Associated Press

A drugstore executive told store pharmacists in a recent electronic mail message that their pay raises depend on their willingness to fight an attempt to repeal North Dakota's pharmacy ownership law.

"For non-participants, don't plan on a pay increase this upcoming May, win or lose," Gary Boehler, a Thrifty White Drug executive vice president, wrote in an e-mail to the company's North Dakota pharmacies last week.

"Pay raises are based on performance," Boehler said in the e-mail. "For those of you who have failed so miserably in this cause, reward will be based upon cooperation and performance."

Thrifty White, an employee-owned company based in Maple Grove, Minn., has pharmacies in 20 North Dakota cities, including a number of rural communities.

Company executives have taken a lead role in challenging an attempt to repeal a North Dakota law that requires pharmacies' majority ownership to be in the hands of pharmacists. Pharmacy officials say it is the only law of its kind in the nation.

Some of the nation's largest retailers, including Wal-Mart and Walgreen, are backing the repeal bill. They say North Dakota's current law prevents them from running their own pharmacies and offering $4 prescriptions for selected generic drugs.

Boehler and other supporters of the ownership law argue that repealing it would draw business from rural North Dakota pharmacies, forcing many of them to close.

The North Dakota House's Industry, Business and Labor Committee voted 8-5 on Monday to recommend that the full House defeat the legislation. Among the bill's opponents is the committee's chairman, Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck.

Boehler, in his e-mail, said each of Thrifty White's North Dakota stores should get letters from two patients each to argue for keeping the ownership law. The letters will be forwarded to lawmakers, he said.

"This e-mail coming from me is not a request, but an order that I want every store to be full participants," he wrote. "Several of you have done little or nothing" in the anti-repeal campaign.

Boehler said Monday that he sent the e-mail because "I don't believe in rewarding incompetence." Asked who was being incompetent, he replied, "Those people who aren't contacting their legislators, and aren't making the contacts with their constituents to get these (anti-repeal) petitions out."

Advocates of repeal are exerting pressure of their own, Boehler said. Dan Traynor, a Devils Lake attorney and lobbyist for Wal-Mart, told two Devils Lake Republican House members, Curt Hofstad and Dennis Johnson, that he would work against their re-election unless they supported repeal, Boehler said.

Traynor denied making the statements. He is a former state Republican chairman and the chairman of District 15, which Hofstad and Johnson represent in the House.

Johnson and Hofstad declined to discuss in detail what Traynor said, but Hofstad referred to remarks "being made in the heat of the moment" and said, "I don't know if (Traynor) was even aware of what he was saying. I didn't take it personally."

"There have been an awful lot of things said on both sides," Hofstad said.

Johnson and Hofstad are up for re-election next year. Traynor said he was discussing polling data with the two men, which he said showed strong public support for repeal of the pharmacy ownership restrictions.

"They are my friends and I wanted to give them a heads up," Traynor said. "I've worked very hard with their elections, and I intend to continue to do so."

Rep. Al Carlson, R-Fargo, the House majority leader, said the bill will probably be voted on early next week.

"The real issue … is not the price of prescription drugs," said Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, a committee member who is an opponent of repeal. "This is much more about who is going to control the market. The big are going to get bigger, the small are going to go out of business, and the people of North Dakota are going to suffer."

Another committee member, Rep. Dan Ruby, R-Minot, who supports repealing the ownership law, said doing so would help to promote competition.

"After hearing all the discussion, I don't think it would be as detrimental as was portrayed," Ruby said. "I just think it was a situation where the market would have dictated, people could have had more choices, and that we probably were protecting a profession that I think could survive on its own."

The bill is HB1440.