Agricultural crime: Bee hives stolen in rural northern California

The Press-Democrat (Sonoma County, California) reported this week from Hopland, population 756. under the headline "Theft of almost 400 bee colonies near Hopland part of an industry trend."  Here's the lede: 

Millions of honeybees mysteriously vanished around the end of January from a Hopland property in Mendocino County. There was little indication, though, that the colonies just flew away and took their hives with them.

Sometime between colony inspections on Jan. 19 and Feb. 1, it became clear that Sonoma County-based Tauzer Apiaries, which owns the bees, had fallen victim to a thief or thieves who made off with 384 colonies.

By several accounts, the theft reflects a consistent burden members of the apiary industry face, especially during this time of year when bees are pollinating and in high demand by growers.

Around 600 hives were stolen across California last year and more than 800 have been taken so far this year, said Butte County Sheriff’s Deputy Rowdy Freeman who is not only a law enforcement liaison to the California State Beekeepers Association and president of the California Rural Crime Prevention Task Force, but also and a fellow beekeeper.

The colonies were found within just a few days in neighboring Yolo County.  Tauzer Apiaries also had a forklift stolen at about the same time, and it was apparently used in the bee colony theft. 

Recalling local government officials: a rural-urban comparison (Part I)

I find curious the recent successful recall of a county supervisor by "militia-backed" forces in Shasta County, California--popularly thought of as rural--juxtaposed against the successful recall this week of three school-board members in San Francisco, an uber-urban and uber-woke place. 

One commonality is that both take advantage of the California law that makes it relatively easy to recall--or attempt to recall--an elected official.  Recall that this law was used last year to attempt to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, an effort that did not succeed.  Another commonality of both elections is that they show voters--at least those who showed up to vote--moving to the right, though not necessarily very far to the right.  These are arguably incremental moves in both urban and rural contexts.  Also, both have drawn lots of media attention.  

Yet the types of media attention are different.  The concern by the media regarding Shasta County is about an "alt-right" force, and the concern in San Francisco is that the recalled officials have gone altogether too woke.  But the tenor of the coverage of San Francisco feels different from that of Shasta County.  Is one more reasonable than the other?  I'll unpack the details of the difference in a future post.  

Big Associated Press story on Democrats chasing the rural vote

Steve Peoples reports from Smethport, Pennsylvania, population 1,655.  The lede is certainly attention getting: 

Some Democrats here in rural Pennsylvania are afraid to tell you they’re Democrats.

The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly. These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, the few that remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities.

“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable,” said Tim Holohan, an accountant based in rural McKean County who recently encouraged his daughter to get rid of a pro-Joe Biden bumper sticker. “I feel like we’re on the run.”

The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from many parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the nation’s political landscape.

Here's a vignette from the story out of Pennsylvania:   

In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading candidate in the state’s high-stakes Senate contest, insists his party can no longer afford to ignore rural voters. The former small-town mayor drove his black Dodge Ram pickup truck across five rural counties last weekend to face voters who almost never see statewide Democratic candidates.

Fetterman, wearing his signature hooded sweatshirt and gym shorts despite the freezing temperatures, described himself as a champion for “the forgotten, the marginalized and the left-behind places” as he addressed roughly 100 people inside a bingo hall in McKean County, a place Trump carried with 72% of the vote in 2020.

“These are the kind of places that matter just as much as any other place,” Fetterman said as the crowd cheered.

I came across this story thanks to this tweet from the 134 Pac in Texas, which describes itself as "Formed March 2, 2021 to break the mold of what it means to be a Democrat in the 134 counties between El Paso and the I-35 corridor. #SaveRuralTexas."

A California program is working to help the rural unhoused

Anna Maria Berry-Jester reports for the Los Angeles Times reports today out of Del Norte County, in the far northwestern corner of California, about how the state's "Project Roomkey" is working to put a roof over the heads of the previously unhoused.  That program provides funds for the purchase of old motels to house those without housing.  Here's an excerpt:  

California’s spiraling housing crisis is often understood through the lens of its big cities, where the sheer number of people who need assistance can quickly capsize the programs designed to move people into housing. But before the pandemic, helping people find shelter in Del Norte had been an insurmountable problem for [Heather] Snow [county director of health and human services] and her colleagues, as well.

There’s not enough housing in general in Del Norte, let alone for people with precarious finances. Snow lived 30 minutes north, in Brookings, Oregon, when she started her job six years ago. It took years to find somewhere closer to live. And there’s never been a homeless shelter anywhere in the county, as far as she knows.

