It’s good that an activist group is trying to get North Dakota’s pharmacy-ownership law on the ballot.
It’ll be even better if the petitioners succeed, and North Dakotans get to vote on the law in November. The law is such that it needs a vote of the people to settle the issue; and North Dakotans are lucky that the state’s initiated-measure system will give them that vote, if enough people sign the petitions being circulated.
Here’s hoping that happens.
Currently, the North Dakota Century Code says pharmacies in the state have to be majority-owned by a licensed pharmacist. The law has withstood repeated challenges in the Legislature, as Mike Schwab, executive vice president of the North Dakota Pharmacists Association, notes in his column on today’s ThreeSixty page.
That’s important, especially considering the Republicans’ supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature. It’s a powerful argument indeed that can overcome the GOP’s usual dislike of restrictive regulations.
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Or maybe it’s a powerful lobby - and that’s where initiated measures come in. How much of the Legislature’s response has been due to politics - specifically, to the fact that a committed minority (pharmacists, in this case) can swing elections by voting as a bloc?
One thing’s for sure: If the measure to repeal the majority-ownership clause makes it to the November ballot, legislative politics won’t play a role in the outcome.
Instead, North Dakotans will cast their votes based on arguments. And in doing so, they’ll wield exactly the power to bypass lobbyists and politics that initiative-and-referral systems are meant to provide.
How will North Dakotans vote? We’d guess they’ll vote their pocketbooks, and that suggests they’ll change the law. That’s why the Herald’s editorial board supported the change when it came up in past legislative sessions: Removing trade restrictions almost always helps consumers, because the restrictions almost always are meant to keep prices high.
But in his column, Schwab says the state’s pharmacists “were able to show repeatedly that prices in North Dakota consistently are below national and regional averages.” That’s a persuasive claim, and we look forward to North Dakotans weighing it, analyzing it and then deciding in the voting booth - no politics involved.
