Alaska's Prop 2 - Why Have Alaska Miners Association and Shell Each Spent As Much To Defeat Prop 2 As The Yes Side Raised Altogether?

Overview
Here are the basic parts of this post:

• The Context of US Coastal Zone Management Programs
• Supporters and Opponents
• Money Raised
• My Take On What's Going On
• Finding Out More

Very briefly, after the legislature and governor in 2011 failed to renew the coastal zone management program that was initiated in Alaska in 1976,  a group of citizens and officials from coastal communities across the state have put a measure on the ballot to reestablish the program that every other coastal state and territory in the US are part of. 

Alaska's governor opposes most federal regulation of Alaska on the grounds that we know best what we need. But when local Alaska communities make the same argument about the feds and the state, he dismisses them.  He doesn't really seem to be as much concerned about local needs and power as corporate needs and power.  The real issue, it seems, is that the former Conoco-Phillips lobbyist in our Governor's mansion, is against anyone having the power to raise questions, slow down, or, even worse, stop any development.  We should all, the opponents seem to be saying, trust the developers to do the right thing. 



The Context of US Coastal Zone Management Programs

The Coastal Management Program was set up in 1976 by Gov. Hammond, the governor who fought to establish the Alaska Permanent Fund.  Hammond was a governor that most people agree had Alaskan people as his top priority.

Local powers were reduced by new legislation introduced by Gov. Murkowski in 2003.

In 2011 the program expired when the legislature and Gov. Parnell could not agree on specific legislation to renew it.  [This history comes from the Alaska Sea Party website which supports Prop 2.]

Coastal Management programs exist under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act established in 1972 (under Republican president Richard Nixon) and all the states and territories with coast lines - Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes - have programs affiliated with the Act.  Except Alaska which is supposed to have more coast line than all the others combined.  From NOAA's website, here is the list of states and territories with links to their programs.  (I checked them all.  Only Alaska has withdrawn.)

Alabama	Alaska	American Samoa
California	Connecticut	Delaware
Florida	Georgia	Guam
Hawaii	Illinois	Indiana
Louisiana	Maine	Maryland
Massachusetts	Michigan	Minnesota
Mississippi	New Hampshire	New Jersey
New York	North Carolina	Northern Mariana Islands
Ohio	Oregon	Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico	Rhode Island	South Carolina
Texas	Virgin Islands	Virginia
Washington	Wisconsin

Supporters and Opponents

You can learn a lot by who supports and who opposes something. 

Prop 2 Supporters

The Alaska Sea Party which set up and backs the initiative is led by Juneau's mayor Bruce Botelho.  Its list of supporters include local mayors from around the state and other citizens who tend to stand up for the benefit of Alaskans.  People like Alaska Constitutional convention  member Vic Fischer and former state senator Arliss Sturgulewski.  You can see a  list of Prop 2 supporters here.  These are people who tend to represent the needs of their local communities.

Prop 2 Opponents

The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce President Rachael Petro signed the Statement in Opposition in the State Ballot Guide.  The list of Prop 2 opponents from a No on Prop 2 website is a list of developers, chambers of commerce, and industries supported by strong Outside interests (Cruise industry, Mining, Oil and Gas). 

Comparing the websites of the Yes and No sides offers an interesting contrast. I have only fact-checked a few points so I can't vouch for everything, but the style of the two sides is so enormously different that it tells you a lot.

There are lots of complaints about the language and reach of Prop 2, but little or no acknowledgment of the need for the program at all or the kind of changes that would make it more reasonable.


The Sea Party website (pro Prop 2) is long and detailed with factual statements that can be easily tested.  Conclusions are in generally neutral direct language supported by facts.

The No on Prop 2 website appears to be put together by the same sort of lucrative PR firm.  (The expenditure reports shows they've paid Porcaro Communications over half a million dollars.)   It's light on facts and heavy on slick visuals and unsupported and inflamatory generalities like this header on all their pages:

Ballot Measure 2 is a defective, deceptive measure that would create confusion and legal uncertainty, establish a new government bureaucracy and hamstring the state’s economy and job creation.