For several years, Snow has used county funds to rent rooms at a local motel to temporarily house people at risk of becoming homeless. Sometimes they’d been released from a psychiatric medical hold or were trying to get out of an abusive relationship. Sometimes they needed a temporary sober-living environment. The county spent $820,000 on those rooms from July 2015 through June 2020. “It was a public health emergency before is the truth,” Snow said. “People just didn’t see it that way.”

After the pandemic came to town, Snow and her colleagues began using the motel to house people ... who were at high risk for serious illness and had no safe place to live, as well as people who needed a safe place to quarantine after a COVID-19 exposure.

* * *

In October 2020, the state awarded Del Norte County $2.4 million to buy the 30-room motel and turn it into affordable housing through Project Homekey, a statewide initiative spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom to help counties buy old motels and other buildings and turn them into permanent housing. 

Snow said there’s enough space to accommodate about 17% of Del Norte County’s homeless residents and families.The motel is nestled in a median between the north- and southbound lanes of Highway 101 and is flanked by grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, a laundromat and a drugstore. It’s not far from the police station and county health services. To Snow, it’s an ideal location for people ... who don’t have a car.

* * * 

Today, the 30 motel rooms in Del Norte are among the more than 7,000 new housing units the state says it has created through Project Homekey in two years. In late January, the Newsom administration announced that an additional $14 billion will be spent in 2022 on a mix of housing units and mental health treatment.

Some people have stayed at the Legacy, as the county renamed the motel, and then moved on to new homes after finding their footing. Others have housing vouchers and jobs but can’t find another place to live. And some...have become long-term tenants.

Would love to see a comparison of how and what Project Homekey is doing in California's urban areas. 

Rural Sociological Society extends deadline for abstracts for August 2022 meeting

Here's the information on submitting abstracts for the 2022 Rural Sociological Annual Meeting, but note the new deadline is now February 28, 2022:

Theme:
The Global Reach of Rural Activism: The Community Voice for Imagined Possibilities

The current political crises, voter suppression, and a nation as well as the world dealing with a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed before present innumerable challenges. Some of these problems are long-standing because we failed to fully understand them from multiple perspectives, particularly from the standpoint of those most harmed. We challenge ourselves to identify best practices that will engage all people in civil discourse and community action to work toward the resolution of these issues at an appropriate scale. In our communities, across our nation, and as a global society, we need to explore ways to include a diversity of community voices in charting a course for the next generation.

Building upon the themes of the last two conferences as well the first meeting of the society that took place in 1937, we will be investigating ways that Rural Sociologists can engage the voices from the community in resolving these diverse problems. We recognize that traditional means of addressing Race and Equity in communities cannot be resolved with a top-down approach. New practices, new strategies, and new partnerships are needed. The Society recognizes the need to be at the forefront of identifying solutions.

In addition to presentations on the meeting theme, we invite research and engagement presentations focused on rural people, places, and themes from various disciplinary perspectives.

Submission Process:
Abstracts should be approximately 150-350 words and briefly outline the paper's purpose, theoretical framing, methods, and main findings. The deadline for submitting papers, posters, and sessions is Tuesday, February 15th, 2022, at 11:59 pm (CST). [Now extended to Monday, February 28, 2022] Abstracts can be submitted through this link.

Contact:
Program Co-Chairs Ian Carrillo or Mark Harvey at rssmeeting2022@gmail.com or the RSS Business Office rural_sociology@byu.edu, with any questions and ideas for special events you have for the 2022 meeting.

Courting the rural vote, from Wisconsin to Tennessee

Democrats outreach to rural areas--or lack thereof--is something that keeps popping up in the media I consume and on my Twitter time line, so I thought I'd assemble a post featuring these. 

Let me lead with some local/state vignettes.  Out of Tennessee, the headline was "Tennessee Democrats plan to reach out to rural voters," but the dateline was urban Nashville.  Here's an excerpt:  

The chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, Hendrell Remus, says he admits the party needs to do a better job connecting with rural voters, especially now that state Republicans have carved up Nashville into three congressional districts, all incorporating several rural, conservative-leaning counties.

"Democrats for a long time have been disorganized, we hadn't made the type of investments we needed to make across the state," Hendrell said.

* * *

"It's about making sure that people understand that despite our differences, there's a whole lot more that we have in common," Remus said.

But on Wednesday, the Tennessee Democratic Party hosted a livestream, with Aftyn Behn, a campaign director from RuralOrganizing.org, talking about how to get votes in rural counties for Democratic congressional candidates.

