Rick Becker

Rick Becker
Republican candidate for
Governor of North Dakota
Personal details
Political party Republican
Occupation Plastic surgeon

Rick Becker is an North Dakota politician from Bismarck. He serves in the North Dakota House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party.

Becker is a plastic surgeon and businessman with several commercial developments. He was elected to represent District 7 in the North Dakota House in 2012, and was reelected to a four-year term in 2014.[1] Becker has often been cited as among the top fiscal conservatives in the House.[2] He is running for Governor of North Dakota in the 2016 gubernatorial election.[3]

He is often described as a conservative or libertarian.

63rd Legislative Session

During his first session in 2013, Becker gained notoriety for being a staunch fiscal hawk and civil libertarian. He formed the Bastiat Caucus, named after the political philosopher Frederic Bastiat. Eventually, the group grew to several dozen members of the North Dakota House, often holding regular meetings to organize a unified, conservative front on key votes.

64th Legislative Session

During the 2015 Legislative Session, Becker supported Division A of HB 1461, which would have pulled North Dakota out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, generally seen as a move to get the state out of the Common Core standards. The bill narrowly failed.[4] Becker was the main force courting support for the bill, which Governor Dalrymple, Superintendent of Public Instruction Baesler, and Republican Party leadership opposed.[5]

Becker also supported a bill which would have brought the state income tax down to a 0% rate for an extended tax holiday for residents paying those taxes.[6]

His bill to ban DUI checkpoints garnered significant controversy but ultimately failed.[7]

2016 Gubernatorial Campaign

On November 11, in an online video announcement, Rick Becker became the first candidate to announce his candidacy in the 2016 North Dakota gubernatorial election.[8]

References


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, January 11, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.