Money Raised 

This information comes from the July 31, 2012 APOC reports for No on Prop 2 and The Alaska Sea Party


No on Prop 2 - Total raised $767,995.31.  
Contributors giving $10,000 or more (all these were June and July 2012) You can see the No on Prop 2 APOC report here:

• Alaska Miners Association  $150,000
  Plus in-kind staff time - $468
  Plus in-kind travel -  $7,000
  (note additional mining interests also contributing below
  
  
• Shell - $150,000
  
  
•  Fairbanks Gold Mining Inc. (wholly owned by Kinross Gold Corp) - $75,000
• Alaska Oil and Gas Association  - $80,000
  Plus in-kind staff time - -  $22,000
• Resource Development Council for Alaska  $50,000.00
  Plus in-kind staff time -  $8350
• Donlin Gold - $50,000
• Council of Alaska Producers (Mining trade group)- $25,000
  Plus in-kind staff time - $753.22
• Pioneers Natural Resources USA - $20,000.00
   
• Cook Inlet Regional, Inc. - $10,000
• Tower Hill Mines, Inc.  - $10,000
• Alaska Cruise Association - $10,000

Alaska Sea Party (Yes on Prop 2) - Total raised $150,122.07 
[Contributions below were between April 1, 2012 and July 31, 2012, Income of $63,688.86 was reported for this period.  I can't find information on the source of the $86,433.21 income received before this period.  All but one $100 contribution have Alaskan addresses.]  You can see the Alaska Sea Party APOC report here.

Contributors giving $10,000 or more:

North Slope Borough - $15,137.97
Bristol Bay Native Corp  - $10,000

Note that the Alaska Miners Association and Shell have each contributed as much as the Alaska Sea Party raised altogether.  While I haven't found a list of members of the Alaska Miners Association, if the other mining contributions is an indication, their membership includes many huge multi-national mining corporations.  

The numbers here are from the APOC reports.  I have only double checked them, so there may be some minor errors but nothing, I think, that make a significant difference to the overall impact. 


My Take On What's Going On

This is about large corporations, many if not most headquartered outside of Alaska, opposed to regulation.  After 25 years in existence, Alaska's Coastal Zone Management program was weakened by the Murkowski administration in 2003.  The Parnell administration was able to end it by fighting with the legislature over the wording of legislation to renew the program.  Alaska is now the only coastal state without a program affiliated with the national Coastal Zone Management Act.  A group of coastal communities have come together to reestablish the program that gave them some meaningful input in decisions by larger corporations that would affect their way of life. 

We have a governor who is fighting the feds on all fronts because, he argues, we have the right to make the decisions that affect our state without the federal government interfering.

But when it comes to local government, our governor thinks the state knows best and local governments should have no say on what happens to their communities.

The real issue, it seems to me, is that this former oil company lobbyist (Gov. Parnell) doesn't want anyone, whether it's the feds or local people doing anything to interfere with corporations and businesses making money in Alaska.

Finding Out More

• Check out the Alaska Sea Party Website and the No On Prop 2 website.
• Check out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAH) website that maps out the Coastal Management Act and the programs around the country.
• Check out the Alaska Voting Guide.  The online link is packaged differently from the hard copy that was mailed to Alaska households.  In either case, this is hard to read.  Here's an overview of the pamphlet that came in the mail.
• Pages 20-21 - Ballot Language - this is the summary that appears on the ballot
• Pages 21-22 - Legislative Affairs Summary - Legislative Affairs tends to give non-partisan analysis
• Pages 22-27 - Statement of Costs - this was prepared by the Governor's Office of Management and Budget.  I can't vouch for their estimates.  The Governor strongly opposes this measure.
• Pages 27-37 - Full Text of the Law - you can check both sides' claims against the actual wording of the law, though you can't always understand the implications from the wording
• Page 38 - Statement of Support
• Page 39 - Statement of Opposition 

I had been getting hits for Alaska Prop 2, which were going to the 2010 post on the Prop 2 that year which was about parental notification before a minor could have an abortion or the 2008 post on Prop 2 for that year which was on aerial wolf hunting.  Thus I decided I should do a post for this year's Prop 2.  I haven't had the time I'd like to do a better job on this, but the primary election (when this is voted on) is in less than two weeks (August 28) and people can vote early already.  So I need to get this up. 