"Myself, who lives in East Nashville, can now organize with folks in Cookeville to oust [Republican Congressman] John Rose who's a P.O.S.," said Behn.

"What kind of unity and trust does a phrase like that build?" NewsChannel 5 asked Remus.

"I think that language is kind of hot, it's inflammatory, but at the end of the day, there's probably folks, in rural areas who probably feel the same way," Remus said. "If you look at the conditions that some of these people have been left in after repeatedly electing some of these folks representing rural areas, and whose lives really truly haven't gotten better."  (emphasis mine)

I wonder if Remus is right, that folks in rural areas really are mad at the Republicans they've elected.  I think about this frequently in relation to Arkansas, where not a single member of the state's 6-member congressional delegation voted in favor of the infrastructure bill, which will do so much to boost the state's economy in the short run and keep it moving in the long run.  Still, I'm not sure folks regret voting Republican.  A poll released yesterday said that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running 10 points ahead of an unnamed Democratic opponent in the coming gubernatorial race.  Yet Sanders never talks about Arkansas, and is not even out campaigning at this point, in sharp contrast to her likely Democratic opponent, Chris Jones. 

Remus says the focus will be on Democrats who live in the rural counties connecting one-on-one with people they know, on issues like rural hospitals that have closed down across the state, and other issues that conservatives tend to gravitate toward.

"If you're a gun owner, we're going to protect your Second Amendment, but we want to make sure you're not having to pawn your gun around the holidays to put a meal on the table for your family," Remus said.

Another story was out of Wisconsin, appearing first in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and a few days later in Madison.com, "Democratic U.S. Senate candidates want more rural votes. Can they get them?"  Here's an excerpt:

Last month, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski released a plan for rural Wisconsin, a region home to a significant portion of the state’s Republican voters.

“As Senator,” Godlewski said in a statement about her rural policies, including boosting broadband and health care access, “I will listen, I will engage, and I will ensure that Washington politicians finally start hearing Wisconsin’s rural voices.”

She’s not the first to make such a claim.

Last year, U.S. Senate candidate and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson kicked off the “Full Nelson Tour,” visiting each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties over six weeks. In his tour announcement, he pledged to fight for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage while listening to what rural voters needed from him.

U.S. Senate candidates Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, whose policy proposals have thus far been less focused on rural initiatives, still have voiced support for increased internet access, improved health care and support for family farms.

Meanwhile, Senator Jon Tester, D of Montana, was interviewed on the Axe Files, and part of that interview as featured on The Hill.  Here's an excerpt, which is really nothing new in terms of messaging from Tester:  

The three-term Montana senator knocked his party for what he called a lack of outreach to rural voters, telling veteran political strategist David Axelrod in an interview that Democrats will be relegated to the minority unless they start courting voters in Middle America.

“I honestly don't think the Democratic Party can be a majority party unless we start appealing to middle America a lot more,” he said during an appearance on CNN’s “Axe Files” podcast released on Thursday. “I'm talking about the area between the two mountain ranges, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains. And if we're able to do that, I think it will provide success.”

* * *

In his interview with Axelrod, Tester said that the party’s brand was “toxic” in rural America and blamed national Democrats for failing to talk to voters in “places we’re not wanted.”

“It's toxic. The national Democratic brand in, I think in rural America generally, is toxic, and it's because, quite frankly, we don't show up,” he said. “I'm talking about national Democrats. We're not willing to go places we're not wanted and answer questions.”

As a related matter, don't miss my review of Tester's book, Grounded: A Senator's Lessons on Winning Back Rural America, on the Daily Yonder, from January 2021. 

A woman running to be chair of Texas' Democratic Party, Kim Olson, was featured in a story by a Texas television station.  She's a prior candidate for U.S. Congress and for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture.  She's focusing on some of the supports rural folks need from government:  

If Democrats are to win their first statewide office in nearly three decades, winning the rural vote will be critical. And Olson says the party must focus on rural education, health care and economic opportunities.

She points specifically to the large number of rural hospitals closing since 2010, according to the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals (TORCH).

“Twenty-six hospitals have closed across rural Texas. Why? Because we didn’t want to expand Medicaid or Medicare,” said Olson. “That means people drive for hours to get to a hospital. And that’s why rural counties die is because young families won’t move there unless they have access to good education, health care and decent jobs.”

Here's another part of the story that doesn't mention "rural," but hints at it:  

"It’s my belief that if you really want to win at the statewide, you have to have strong foundations for these candidates that run statewide to stand on and build their campaigns. And that comes at the local level,” Olson said on this week’s Inside Texas Politics.

