include the attendance of members of a governing body at meetings of any national, regional or state association to which the public entity, the governing body or individual members belong,” Stenehjem said.

Keiser said he is part of a nationwide movement of legislators and consumer advocates who want the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to stop conducting business in secret. He said he plans to introduce legislation in 2009 dealing with the issue.

Poolman said the effort is being brought by Keiser, one Rhode Island legislator and one Kentucky lawmaker. “I hardly call it a national “vement,” he said.

Poolman said Keiser has a personal vendetta against him stemming from a feud over travel expenses going back more than two years.

“George Keiser is still mad that we did not pay for all of his travel to NCOIL (National Conference of Insurance Legislators), and so he is taking it out on me,” Poolman said.

The Insurance Department’s budget pays for NCOIL membership and meeting travel for Keiser and a handful of other North Dakota legislators.

Keiser denied the charge. “This is not a vendetta against the commissioner,” he said.

Don Morrison of Bismarck, with the North Dakota Center for the Public Good, recently attended an NAIC meeting in San Francisco.

“It’s becoming more and more secret at NAIC, and it didn’t used to be secret,” he said.

Poolman said the national group’s closed-door meetings include discussion of ongoing investigations and deal with companies’ private information. All votes are taken in public meetings, he said.