Be careful when you vote on Prop. 2

[NOTE:  This post was about PROP 2 2008.  I will do [have done] one on the 2010 PROP 2 before too long.]

[UPDATE 2012:  Here's the post on the 2012 Prop 2 to reestablish an Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program.]

I voted today because we're headed out of town on Sunday night. Before you go to vote, be sure you know how you want to vote on Prop. 2 - aerial hunting of wolves. I found the wording confusing.

This bill amends current law banning same-day airborne shooting to include grizzly bears. The bill permits the Board of Game to allow a predator program for wolves and grizzly bears if the Commissioner of Fish and Game finds an emergency, where wolves or grizzly bears in an area are causing a decline in prey. Only employees of the Department of Fish and Game could take part in the program. Only the minimum number of wolves or grizzly bears needed to stop the emergency could be removed.

I guess I thought that since the proponents of Prop 2 have been talking about how airborne hunting of wolves was such a terrible thing that they were proposing a law to ban that. I didn't realize we had a law that already bans it. That's what threw me off. We do. But there are exceptions for situations when the predators need to be culled so that the moose and caribou populations will be higher so that humans can hunt them, and, if there is disease. .

What this amendment appears to do is to more stringently define when the State could authorize airborne hunting and then when it does authorized it, only State Fish and Game employees can do the hunting. Also wolverines are also mentioned in the statutes.

You can go to the election page to get the wording of the ballots and to another page to read the voter pamphlet.

The ballot information, I'm afraid, is not particularly helpful. You'd think it would tell you the number of the current statute that will be replaced or amended by the proposition. And you'd be wrong. Or at least I couldn't find it. I had to go to the Alaska Statues and find it myself.

Here's the existing language that would be replaced - at least that's how I understand it.

Sec. 16.05.783. Same day airborne hunting.

(a) A person may not shoot or assist in shooting a free-ranging wolf or wolverine the same day that a person has been airborne. However, the Board of Game may authorize a predator control program as part of a game management plan that involves airborne or same day airborne shooting if the board has determined based on information provided by the department

(1) in regard to an identified big game prey population under AS 16.05.255(g) that objectives set by the board for the population have not been achieved and that predation is an important cause for the failure to achieve the objectives set by the board, and that a reduction of predation can reasonably be expected to aid in the achievement of the objectives; or

(2) that a disease or parasite of a predator population

(A) is threatening the normal biological condition of the predator population; or

(B) if left untreated, would spread to other populations.

(b) This section does not apply to

(1) a person who was airborne the same day if that person was airborne only on a regularly scheduled commercial flight; or

(2) an employee of the department who, as part of a game management program, is authorized to shoot or to assist in shooting wolf, wolverine, fox, or lynx on the same day that the employee has been airborne.

(c) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction is punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both. In addition, the court may order the aircraft and equipment used in or in aid of a violation of this section to be forfeited to the state.

(d) When the Board of Game authorizes a predator control program that includes airborne or same day airborne shooting, the board shall have the prerogative to establish predator reduction objectives and limits, methods and means to be employed, who is authorized to participate in the program, and the conditions for participation of individuals in the program.

(e) The use of state employees or state owned or chartered equipment, including helicopters, in a predator control program is prohibited without the approval of the commissioner.

(f) In this section,

(1) "free-ranging" means that the animal is wild and not caught in a trap or snare; and

(2) "game management program" means a program authorized by the Board of Game or the commissioner to achieve identified game management objectives in a designated geographic area.

