North Dakota: Governor

Gov. John Hoeven (R)

John Hoeven (R) Elected 2000, 2d term up Dec. 2008
Born:	03-13-1957, Bismarck
Home:	Bismarck
Education:	Dartmouth, B.A. 1979; Northwestern U., Kellogg Grad. Schl., M.B.A. 1981
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Mikey)
Professional Career:	Exec. V.P., First Western Bank, 1986-93; Pres. & CEO, Bank of ND, 1993-2000.
DC Office	State Capitol, 600 E. Boulevard, Bismarck, 58505 701-328-2200 Fax: 701-328-2205 Website: www.governor.state.nd.us
Additional Info
Recent Articles · Offices · Committees · Election Results
More On North Dakota
At A Glance · State Profile ·Almanac Home
Recent News Coverage
Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, House Race Hotline, and National Journal archives using the form above:

John Hoeven, the Republican governor of North Dakota, is the longest serving governor in the United States. He was first elected in November 2000 and was sworn into office on December 15, 2000—six days before the second-longest serving governor, Rick Perry of Texas, who took office when President-elect George W. Bush announced his resignation on December 21. Hoeven was born in Bismarck and grew up in Minot; he graduated from Dartmouth College and received an MBA from Northwestern. In 1981, he entered the family business, First Western Bank in Minot and became executive vice president. He was active in many civic endeavors. In 1993 he was chosen to be head of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota—a Non-Partisan League creation—by a board that included his predecessor as governor, Republican Ed Schafer, and his 2000 Democratic opponent, Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp. Under Hoeven’s stewardship, the bank’s worth rose from $990 million to $1.6 billion and its loan portfolio increased from $200 million to $1 billion; it returns $50 million into the state’s biannual budget. Hoeven was not always a Republican; in 1996, he thought out loud about running as a Democrat against Schafer. He gave serious consideration to running in 2000 only when Schafer announced in October 1999 he would not run again. In November Hoeven, who had never won elective office, announced his candidacy.

This was a generally civil campaign, between two candidates who knew each other well. Bismarck is a small town, where officeholders can scarcely avoid each other, and North Dakotans are a civil people. Hoeven cited his work in attracting jobs by founding Minot’s Magic Fund, a city sales tax used for business development, and by organizing to keep Minot Air Force Base off the base-closure list, as well as his work at the Bank of North Dakota. He called for economic development with high-paying jobs in technology and said that education was crucial in preparing future workers; he pledged more money for teacher training and salaries. Heitkamp, who grew up in the town of Mantador (population 77), was elected tax commissioner in 1984 and 1988 and attorney general in 1992 and 1996. She said she would try to keep young people in the state through a recruitment and mentoring program, by reinstating a living wage for employees of companies receiving financial assistance and by giving tax incentives to companies guaranteeing high-wage jobs. But in September 2000 Heitkamp announced that she had breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy September 25, and Hoeven suspended his ads for two days. Quickly she returned to the campaign trail. For several weeks, she led in polls, but the momentum went back to Hoeven, and he won 55%-45%. Voters over the age of 60 backed the Democrat, voters under 60 the Republican: A familiar North Dakota pattern. At the same time, Republicans won seven of nine of the statewide offices and increased their majorities in the legislature. North Dakota’s skyscraper Capitol, towering over neatly-kept Bismarck and the rolling plains beyond, now contained more Republicans in high office than at any time since the NPL allied with the Democrats around 1960.

As governor, Hoeven began Phase 2 of the North Dakota Telecommunications Network and combined several state agencies—tourism, economic development, finance, job training—into a Department of Commerce. In December 2002, Hoeven presented a budget that drew $50 million from two trust funds and borrowed $20 million to complete the Telecommunications Network and which provided for teacher salary increases and $10 million for a Devils Lake outlet. Legislators resisted earmarking teacher salary increases; Hoeven vetoed their budget and, in a three-day special session, got 70% of education funds earmarked for salary increases. Altogether, teachers got $75 million in salary increases in his first term. In 2004 Hoeven promoted GoE! ethanol fuel and required its use in state vehicles. He proposed a Centers of Excellence program, borrowing $50 million to generate $150 million in economic development centered on the state’s universities. He brought suit to roll back the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad’s rate increases and eliminated the sales tax on used farm machinery and parts.

