Interview with State Senator Tim Mathern (D-Fargo)
(BISMARCK, ND) – A Fargo legislator’s attempt at introducing legislation that would add lawmakers and higher education employees to those who are mandated reporters has been stopped in the Senate’s Delayed Bills committee.
Senator Tim Mathern, a Fargo Democrat, says the committee voted 4-1 to not allow the bill to be heard by the legislature. He says he originally had a few versions of the bill drafted, but fellow committee members said time was a factor in not allowing the bill to be heard.
“They said there’s no way this (bill) could be addressed because it’s such a late time in session and it takes three days to get a bill passed in terms of the machinery of the legislature,” Mathern said in an interview on Tuesday.
The legislator said there was also implication that he was introducing the bill to get political attention. He said he was working at his full-time job at Prairie St. John’s in Fargo when he heard about the issue involving former State Senator Raymond Holmberg, which precipitated the issuance of the bill.
“I had a responsibility to act, and I could care less what the party issue was,” he said. “I knew this guy (Holmberg) for over 40 years. I didn’t know this stuff was going on.”
Despite defeating the bill, committee members encouraged Mathern to continue to press forward on the bill – even going so far as to recommending it be brought to the legislature during the next session in two years, something Mathern said he plans to do.
“I’m going to be following this in the interim, too,” he said.