Here's the language of the initiative:

FULL TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW
An Act Prohibiting the Shooting of Wolves & Grizzly Bears with the Use of Aircraft Be it enacted by the People of the State of Alaska that Section 1. A.S. 16.05.783 is amended to read: Section 16.05.783. (a) A person may not shoot or assist in shooting a free-ranging wolf, wolverine or grizzly bear the same day that the person has been airborne. However, the Board of Game may authorize a predator program involving the shooting of wolves or grizzly bears
Ballot Measure 2
Bill Amending Same Day Airborne Shooting from the air or on the same day that a person has been airborne if
(1) the Commissioner of Fish and Game makes written findings based on adequate data demonstrating that a biological emer- gency exists and that there is no feasible solution other than airborne control to eliminate the bioogical emergency;
(2) any shooting is conducted by Department of Fish and Game personnel only, and not by any permittee or agent;
(3) the program is limited to the specific geographical area where the biological emergency exists; and
(4) the program removes only the minimum number of wolves or grizzly bears necessary to eliminate the biological emergency.
(b) This section does not apply to a person who was airborne the same day if that person was airborne only on a regularly scheduled commercial flight.
(c) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction is punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both. In addition, the court may order the aircraft
and equipment used in or in aid of a violation of this section to be forfeited to the State.
(d) In this section,
(1) “free-ranging” means that the animal is wild and not caught in a trap or snare; and
(2) “biological emergency” means a condition where a wolf or grizzly bear population in a specific geographic area is depleting a prey population to a point that if not corrected will cause an irreversible decline in the prey population such that it is not likely to recover without implementing wolf or grizzly bear control.

By the way, while I was in the Statues, I came across this law of elephant permits. Just in case you were thinking of bringing back an elephant from your next trip:

Sec. 16.40.060. Elephant permit.

The commissioner may issue a permit, subject to reasonable conditions established by the commissioner, to possess, import, or export an elephant. A permit may be issued only to a person who proves to the satisfaction of the commissioner that the person

(1) intends to exhibit the animal commercially;

(2) possesses facilities to maintain the animal under positive control and humane conditions; and

(3) maintains personal injury and property damage insurance in an amount established by the commissioner.

Alaska Election Context 2 - US Senate Race

[This is the second post on this topic.  The first post  focused on the problems of determining the actual numbers of registered voters in Alaska which, if compared to the Alaska voting age population, would mean 96% of voting age Alaskans are registered.]

Overview

Few people voted Tuesday.  The winners of the US Senate races got votes from between 3% and 9% of the voting age population.  That means over 90% of the voting age population voted for someone else or didn't vote.  75% of the voting age population didn't vote at all. 


Alaska's Population

The US Census gives the population of Alaska in 2008 as 686,000.
The Alaska Permanent Fund estimates the 2008 population as 679,720 and 2009 population as 692,314.


Registered Voters
That same Census Bureau estimates the voting age population of Alaska as 506,000 in 2008.
The Alaska Division of Voters, as of August 3, 2010, says there are 487,575 registered voters.  As I noted in a previous post, this would mean that Alaska has about 96% of its voter age population registered while the US average is closer to 70%.

How the Alaska Primaries Work

The Republican primary is a semi-closed primary.  That means that only Republicans appear on the ballot and only Republicans and people not registered with another party can vote in the Republican primary.  So, Republicans, independents, and undeclared voters can vote.

The other parties have a blanket primary.  That means the other parties (Libertarian, Democratic, Alaska Independence, etc.) have their candidates all appear on one ballot and anyone, including Republicans, can vote on this ballot. 

There were three ballots.

• ADL - This includes Alaska Independence Party, Democrats, and Libertarians, and both ballot measures.
• R - This is the Republican Ballot, plus both ballot measures.
• M - This is just for ballot measures. There are no candidates.

Each voter had to choose one ballot.
Republicans could choose any ballot.
Undeclared and Independents could choose any ballot.
Democrats, Alaska Independence, and Alaskan Libertarian Party members could choose the ADL ballot or M ballot.

