North Dakota Rep. VanWinkle paid for vacation week, draws criticism from House leadership

North Dakota Rep. Lori VanWinkle, R-Minot, missed a week of session to go on a family vacation, and under the state's Century Code, she will still be paid $1,065 by taxpayers for the time she was there.

Legislators receive $592 every month they are in office. During a legislative session, they also receive $213 every calendar day -- including weekends -- of the session on top of the monthly payment. This means that VanWinkle will receive the $213 payment for all five days she was on vacation during the week of April 7, unless she chooses to ask the Legislative Council not to pay her for those days -- something the House of Representatives Majority Leader Rep. Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, asked her to consider.

“Now that's up to her,” Lefor said in an interview Monday. “I don't have the authority to do anything about that, but I think it would be professional of her to decline the pay.”

He said he told VanWinkle that taking a vacation during the legislative session was “inappropriate.”

During an interview on Monday, VanWinkle at first declined to state where she had been the previous week, then said she was “honest enough to say what I'm doing,” and said she had been on a vacation with her family.

She said she felt she had been singled out for her absence and that “nobody else gets any scrutiny.”

Both Lefor and Speaker of the House Rep. Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield -- who has served as a representative since 1997 -- said they had never seen someone take a weeklong vacation during a session before VanWinkle.

VanWinkle said in the interview that the reprimand she received was part of a “strong push to silence” her. VanWinkle said she has been spoken to by leadership six times for her conduct throughout the session.

“This just falls right in line with all their efforts to basically try to intimidate me and make me feel like I can't say the things that I'm saying,” VanWinkle said. “And so now we're going to scrutinize all the details of your life and now, for the first time ever, we're going to make a big deal out of absences, but we've never done that before. But now we're going to make you feel like you've violated everything, but we're not going to question anybody else, not even the people that are gone the same amount of days as me or more.”

VanWinkle has previously drawn criticism for saying, "Perhaps women are going to the IVF clinics because judgment is on their womb and God has effectively closed their womb because we are murdering massive amounts of children in our nation,” during discussion on a bill she sponsored that would have defined a human being to include an unborn child, as reported by the North Dakota Monitor.

She said she took the time off to join her family on an annual vacation that she had missed for the past two years.

“I haven't taken medical leave,” VanWinkle said. “But I actually went to be with my family, because my family is my priority, and I've missed this for two years and I got little kids. So are you telling me that I should never take priority for my family?”

She said that another representative had been excused and paid for a year when they had a child.

“So is it family first or not?” VanWinkle said.

Lefor said he did not know the complications that representative she alluded to would have had but said, “When you start throwing others into the mix to justify your own actions, you're trying to minimize what you did.”

He added that legislators should be able to tell the difference between “acceptable” absences and taking a vacation. He said he could not recall another absence that “wasn’t acceptable” like VanWinkle's and there was a “night and day” difference between missing a day of session for a medical reason and taking a vacation.

“I mean, we're humans. We have different things that happen in our lives that are medical or what have you,” Lefor said. “If you’ve got a wedding or a funeral or life happens, and if you're taking a day -- it's a lot different than taking a week to go skiing.”

Lefor said he missed his first day in five sessions to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.

When asked if she felt there was a difference between missing a day of the session for medical reasons or for a vacation, VanWinkle said, “Maybe, but, so now I should be penalized because I don’t take medical days? ... Are we allowed absent days or not? Like, does it really matter what we're doing on our absent days?”

Lefor said representatives inform leadership when and why they are going to miss a day and said during the interview that he had just received an email from a representative who told him they would be missing some time because of a surgery. He indicated VanWinkle had not informed leadership before leaving for her vacation.

VanWinkle indicated that she had informed leadership but did not specify who in leadership she had informed of her vacation.

At the end of every daily session, both chambers vote to excuse the absent members. Weisz said he has never seen the House vote not to excuse the absent members. Normally, there is one voice that votes against excusing the absent members: VanWinkle.

On Thursday, April 10, the chamber had the closest vote of the session on whether to excuse the absent members, voting 55-41 to excuse them. Weisz said the narrow vote was “likely” because of VanWinkle.

VanWinkle said that she had been told by representatives that the vote was a “joke.”

At least one representative expressed frustration that the chamber voted to excuse those who were absent and with VanWinkle’s absence Thursday.

The vote is largely symbolic. Legislative Council Director John Bjornson said that Century Code says legislators are “entitled” to receive $213 a day during any organizational, special or regular sessions.

He said he interprets this to mean that legislators will get paid regardless of being excused unless they ask to forgo their pay.