A fight over power lines disrupts the North Dakota Republican Party meeting

Tensions remain high between members of the North Dakota District 28 Republican Party after a physical altercation broke out at what was supposed to be a routine meeting on February 22. A controversial power line to two data centers is at the heart of the dispute.

Tim Lippert, a Republican and District 28 voter, said he’s been fed up with the GOP representatives in the state Legislature, Mike Brandenburg and Jim Gruenich, for a while. He says lawmakers favor the interests of big corporations over the concerns of local residents, especially when it comes to data centers and the transmission lines that power them.

“We are seeing a steady erosion of the control of our local government and an erosion of the property rights of people here,” Lippert said.

Lippert and a group of eight others disrupted the District 28 Republican Party meeting as party members were planning to select delegates for the upcoming state Republican Party convention in Minot, Indiana.

The Lippert Group appointed an expert in parliamentary rules and procedures to control the meeting.

Representative Wendy Bagley submitted a motion to remove Representative Brandenburg from the position of chair of the meeting. Video of the meeting posted on social media shows her walking towards Brandenburg and taking the microphone from him.

“I was hired to help individuals in this area,” Bagley is heard saying in the video.

The subversive group wanted party members to vote on a resolution supporting more local control over projects such as the controversial JETx transmission line. Last year, Rep. Brandenburg (R-Edgley) sponsored it. House Bill 1258which allows the process of permitting a state to effectively ignore local zoning regulations in constructing an electric transmission facility.

The bill passed and was signed into law, paving the way for construction to begin this summer on the 92-mile, 345-kilovolt JETx transmission line that will run from Jamestown, Indiana, to Ellendale, New Delhi. Both cities have huge new data centers that require a lot of electricity.

“It starts in one data center and ends in another,” said Richard Long, another Republican member of the sabotage group. “And they want to claim it’s for network reliability. So we don’t buy it.”

Brandenburg, who chaired the meeting, said he and his colleagues tried to make clear that the group and Bagley, the parliamentarian who put forward the motion to remove him from chairing the meeting, were violating the meeting’s rules. He said that since their decision was not on the previously published meeting agenda, it could not be considered.

“I tried to reason with her and I tried to tell her she couldn’t talk because she wasn’t a paid member, and she went ahead and pretty much tried to take over,” he said.

For several minutes, Bagley argued with Brandenburg over the rules of parliamentary procedure, with the two groups of Republicans shouting at each other. Someone tried to retrieve the microphone from Bagley, which led to some pushing and shoving.

Ultimately, Brandenburg postponed the meeting and the original group left without selecting delegates for the state convention.

“I don’t know what they did next, but the meeting was postponed, and that’s what the bylaws allow us to do,” Brandenburg said.

Lippert said he and others felt forced to take control of the meeting after they were ignored.

“We reached out to them and asked them to have a voice in our district meetings,” Lippert said.

But he said he was never able to meet his representatives, and his requests were canceled or ignored.

“They refused to hear us,” he said. “We didn’t do anything illegal there.”

Brandenburg says the group was only a vocal minority.

“They made a lot of noise, they came to the meetings and disrupted them, but the majority of people want this to happen, and that is what I represent,” he said.

The internal dispute between the parties is the latest of many conflicts In recent months and years, controversial data center projects have stoked local political tensions and divided communities across the country.

Lippert says the power transmission line was installed against the wishes of local landowners. He says he wants the line to be away from people’s property in case of a fire and to protect people from electromagnetic fields, or electromagnetic fields.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), there is no strong link between non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (the kind that power lines emit) and cancer.

“We just asked to stay at least a half mile away from the property. The power companies say this is unreasonable, excessive and excessive to protect our citizens in our town,” Lippert said.

As of now, the setback is at least 500 feet.

Power lines have caused severe damage in the past.

In late 2024, A fire in the northwest corner of North Dakota 13,000 acres of trees were burned after a wind storm blew down a power line.

Richard Long, another voter, says he’s worried it could happen again.

“If this line came down and set a cornfield on fire, and the wind blew, and we burned down someone’s farm, what do you think would happen?”

Applied Digital, a technology company, has data centers in both Jamestown and Ellendale, where the JETx line will operate. They also plan to build a data center in Harwood, just outside Fargo.

says Otter Tail Power, the company behind building the line On their website That the JETx project “is not being built because of a specific entity or project. The purpose of the JETx line is to enhance overall reliability and reduce generator congestion on the grid not only in North Dakota, but across the upper Midwest.”