BISMARCK, N.D. – North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley says the North Dakota Ethics Commission has exceeded its scope of authority.
The ruling comes as a result of an Attorney General’s opinion requested by North Dakota Secretary of State Michael Howe.
The request from Howe raised ‘several questions’ about how the powers granted to Howe through North Dakota’s constitution interact with advisory opinions and administrative rules issued by the Ethics Commission, according to a letter from Wrigley to Howe on Friday. In question specifically is an advisory opinion related to a request from Senator Joshua Boschee. The opinion was released in June 2025.
“It is my opinion that AO 25-01 exceeded the Commission’s legislatively defined authority in N.D.C.C. § 54-66-04.2 to issue advisory opinions on specified facts or conduct,” Wrigley wrote in his opinion. “Instead of complying with the requirements of N.D.C.C. § 54-66-04.2, the Commission made unauthorized and expansive legal conclusions in AO 25-01 without legal authority to do so.”
An issue of whether or not Howe is obligated to ‘follow rules promulgated by the Commission when those rules venture to narrow, expand, or contradict current statutes’ was addressed by Wrigley.
“It is my opinion that if you are presented with a rule promulgated by the Commission that conflicts with a state statute and cannot be reconciled with that statute, you are obligated to follow the properly enacted state statute,” he wrote.