Olson says two of the keys for the party to win statewide office is to ensure strong county parties at that local level to help motivate Democratic voters and better messaging that resonates with regular folks.

I get a lot of the news about attention to the rural vote (or lack thereof) from Matt Barron, whose Twitter handle is @Mr Rural.  Here's one screen shot I took this week, featuring Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman's campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat.  Here, Fetterman is campaigning in McKean County, in the rural north central part of the Keystone State--and the photo shows him doing so in February, in shorts! 

Finally, today, the New York Times brought us this about Iowa's Cindy Axne, the sole Democrat in Iowa's congressional delegation.  Here are some rural-related excerpts from that story: 

Holding a blue seat in a red-tinged place like Iowa’s Third Congressional District takes discipline. It takes a relentless focus on the folks back home, which is why you won’t see Cindy Axne yukking it up on “Morning Joe” or rubbing elbows with Jake Tapper on CNN. It takes doing who-knows-how-many hits on rural radio stations that might reach just a few hundred people at a time.

* * *

In 2019, when flooding devastated communities in her district along the Missouri River, Axne was everywhere: touring busted levees, lobbying for federal aid. It earned her some credit in the suburban areas around Council Bluffs and Indianola, helping her eke out that win in 2020.

Here's to chasing the rural vote! (You'll find lots of other content on this topic here on the blog, like this recent post and this one from early December).

On the rural housing crisis, a dispatch from mountain Colorado

PBS reported late last year from Buena Vista, Colorado, population 2,855, southwest of Denver in Chaffee County, population 20,000. Here's an excerpt:  

Nestled in the Upper Arkansas River Valley, Buena Vista has long been a destination for outdoor activities, weddings and tourism in general. The town of just under 3,000 people has seen rapid change over the last 10 years and an even quicker arrival of a housing crisis.

“Every day, I'm at least partially consumed with the thought that I might lose my current housing,” said Catherine Eichel, a five-year resident of the Arkansas Valley. “It's the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. And it's the first thing I think about when I wake up.”

Eichel is a professional wedding photographer and has found success in the area, a popular place for weddings. But in the last year, she lost her housing and more than struggled to find a new place to live.

“So, I was actually homeless during that nine months and working full time, which was incredibly challenging,” said Eichel.

For nine months, Eichel was piecing together housing in any way she could—she stayed on friend’s couches, sublet and lived with relatives. The extra challenge was, of course, navigating this problem during a global pandemic when people were encouraged to stay separated for public health reasons.

Eichel explained:

During the time that I couldn't find housing for nine months, I think the biggest, the most overwhelming feeling was, of course, massive levels of anxiety, but then coupled with that was just severe isolation.

Her story captures the essence of the housing crisis Buena Vista has seen in the last couple of years.

“I've had many friends here lose their housing and have to leave and move somewhere else because they don't have a place to live,” said Devin Rowe, a member of the Board of Trustees for Buena Vista. He also works at a local bike shop that doubles as a bar to help make ends meet.

* * *

A search on Zillow for the average home price in the Buena Vista currently shows it a little more than $460,000, while data from the National Association of Relators shows in Chaffee County shows it just over $410,000. 

* * *  

The Bureau of Economic Analysis, which analyzed and collected 2020 census data, shows the median individual income in Chaffee County is just over $30,000 a year, while household median income in 2019 was $60,331. 

This huge gap between income and housing prices is why Eichel and Rowe have heard of so many people and friends leaving the area.

“It's becoming more and more common where people are getting pushed out because of housing, whether it's being sold or being rented out as short-term rentals,” said Rowe.

Short-term rentals (STRs) have become a big target of blame for the housing crisis in Colorado mountain towns like Buena Vista. STRs often take up a significant portion of the housing units for an area.

The response of local government:

In late September, the Board of Trustees adopted an ordinance that limits the number of STRs for the town, with some exceptions. It puts a cap on out-of-county owners to only own six percent of the housing stock and in-county owners to three percent. Owners are exempted from this rule if the property is their primary residence and/or if the property is in the east or South Main areas of town.

