After months of heated debate, television commercials and political jockeying, lawmakers are finally expected to cast their vote on a bill Friday that could repeal North Dakota's pharmacy ownership law.

House leadership decided to move the vote to Friday while legislators are being bombarded with thousands of e-mails telling them to repeal the 46-year-old provision that requires pharmacies to be majority-owned by a pharmacist. The bill comes to the House with an 8-5 do not pass recommendation from the Industry, Business and Labor Committee.

For months, lawmakers have been receiving mailers and e-mails urging them to vote for the bill, while North Dakota pharmacists who oppose the legislation have lobbied lawmakers, even serving them ice cream sundaes last month outside the House and Senate chambers.

House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, has a stack of mailers in his office that he has received from North Dakotans for Affordable Healthcare, the group pushing for the repeal.

"All I want for Christmas is lower prescription drug prices," reads one postcard sent to lawmakers in December. A booklet filled with hand-written notes urging an aye vote was also circulating around the Capitol on Wednesday with its pink cover reading, "From the Hearts of North Dakotans."

Carlson had said on Monday that the vote would be sometime next week, but decided on Tuesday to push it to Friday.

"It's time to make a decision," Carlson said, adding no caucus positions have been taken on it.

And the vote couldn't come soon enough for Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Dickinson, whose e-mail inbox, like other House members, has been filled with hundreds of messages that are urging her to vote yes on the bill. She was one of the eight lawmakers who voted against it in committee.

She said she has glossed over many of the e-mails because they contain the same 29-word message pleading for lower prescription drug prices.

"I am kind of suspect of that information," she said. "They all have identical wording, and if I find something that says something different, then I read it."

Johnson said she attended dinners sponsored by both sides of the issue, listening to the arguments to help her make a decision. She said she ultimately decided to oppose the bill because she fears that rural access to pharmacies could decline in light of increased competition from big box stores such as Wal-Mart and Walgreens.

"I understand that their margins are pretty slim," Johnson said.

For Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck, chairman of the Industry, Business and Labor Committee, too many questions about drug costs were left unanswered by both sides of the issue, which he said pushed him to vote against the bill. He added that many facts have been stretched in the debate by both supporters and opponents.

"We want to save our people money; we want them to have great access to health care," Keiser said. "It was just not a clear, decisive demonstration on either side of the issue and therefore, for myself, if we change it, we can never go back. So we want to do this carefully."

He said if the bill fails on Friday, it could even come back in the form of an initiated measure.

Three of the bill's sponsors staged a press conference on Wednesday inside the state Capitol, trying to garner votes on a bill that lawmakers say will be tight.

One of those sponsors, Rep. Bob Martinson, R-Bismarck, said the pharmacy ownership debate is a delicate issue, adding his colleagues who have sided with keeping the ownership law aren't listening to the voters back home.

"Some of them, I feel, aren't representing their constituents properly," he said. "I believe that this is going to be a key campaign issue two years from now."

Martinson also said he is going to ask the attorney general next week to see if the Minnesota-based Thrifty White pharmacies are complying with the state's ownership law.

"They've ordered their pharmacists, and therefore their employees, to oppose this legislation at the risk of losing any pay raises and quite possibly their jobs," Martinson said, referring to a Feb. 4 e-mail sent by a Thrifty White vice president Gary Boehler.

But even if the bill is killed Friday, that won't mean the issue will end there.

"North Dakotans for Affordable Healthcare is not going away," said Tammy Ibach, spokeswoman for the group that is pushing for the repeal of the ownership provision.

When asked what action the group might take if the bill fails, Ibach said the group will review its options.

Ryan Horn, a Wal-Mart lobbyist who testified before lawmakers in favor of the repeal last week, said if the measure passes, then all 12 North Dakota Wal-Marts will eventually open a pharmacy.

Horn said the debate over repealing the state's pharmacy ownership law is the one of the most contentious he's experienced in his political career.

"I've never seen anything like it," Horn said.

(Reach reporter Brian Duggan at 223-8482 or brian.duggan@bismarcktribune.com.)