Bjorn Altenburg

Generally speaking it's deeply personal question for a physician and a patient. We need to give patients and Doctors the ability to make the best decision possible given a medical situation. Things such as miscarriages, nonviable pregnancy, ectopic, and other medical emergencies need to be covered and physicians should not feel threatened attempting to help patients. Generally speaking I will always listen to my constituents and what they want, especially women on the subject.

Neutral

I feel in the case of clinics, some nuance is fine, government programs and applicable care clinics should not be excluded simply because they offer abortion services. Many offer other fertility services such as STD screening and other community programs.

Agree

These need to be written with extreme care. This needs to be a decision between a physician and a patient in extreme confidence by both parties.

I think the state of North Dakota as whole has done a very good job of keeping our taxes fairly simple. I think investigating more digital help and solutions for people with more complex situations would be a good. I'm running for a state office, but if the questions is asking Federal as well, the Federal systems need to be overhauled to be far more simple and straight forward. The IRS and software systems should be used to make the process and cheap and easy for the average American as possible.

The largest portion of most states budgets is going to be things like employee benefits and compensation, social welfare programs, and infrastructure spending. North Dakota due to oil has a state surplus, we are doing what we can with the funds to ensure that in the long term we do not find ourselves in the red like we have had after other booms. Loosing talent and programs due to poor planning in a state that has historical issues with keeping human capital is not something we can afford to do long term. To keep ourselves in the Green we need to do what we can to grow the legacy fund and look to investments in state that will eventually help cover the budget for children and children's' children. What that looks like will need as much information as possible to make informed decisions on investment and plans.

Agree

The public education system in the USA is the backbone of the American work force, ND has one of the better public school systems, both Rural and Urban of any similar state. Many places in the developed world do afford their population advanced schooling to their citizens at nominal and reduced costs, the benefits of this especially for trades and craftsmen can be extremely beneficial to a workforce for creating skilled and knowledgeable workers in almost any field.

Agree

I hesitatingly agree on certain grounds and 500 words will never do justice for what needs to be said. This like many legal questions should probably be on a sliding scale. The duty to care for things such as Emergency medical providers and medicine needs to be held high in there posts, while say a local baker or book shop should not be held to similar standards. This really feels like something best left to the court system, attempts at legislating will be tough at best.

This is a legal question that would require a large amount of legal analysis and as many lawyers or judges would say "We'd need a case, not a hypothetical". Given things like the freedom of religion and what I can recall of things like the Lemon test, the government can close a church/religious gatherings on the grounds that the government is acting in a government like matter with the organization. If a church is in disrepair or in general in unsafe for human use, the government is within it's rights to condemn buildings, this is not some matter of arbitrary and capricious political whims but typically a cold and hard fact of mutually agreed on building codes. The supreme court ruled on this in covid shutdowns in a few states, and found that as expected if the law targets churches/religious groups in a specific matter then it is no longer acting within the bounds of a constitutional law. The body of case law is ever expanding, and even by the time this is published more cases will probably be tried and opinions will be written. For a personal perspective as a potential state legislator, I think creating state law on the matter will cause issues, churches and religion should be afforded their constitutional rights and those need to be protected from the state, however this is something better left to be analyzed on case by case analysis. If any one was to codify law on the subjects it would need to be the federal government since freedom of religion stems from the Federal government.

B.) But I generally think we need a ton of reform, and a federal government options will probably not work or end up being too much of byzantine machine to really be useful as a insurance provider. Investigating options at the state level for offering insurance and possibly expanding into health insurance at this point doesn't sound unreasonable. North Dakota already has a state bank and investigating opening some sort of insurance program and healthcare coverage through the state could save employees and employees millions of dollars a year while still benefiting the state economically. Seeing that healthcare insurance companies are making record profits has me wondering if the state could offer the people an alternative where the premiums and payments could at least in the longer run be re-invested into the state. We have legacy fund investments that can only be used on state investments, I feel like this should be investigated and some sort of pilot program could at least look into the feasibility of state run health insurance.

From a personal standpoint, as long as we require everyone to get a vaccination and their is a clear public health concern with the illness across the population. However exemption should exist for medical reasons.

I'm running for a state office in North Dakota, I'm not sure how much this applies to me or my constituents. America should not be an isolationist nation and we need to be a beacon of freedom and democracy for the world. If I ever get into federal politics and review the issues in far greater detail I will gladly provide a far greater write up.

Strongly Disagree

I'm running for a state office in ND, outside maybe our legacy fund investments, there is not much interaction we would have with this issues. Still on a personal opinion level this is an extremely complex political issue, 500 words can never really cut it, my shortest answer is that I don't see the point in boycotts and sanctions unless it's an enemy, last I checked Israel is a political ally in the region and not our enemy.