Rural legal scholarship: Localism all the way up by Richard Schragger

The full title of the article, published in the Wisconsin Law Review, is "Localism All the Way Up: Federalism, State-City Conflict, and the Urban-Rural Divide."  Here is the abstract: 

One characteristic of this age of political polarization is increasing conflict between states and their cities. Pandemic-related regulation has been a recent flashpoint, with governors and mayors at loggerheads over public health regulations. But conflicts between state and city officials preceded that global emergency. Though popular electoral maps can sometimes suggest that red state and blue state divisions are driving our current politics, state-city conflicts are more representative of the actual political cleavages that afflict “our federalism” in the twenty-first century—a federalism that is characterized by the decline of regional political affiliations and the rise of metropolitan ones, the broader conflict between urbanizing municipalities and rural counties, the fact of uneven economic development, and the consequent values bifurcation between low and high productivity places. This form of sectional conflict is less amenable to federalism doctrines that contemplate state-by-state divergence; those doctrines can only serve as crude proxies for the political cleavages that are operating within states, not between them. Recognizing the metropolitan origins of our polarized politics is important for two reasons. First, reorienting the conversation away from state-national conflict highlights the disadvantages of state-based federalism as a mechanism for managing ideological cleavages. And second, focusing on state-city conflict suggests the necessity of intra-state institutional reform as a way forward. State-city conflict is not federalism writ small; it is instead what federalism—albeit mediated through a pre-urban Constitution that still gives primacy to states—has become. Instead of “federalism all the way down” as a way to characterize the multiple vertical layers of authority in the U.S., a better description might be “localism all the way up”: conflict at the metropolitan scale is driving important aspects of our national political life.

California's most rural state senator declares candidacy for governor

Brian Dahle (R-Bieber) declared his candidacy for Governor of California yesterday, becoming the first to challenge Governor Gavin Newsom since the recall election in September, 2021.  I've written about Dahle previously, here and here.  He represents the largest (in land area) Senate district in the state, in far northern and northeastern California, adjacent for miles to Oregon and Nevada.  

I'm surprised by his candidacy, mostly because he doesn't seem to have the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell of winning.  One reason for that is the imbalance in funds:  Dahle, who has served in the legislature since 2014, has $200,000 in his legislative re-election campaign fund, while Newsom has a war chest of $25million.  

I found the coverage of Dahle's announcement by the two California newspapers I regularly read of interest.  First, the Sacramento Bee failed to even use Dahle's name in its headline, while using Newsom's first and last names, "Republican challenging Gavin Newsom faces uphill battle and $25 million war chest."  Here's an excerpt: 

Brian Dahle stood before a crowd of supporters in Redding on Tuesday and said he wants to win back California from the “corruption” of one-party rule under Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

“I love California, this amazing, beautiful state that used to be the land of opportunity,” he said. “But its leadership is so poor that people are running for the state line...trust me, if you get four more years of this dictator, it will cost you a lot more."

The Bee's story, by Lara Korte, closes with this quote from a spokesperson for Governor Newsom:

Nathan Click, a spokesman for the governor’s campaign, said Dahle’s announcement shows a “sad state of affairs for the California Republican Party.”

“They are trying to pass off the same milque-Trump-toast that Californians soundly rejected last year,” Click said in a statement.

That seems a bit of hyperbole--the Trump comparison, that is--given that a Republican consultant, Rob Stutzman, said Dahle is viewed as "serious lawmaker," who understands the role of policymaking in legislation.  But then, this is a partisan business.  Also, the "sad state of affairs" in the California GOP sure sounds like a put down of the state's rural reaches.  What else could it mean given that Dahle is not, after all, Larry Elder, the radio talk show host who led the candidates to replace Newsom in last year's recall effort.   

The local public radio story noted that Dahle had referenced "socialist, special interests" in his announcement.  He also called Newsom a "wine merchant," a reference to Newsom's first business, which he parlayed into a major hospitality empire in the greater Bay Area.  

Interestingly, another home page Bee story about a rural Republican assemblyman also failed to name the lawmaker, leading with this opaque headline: "California Assembly Republicans Have a New Leader: 'I Plan to Build on her Legacy.'" This story is about James Gallagher, who represents a district not far north of Sacramento, including parts of Butte, Yuba, Sutter, Tehama, Colusa and Glenn counties, taking over leadership of the Republican caucus.  (Gallagher happens to be a graduate of UC Davis School of Law).  The woman referenced in the headline is his predecessor in that role, Marie Waldron of Escondido.  There are 19 Republicans in the Assembly. 

Here are those stories in the Bee, side by side, not a Republican actually named in either.  Is this because they're Republican?  or because they're rural? 

