By: Mary Steurer (ND Monitor)
The North Dakota Ethics Commission found Rep. Jason Dockter committed three ethics violations related to his ownership of a Bismarck building, but the agency did not hand down any penalties for the lawmaker.
The announcement, released Friday evening, marks the first time the commission has declared that a public official engaged in unethical behavior.
The Ethics Commission noted the Bismarck Republican likely leveraged his position and his relationships with state employees to arrange a lease with the Attorney General’s Office, according to the commission’s 93-page investigation report.
The report also identified unanswered questions regarding the finances of the building and highlighted challenges that stalled the investigation, including witnesses who declined to be interviewed.
Dockter chose not to appeal the decision, according to the commission. The commission concluded that in this circumstance, it’s up to the Legislature to decide whether disciplinary action is necessary.
Dockter is the partial owner of a company that leases a building located at 1720 Burlington Drive in south Bismarck to the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office and Department of Health and Human Services. At one point, North Dakota Information Technology was also a tenant, according to the report.
In 2023, Dockter voted in favor of two budget bills that set aside money for the Attorney General’s Office and Department of Health and Human Services leases. State law and ethics rules forbid lawmakers from voting on legislation that could give them a unique financial benefit.
Eight different people submitted complaints about Dockter raising concerns about the building deal in September and October 2022, according to the report.
More than two-and-a-half years since the complaints were first filed, the Ethics Commission has concluded that these votes represented two violations of its conflict of interest rules.
Additionally, a 12-person Burleigh County jury last year found Dockter guilty of a criminal misdemeanor for casting the votes. The Ethics Commission considers this conviction a third ethical violation. A district court judge ordered him to complete 250 hours of community service and pay a $2,500 fine, in addition to 360 days of unsupervised probation. Dockter has completed those requirements, court records indicate.
Dockter did not respond to a request for comment sent to the attorney representing the company that owns the building, Monte Rogneby.
The commission recounted the lengthy saga of the building deal in its report, which drew from sources including witness interviews, court records and state investigations.
The report notes that Dockter’s violations “likely could have been avoided with education on how to disclose and manage conflicts of interest.”
“It is clear from the commission’s investigation there is a general lack of clarity on what a potential conflict of interest is and how to disclose and manage them when they come up,” the report states.
The commission’s report includes excerpts from a November 2024 interview of Dockter conducted by Ethics Commission staff. In the interview, Dockter stated that he did not believe at the time he cast the votes that that was breaking any ethics laws or rules.
His reasoning included, among other things, that the bills did not single him out specifically, that the leases were only one small part of the budgets and that his votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the legislation.
The commission also discovered that Dockter partially owns three other Bismarck properties that are leased or were previously leased to state entities:
The commission says that its conflict of interest rules don’t set specific penalties for violators, so the agency did not penalize Dockter for the violations.
According to the commission, the Legislative Assembly can make a determination of whether Dockter violated House rules requiring lawmakers to declare conflicts on bills they have special interests with. It also has the discretion to pursue disciplinary action against Dockter.
Dockter during the 2025 legislative session declared conflicts of interest on bills multiple times, the report states.
The Ethics Commission said that it ran into several roadblocks that stalled the completion of its investigation into Dockter. It had to the investigation on hold while the criminal case against him proceeded, for one.
The commission also struggled to get agencies including the Attorney General’s Office and Legislative Council to turn over records.
According to the commission, the Attorney General’s Office declined to provide some email records and documents from a Montana investigation commissioned by the state into the building deal. The agency did provide some other requested records, however, the report states.
The Attorney General’s Office also did not respond to the North Dakota Monitor’s request for comment Monday.
The Ethics Commission also was unable to obtain Dockter’s legislative emails. Lawmaker emails are not public records, though emails of other state officials are public. Legislative Council Director John Bjornson said he needed either a waiver from Dockter or a subpoena to provide the emails, according to the Ethics Commission’s report. The commission declined to pursue the emails.
Additionally, some witnesses — including Bureau of Criminal Investigation Division Director Lonnie Grabowska and Liz Brocker, former executive assistant to Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem — refused requests for interviews from the commission. Grabowska instead asked for questions to be sent over email which he said would “allow for the exchange of question and answer in an effective manner,” according to the report.
The Ethics Commission noted it does not have a clear way to obtain a subpoena to compel people to sit for interviews or force agencies to produce records.
The report also called on the Legislature, the Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee and the Office of the State Auditor to look into lingering questions regarding the lease deal.
Sources cited in the report dispute whether all of the money that went into the property was authorized by the Legislature. For one, the money the Attorney General’s Office spent on the building ultimately went more than $1.5 million over its initial estimate.
The report notes that the property and the Attorney General’s Office have been unable to mutually settle the financials of the building renovation.
The Ethics Commission also suggests the Office of State Auditor should consider conducting a more comprehensive performance audit of the Attorney General’s Office regarding the building project.
It’s unclear what steps the Legislature might take with respect to the commission’s recommendations. House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
The Ethics Commission was established in 2018 by a voter-initiated amendment to the state constitution. It’s tasked with promoting ethical behavior in the areas of elections, transparency, corruption and lobbying.
