Pay for North Dakota lawmakers’ absent days during legislative session totals $56K

North Dakota House members never met as a full body in the 2019 legislative session, and 85 senators and representatives missed at least one day of the 76-day period but still were paid.

Pay to lawmakers with excused absences totaled about $56,000, according to figures The Bismarck Tribune requested from the Legislative Council, the Legislature’s nonpartisan agency of fiscal and legal experts. North Dakota’s Legislature meets for up to 80 days every two years.

Legislative leaders say that in general they’re not concerned by absences in the recent session, but at least one lawmaker expressed surprise at the practice of paying absent members and another said there’s at least the potential for abuse.

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