BISMARCK -- Assistant Senate Majority Leader Randy Christmann is expected to announce Thursday that he will seek a seat on the North Dakota Public Service Commission.
In an email, Christmann said he will announce his intentions regarding a potential campaign in Fargo and Bismarck.
Christmann, a Republican from Hazen, is a rancher who has served in the North Dakota Senate since 1994 and has been the assistant Senate majority leader since 2000.
In the coming years, the decisions made by the Public Service Commission are going to affect pretty much everybody in North Dakota, Christmann said in an interview Monday night.
"They're going to have an impact on tens of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of tax revenues," he said.
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The commission also will have an impact on the affordability of power and energy, he said. Christmann, who represents the area of the state known as Coal Country, said he's worked with many of the same issues that the Public Service Commission addresses and believes he has a good background with the material.
"I think it is a role that I fit well and would do a good job in, and I think it's important for the people of North Dakota that we keep that Public Service Commission operating in a positive way," he said.
The Public Service Commission has varying degrees of authority over electric and gas utilities, telecommunications companies, power plant, transmission line and pipeline siting, railroads, grain elevators, auctioneers and auction clerks, weighing and measuring devices, pipeline safety and coal mine reclamation.
Two of the commission's three Republican members, Kevin Cramer and Brian Kalk, are vying for the Republican endorsement for the U.S. House.
Finneman is a multimedia reporter for Forum Communications Co.