Water is a controversial issue in river-crossed North Dakota. For years there was concern about the rising water level in land-locked Devils Lake, which was submerging farmland, and houses and after heavy rains threatened local roads. North Dakotans in Congress tried to get the federal government to act, but Hoeven stepped in and construction began in October 2003 on a channel to divert the water through the Sheyenne River which drains into the northward-flowing Red River of the North. This generated protests from Minnesota and Manitoba officials, worried about water quality and other environmental risks, and Manitoba threatened a lawsuit; North Dakota retaliated by suing Manitoba over high roads that act as dikes on the Red River. As the 14-mile-long open channel came close to completion in 2005, Canadian officials mounted a lobbying campaign against the project in Washington and sought to have the State Department send the matter to the International Joint Commission, an entity designed to resolve boundary waters disputes with Canada. An agreement was reached to install a filter to prevent invasive species and pollutants from moving downstream but Canada remained unsatisfied; in June 2007, the House of Commons passed a motion calling for the Canadian government “to continue to employ every means possible to have the flow of water from Devils Lake into the Canadian water system stopped immediately.” That same month, the Manitoba Premier protested by notifying Hoeven in a letter that he would no longer work with North Dakota on flooding issues in Pembina County, which shares a border with Canada.

In 2004 Hoeven was opposed by former state Senator Joseph Satrom, who had low name identification and little money. Hoeven pointed to the state’s economic growth and indications that the state was finally gaining population and not losing young people. It didn’t help Satrom that he opposed the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which was approved by 73% of the voters. Hoeven won 71%-27%, the biggest percentage victory since C. Norman Brunsdale was reelected in 1952. Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson held on to his job with 50.3% of the votes, but Republicans swept other partisan offices with percentages ranging up to 73% and increased their majorities in the legislature. In December 2004, Hoeven submitted a $5.5 billion budget with spending increases on education (more teacher salary increases) and corrections, and $5 million in bonuses to North Dakota soldiers; he projected a $200 million surplus.

By July 2005, Hoeven ranked as the nation’s most popular governor, according to a SurveyUSA poll, with an approval rating hovering over 70%. He was probably the only candidate who could oust Democratic Senator Kent Conrad in 2006 and national Republicans, including presidential adviser Karl Rove, pressed him to run. Conrad took Hoeven’s potential candidacy seriously; he raised $2.7 million by June 2005, more than he had ever spent over the course of an entire election cycle. He began running ads in September 2005 touting his accomplishments in the Senate. Later that month, Hoeven announced he would not run. “A day may come when we ask the people of North Dakota to allow us to serve them in a different capacity, but that time is not now,” he said in a statement. The relieved state Democratic chairman said, “This race, between Conrad and Hoeven, would have been Armageddon. I think that we’ve averted a race here that would have involved the expenditure of millions of dollars, and the people of North Dakota will be better off not having to be subjected to it.”

North Dakota is one of six states where the legislature meets biennially and for most of the state’s history the governor delivered the State of the State speech only in the years the legislature convened. Hoeven’s predecessor, Ed Schafer, had changed that tradition and gave the speech every January even when the legislature was not in session. But in 2006, after following Schafer’s lead for his first five years in office, Hoeven felt secure enough to dispense with the speech. Other issues preoccupied him, among them the state’s harsh weather. Within a one-year period beginning in 2005, the state was hit by two big snowstorms and severe summer weather, leading Hoeven to seek and win approval of three separate Presidential Disaster Declarations. The weather-related woes continued. In March 2006, Hoeven issued a flood emergency declaration after rapid snowmelt and rainfall led to Red River Valley flooding; in June, in response to dry conditions in the south central part of the state and its effects on farmers and ranchers, Hoeven declared an agricultural drought emergency. Also in June, Hoeven traveled to Iraq to visit North Dakota soldiers.

When the legislature next met in 2007, it achieved a productive session that enacted much of Hoeven’s agenda for the year. Flush with revenues, Hoeven signed off on the largest tax relief measure in state history, the biggest increase in higher education funding in state history, a renewable energy package and a landmark K-12 education funding bill that featured a more equitable school aid formula and funding for statewide all-day kindergarten. Hoeven is up for reelection in 2008. He said in September 2007 that he would seek a third term in 2008.