The Los Angeles Times headline about Dahle's candidacy was "Republican State Sen. Brian Dahle to Challenge Newsom for Governor of California."  That looks like progress, perhaps something approaching parity, in comparison to the Bee in that at least Dahle's name gets into the headline.  Here's an excerpt from the story:

At a news conference in Redding announcing his candidacy, Dahle expressed confidence that California voters are yearning for political change. He blamed California’s ongoing struggles with crime, homelessness and a high cost of living on policies embraced by Newsom and the Democratic leadership at the state Capitol.

“I am not willing to leave this broken California to my children, your children and our grandchildren,” Dahle said. “I cannot stand aside and watch corrupt one-party rule continue to poison the future of our state.”

* * *

Dahle’s background and politics offer a stark contrast to Newsom, the son of an appellate court judge who had connections to the highest echelons of the Democratic establishment in liberal San Francisco. There, Newsom rose to national political prominence during his two terms as mayor. He then served eight years as lieutenant governor before being elected governor in 2018.

Dahle represents the northeastern corner of California, a far-reaching legislative district in one of the most conservative and rural areas of the state. A rancher and owner of the Big Valley Seed Co., Dahle lives in Bieber, a tiny town 250 miles north of Sacramento with a population of about 260.

Dahle served on the Lassen County Board of Supervisors before he was elected to the state Assembly in 2012.

It's also interesting that Dahle chose to make his announcement in Redding, the largest city in the area he serves with just over 100,000 residents, but also a focus of recent news coverage because a militia associated campaign successfully recalled a Republican county supervisor who did not resist the governor's mask mandate and other public health measures.  Read and listen to more here, here, and here. 

North Dakota invites counties and cities to apply for Rural Attorney Recruitment Program

Here's the announcement from North Dakota Courts:  

The North Dakota Supreme Court is currently accepting applications from counties and municipalities interested in participating in the Rural Attorney Recruitment Program.

The Rural Attorney Recruitment Program was established by the legislature in 2021 with the goal of increasing the number of attorneys residing and working in rural North Dakota. Under the program, the state of North Dakota, the North Dakota State Bar Association, and the participating community each contribute funds to retain an attorney in an eligible community for a 5-year period. To be eligible for the program, a county must have a population of 16,000 or fewer and a municipality must have a population of 5,000 or fewer.

Requirements for the application are found in section 2 of Administrative Rule 62: https://www.ndcourts.gov/legal-resources/rules/ndsupctadminr/62

The deadline for counties and municipalities to apply is 5 p.m. central time on April 1, 2022.

Attorneys who are interested in the program may submit an application at any time by completing the electronic application form found on the Court’s website at: https://www.ndcourts.gov/state-court-administration/human-resources/career-opportunities

Link to Rural Attorney Recruitment Program information page: https://www.ndcourts.gov/rural-attorney-recruitment-program 

The North Dakota program is modeled on a program by the same name in South Dakota, which is detailed here.   Earlier coverage of the North Dakota program is here.  

Rural Legal Scholarship: Mapping the Civil Justice Gap in Federal Court

The abstract for the article by Roger Michalski and Andrew Hammond is here:  

Unrepresented litigants make up a sizable and normatively important chunk of civil litigation in the federal courts. Despite their importance, we still know little about who these pro se litigants are. Debates about pro se litigation take place without sufficient empirical information. To help fill some of the gaps in our understanding of pro se litigants, this Article takes a new approach by mapping where pro se litigants live.

Using a massive data set of 2.5 million federal dockets from a ten-year period, we obtained addresses of non-prisoner pro se litigants. We then geolocated these addresses and cross-referenced that information with demographic and economic Census data. This approach does not tell us anything about pro se litigants directly, but it allows us to describe where pro se litigants live and identify the communities they inhabit. While this method has limitations, it avoids many drawbacks of other methods.

We stress two main findings. First, most pro se litigants are profoundly ordinary. Typically, they do not hail from demographic or economic outliers. For example, most pro se litigants do not live in either the wealthiest or the poorest neighborhoods. Instead, their neighborhoods represent the middle class, with a few outliers that match the general population of outliers. Our findings present pro se litigants as a radically democratic element in federal courts. They, perhaps more than any other type of litigant, force federal courts into contact with a surprisingly representative sample of the general public. Second, there are two notable exceptions to this representativeness. Even after accounting for population and income, pro se litigants are more likely to reside in communities that are not homogenously white. And numerous rural communities feature fewer pro se litigants than expected. These findings deepen and complicate conventional narratives about pro se litigation and provide new impetus for doctrinal and policy debates about how the federal courts and Congress can and should respond to self-represented litigants.

Read a more lay-oriented summary of the article here, from the Rural Reconciliation Project.