1. The people of North Dakota need information to choose candidates for office, vote on ballot measures, and ensure that their representatives are accountable. This transparency must be sufficient to enable the people to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages. The people therefore have the right to know in a timely manner the source, quantity, timing, and nature of resources used to influence any statewide election, election for the legislative assembly, statewide ballot-issue election, and state government action. This right is essential to the rights of free speech, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and shall be construed broadly.

2. The legislative assembly shall implement and enforce this section by enacting, no more than three years after the effective date of this article, laws that require prompt, electronically accessible, plainly comprehensible, public disclosure of the ultimate and true source of funds spent in any medium, in an amount greater than two hundred dollars, adjusted for inflation, to influence any statewide election, election for the legislative assembly, statewide ballot-issue election, or to lobby or otherwise influence state government action. The legislative assembly shall have an ongoing duty to revise these laws as necessary to promote the purposes of this section in light of changes in technology and political practices. The legislative assembly shall vest by law one or more entities with authority to implement, interpret, and enforce this section and legislation enacted thereunder. If the laws or rules enacted or an implementation, interpretation, or enforcement action taken under this section fail to fully vindicate the rights provided in this section, a resident taxpayer may bring suit in the courts of this state to enforce such rights.

[ Adopted Nov. 6, 2018, effective Jan. 5, 2019]