I would guess that most voters probably did not understand all this and it had to be explained by the election workers. 

There were two ballot measures.

• Prop. 1 to severely limit lobbying by public officials and employees and non-profits, but not businesses.  (It lost resoundingly.)
• Prop. 2 to require doctors to notify the parents of girls under 18 before they can have an abortion. (It won 55%-44%)

How many people voted?

ADL Ballot Total votes for statewide races

• Senate - 30,855 (one Libertarian and three or four relatively unknown candidates)
• US House - 33,192 (one candidate, State Rep. Harry Crawford)
• Governor - 39,768 (two high profile Democrats, one Libertarian, one Alaskan Independent)
• Lt. Governor - 37,149 (three Democrats - one got 67% - and one Libertarian)

R Ballot Total votes for statewide races

• Senate - 92,386 (Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller)
• US House - 62,590 (one candidate, incumbent Don Young)
• Governor - 90,938 (six candidates, including sitting Governor)
• Lt. Governor - 84,928 (seen by many as the most contested election, four candidates, three high profile)

M Ballot- Voters could vote on the ballot measures on all three types of ballots.  So, these vote counts reflect all three ballots and are the highest.  The election results do not distinguish the votes of the different ballots on these measures, or even how many people voted for them on which ballots.

Measure 1 - 134,471
Measure 2 - 134,981


Votes for US Senate Races


ADL Ballot

ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 438 100.0 % Times Counted 41923/487456 8.6 % Total Votes 30855 Haase, Fredrick LIB 4849 15.72% Kern, Jacob Seth DEM 5978 19.37% McAdams, Scott T. DEM 15347 49.74% Vondersaar, Frank J. DEM 4681 15.17%

R Ballot

US SENATOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 438 100.0 % Times Counted 93170/487456 19.1 % Total Votes 92386 Miller, Joe REP 47027 50.90% Murkowski, Lisa REP 45359 49.10%

The box below shows that overall, 24% of Alaskans of voting age voted in the US Senate race.  The Democratic winner had about 6% of Alaskans of voting age and the two Republicans who were almost tied, each had about 9%.

What does it mean? 

Without good polling to hear from the voters themselves, the numbers leave a lot of unanswered questions.


1.  How many Independents and Undeclared took Republican ballots, Democratic ballots, M ballots?  My guess is they were more likely to take Republican ballots.

2.  How many Independents and Undeclared voters voted for Miller?  And Why?  Clearly some were swayed by the Tea Party rhetoric.  Some, no doubt, we're voting against Murkowski.

3.  If Miller wins, how many of his voters this time will vote for him in the general?  How may others can he attract in November?  If the Tea Party folks were fired up, are there that many left who will vote for him in the Fall?

4.  If Murkowski wins, what will the Miller voters do?  Sit out?  Vote for Murkowski?  Vote for McAdams? Vote for the Libertarian Party candidate?

5.  McAdams is just as unknown today as Miller was three months ago.  Can he get Alaskans excited?  He has a great Alaskan profile - fisherman, small town mayor, but basically a 'real person' rather than a politician.  Will he attract Outside money to counter the money the Tea Party has sent to Miller?

6.  Will Murkowski's close race make her seem more vulnerable even if she wins?

7.  Is Miller so extreme that when his positions are known Alaskans will reject him when more show up to vote?

All these questions and others may or may not be answered in the next few months.  I think the key point here is that really very few people have voted.  That means that so far very little support has been given to anyone.  If the Tea Party really spent half a million dollars on Miller, it means helped get a victory (even if he doesn't win) by spending $10.63 per vote. 

All things being equal, Alaska voters tend to be more conservative.  The key to winning for Democrats is identifying non-voters who can be cajoled at worst and excited at best to come out and vote.  Obama energized a lot of Alaskan liberals to vote in 2008.  But, that said, it's easier said than done.

Alaskan Pols Don't Seem To Believe In Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) [UPDATED]

[I started this over a week ago.  Since then, there's been a lot written about people dropping out of different races, how a couple of politicians have been blocked from running because their disclosures were incomplete.  

