Buckle up: New legal guidelines from seat belts to library books take impact in North Dakota

BISMARCK, N.D. — Hundreds of latest legal guidelines will take impact Tuesday in North Dakota, together with higher enforcement of seat belt use and restrictions relating to gender identification, sexual content material in public libraries and possession of farmland by overseas entities.

North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature adjourned April 30 after writing new legal guidelines and budgets for the subsequent two years. Some contentious coverage payments have already taken impact as a result of emergency clauses, which make laws instantly into legislation when signed by the governor.

Among these already in impact are revised legal guidelines outlawing all abortions, besides in circumstances the place ladies may face loss of life or a “serious health risk.” Another exception for pregnancies attributable to rape and incest applies solely within the first six weeks, earlier than many ladies know they’re pregnant.

Here is what to know in regards to the new legal guidelines taking impact in North Dakota.

Seat belts

North Dakota joins a majority of states with some type of a major enforcement seat belt legislation, in accordance with info from the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The state beforehand had secondary enforcement, which means officers may cite entrance seat occupants for not carrying a seat belt solely after a earlier site visitors infraction, although there was major enforcement for minors in all seats.

The new legislation would require all automobile occupants to put on seat belts, not simply these in entrance seats. The fantastic stays at $20.

The proposed change was a scorching debate for years within the Legislature, involving arguments of security versus private freedom. The change initially will likely be one in all schooling earlier than transitioning to enforcement, stated Burleigh County Sheriff Kelly Leben, who supported the laws.

“One of the arguments is people always say we should have personal choice, but we regulate a lot of things in our society, and that’s just part of living in a modern society, is there’s going to be rules, and seat belts are proven, time and time again, that’s the one thing people can do that will make a difference in a crash,” Leben stated.

The state authorities’s Vision Zero initiative goals to mitigate site visitors deaths, with seat belts as one element.

North Dakota logged a 20-year low of 98 site visitors deaths in 2022, in accordance with preliminary information from the state Department of Transportation. Nearly 82% of front-seat automobile occupants used seat belts in 2021, in accordance with NDDOT information.

Gender identification

The Legislature handed a raft of gender-related payments that may quickly take impact.

Those embody two payments limiting transgender women and girls from taking part on faculty sports groups matching their gender identification.

Other new legal guidelines will prohibit intercourse amendments on beginning data and bar transgender individuals from utilizing restrooms and showers aligning with their identification in correctional services and public faculty dormitories.

Another invoice that took impact in May prohibits transgender Ok-12 college students from utilizing restrooms aligning with their gender identification, amongst different restrictions. The Fargo School Board indicated it should defy the legislation.

One different invoice, which took impact in April, criminalizes intercourse reassignment surgical procedures and gender-affirming take care of minors.

Book banning

Republican lawmakers focused sexual content material in public libraries with a brand new legislation for eradicating or relocating “explicit sexual material” from public libraries’ kids’s collections.

Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, who vetoed a broader invoice permitting misdemeanor prices towards librarians, stated the brand new legislation “standardizes the process for local public libraries to review material when requested by parents, library users or other members of the public – a process already in place and working at nearly all public libraries across the state.”

Fargo Public Library Director Tim Dirks consulted the town legal professional relating to the library’s present insurance policies for compliance with the brand new legislation, with which he stated he feels snug. The legislation requires a “compliance report” from public libraries to a high legislative panel.

“I think the key thing for us is the existing policies and procedures that we have in place,” nevertheless it stays to be seen how individuals will reply, Dirks stated. The library has about 300,000 gadgets on its cabinets at three branches, plus huge collections of digital supplies.

It’s unclear what number of challenges would possibly come up to library supplies, Dirks stated. Fargo’s public library has had one or two challenges per 12 months.

Republican lawmakers decried books reminiscent of “This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson and “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe.

“What I always found incredible to this whole conversation … is that in a society with the First Amendment, free and open, you have to understand you are going to run into things that you find offensive,” Dirks informed The Associated Press. “Our job as the public library is to be representative as broadly as we can in terms of our society and our community.”

Foreign homeowners of farmland

Two new legal guidelines will ban overseas governments and adversaries from proudly owning land in North Dakota. The laws got here amid considerations of Chinese ties to an organization’s proposed corn milling plant close to the Grand Forks Air Force Base.

One legislation has exemptions for Canada and for agricultural analysis on not more than 160 acres.

The different legislation additionally bans native authorities boards from advancing overseas adversaries’ improvement plans throughout a two-year legislative examine into associated points.

The new legal guidelines reply to constituents’ considerations however may create confusion for agribusiness corporations with ties to overseas international locations, Republican state Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring informed the AP.

“It’s not a government that owns them, but it is a foreign entity, and the reality is all the work that they have to do for research … they have to do at ground zero,” he stated.

Goehring famous all land within the U.S. is agricultural land till designated in any other case and an space of 160 acres just isn’t sufficient for intensive analysis.