Agree

I'm running for state office in ND, there is only so much I can do on National issues like this. 500 words is grossly to little to describe the border issue or really put out good ideas. We should work more closely with Mexico to close down the border to Central America through better enforcement and naval enforcement. Policing drug smugglers in co operation with Mexico and Caribbean countries would be an economical way to shut down much of the illegal drug trade.

I'm running for state office in an election in ND, there constitutionally nothing I can do about legal immigration if elected. From a personal perspective, our immigration policy in place today are fine, albeit slow and complicated, doing the best they can do given the federal politics. If not for immigration the population in USA would be declining. We need immigration to replace people and keep our country running. I think the immigration process as a whole could do with some reform, having to fly back to your home country for medical exams seems just byzantine as an example. The system could use reforms to waste less money and be more efficient overall.

Agree

Flexibility in the systems and personal choice should exist.

Agree

This is correct but 500 words doesn't let me really get to the fact that all western philosophy is inescapably Judaeo-christian at this point. Our system is the legacy of thousands of years of classical to enlightenment thought, an republic built upon the failures and success of western cannon that came before it.

Neutral

I'd like to see more case law and information before jumping to legislating.

Strongly Disagree

Marriage at church, before god is, but the Government institution of marriage is political tool for population and facilitating common culture. As long as a secular government has "marriage" as a class it will remain outside the religious definitions of marriage.

Neutral

I feel CRT at this point and the academic debates on this are so outside of local politics that I will cross this bridge when it comes to my district.

I was raised in a Lutheran family, my mother was from the Missouri synod Lutheran tradition and my Dad an ELCA Lutheran.I sang in the choir and up through High-school went to and ELCA church almost every Sunday. My mom's dad was a minister in a Lutheran church, my great aunt on my dad's side was a minister as well. I'm generally invested as a trinitarian, sacramental unionist, and other mainline Lutheran beliefs. I like Lutheran theology and really enjoy the academic study of religion. If I ever had more time and money I would love to take more courses on the subject or re read the book of concord. I would say I try to take a more practical and worldly approach to my religious values. Did god make man for the sabbath, or was the sabbath made for man? In college and at other times I've leaned sometimes towards deism however. I think like many, life and the people around us can give us new perspective.

Strongly Agree

I mean sure, an affidavit of residency, we could do other forms of ID like bio-metrics (IE, Finger print, eye scan, facial analysis), or if like bio-chip identification ever becomes more mainstream it would make for an extremely efficient way to screen voters. I don't think we need to limit ourselves to just a photo id, especially with emerging technology.

In ND I think things are pretty good and I think we have a pretty ok system.

Did not answer

Choose not to answer

A) Generally speaking stricter environmental legislation has turned into a political tool that is so far removed from actually helping. Nuclear has become so regulated that our best source of CO2 neutral energy has become an impossibility while china and India out build us. Restriction in many industries is no longer written in blood but written to spite industries on group dislikes more then another. An endless tide of lobbies fighting to make their product relevant and necessary. It's often no longer about public health or saving the environment but more about what benefits politicians in DC.

Strongly Agree

If done by the books and laws, it's fine.

To provide common defense, public goods and services, and to generally do what a private business can't or won't do that is necessary for keeping civilization going.

Lean Conservative

I would generally say I lean classical liberal. However if you can prove a point with hard facts and data, I'm more open to change.

https://ballotpedia.org/Bjorn_Altenburg, http://theconcordian.org/?p=9334, https://www.inforum.com/opinion/letter-why-no-public-rifle-range-in-fargo, https://www.inforum.com/opinion/letter-fargo-should-try-path-seldom-trod,

No

North Dakota needs to keep going on steady and stable course financially. We need to work hard to escape the boom bust cycles we find ourselves in endlessly. We also need to try and do what we can to ensure we have a stable population, investing in daycare programs and doing what we can to help with the healthcare shortage is going to be paramount in doing this. Making sure especially for my district that NDSU and higher ED stays competitive at both undergrad and graduate is key to my districts long term success. The economic befits of having the colleges locally should never be underestimated and I will fight tooth and nail for funding and grants for our higher ED all over.

Disagree

I think we need to find a better legislative standard, what that looks like I do not know, but we need to sit down with relevant parties and make a better system less prone to abuse. ND is has been pretty stable and good about evenhanded law, it's not as pressing an issue here and now.

Neutral

The state only funds things like the highway patrol directly, the Cities/counties are in charge of their own systems, I'm not going to try and craft state wide policy on police funding. The mental health system in this country needs help, but taking money from police dept. is not a way to go about addressing it.

Not selling to known groups plotting the overthrow of the government, the mentally disturbed, or other criminal groups. I think North Dakota has perfectly fine laws, anything more would need to come from rollbacks at the federal law. I generally abhor any more restrictions on fire arms. I think only time will tell with 3d printing and the inevitably of new technology that countries cannot simply legislate themselves into gun safety. That it is a cultural issue more then anything else.

Disagree

No