My basic message here is that both the Republicans and the Democrats are signaling to the public that they don't have confidence in Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).  Or in voters actually using it.  This is a shame because the Right has put a proposal on the November ballot to abolish RCV.  The Democrats, in three key races - US House and Senate, and Alaska governor's race, have discouraged (apparently more forcefully than that) Democrats from competing with each other in the general election.  To me that indicates distrust in voters being smart enough to actually use RCV to rank the Democrats on the ballot.

From what I can tell, looking at the 2024 US House race, a fair number of voters utilized their RCV option to rank candidates.  But the two extra candidates (besides the main Democrat (Mary Peltola) and the main Republican (Nick Begich) were very marginal candidates - one in prison in New York and the other in the Alaska Independence Party.  My belief is that both the candidates and the public need to learn how to use this process and it's likely the voters are smarter than the politicians think.]

We know the Republicans don't believe in it.  They opposed it strongly from the beginning and they're behind Proposition 2 which would take Alaska back to the old system.  (Prop 2, and this is important, would also get rid of open primaries - their real target - and rules about disclosure of people who contribute to PACs. You can read all 35 pages of Prop.2 here.)

When RCV was first being introduced,  the Democratic leadership opposed Ranked Choice Voting (and the open primaries attached to the initiative), but came around to support RCV.

The biggest benefit of the RCV package that Alaskans passed, would appear to be the bi-partisan majorities in the state House and Senate.  By getting rid of closed primaries, Alaskans prevented parties from electing the most extreme candidates in their party.  With open primaries (vote for one candidate), the top four candidates get to the general election ballot (Ranked Choice - you can vote your first - fourth choices).  It's resulted in more moderate legislators, who are able to work together and pass bills.  At least that seems to be the outcome.  

Our first RCV election - two key Republican candidates (Sarah Palin and Nick Begich) for US House seemed to siphon off votes from each other and Democrat Mary Peltola was elected.  The next round, the top two Republican candidates for the House worked out a deal where Nancy Dahlstrom withdrew, and Nick Begich defeated Mary Peltola.  

This current election (2026) we've seen lots of shenanigans, starting with the GOP controlled Division of Elections leaving candidate Daniel J. Sullivan off the US Senate ballot on the grounds (that exist no where in the law) that he wasn't a real candidate, that he wanted to confuse voters into thinking he was our sitting Senator, Dan S. Sullivan.  

The Alaska Supreme Court required that he be put back on the ballot.  He did reappear, but without a party affiliation (he was a registered Republican) and they added "Incumbent" to the sitting Senator's name (though the regs prohibit any honorifics).

Then voters began getting close to a million dollars worth of flyers and social media ads pushing two out-of-state candidates (yes that's legal) who were identified as progressive and an Alaska Native candidate who is listed as a Democratic Socialist and trashing leading Democratic candidate Mary Peltola.  The strategy, apparently, was to get left leaning candidates on the final ballot to draw votes from Peltola.  

They did get David Leslie (the Alaska Native candidate) on the general election ballot, but Daniel J. Sullivan also made it.  How many of his votes were 'confused with Daniel S" and how many were intentional because of all the publicity he got from the attempts to wipe him off the ballot, we probably will never know. 

So that's the Republican story.  

But the Democrats seem to not believe the voters can handle RCV either.  First, before the primary, Democratic candidate Matt Schultz withdrew from the race, taking the only serious Democratic candidate out of the election.  He says we wasn't getting the party and financial support he needed.  That left Nonpartisan Bill Hill, who got support from the normal liberal support groups - labor unions, the environmental crowd.  

Now Democrat Tom Begich (the uncle of GOP Rep Nick Begich)  has withdrawn from the general election (and the ballot) to support Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (JKT).  JKT got 36,961 votes (22.5%) in the primary.  Begich got 34,149 votes (20.8%)  They were the two top vote getters - in the race for governor.  A bunch of Republicans split the GOP vote. The top two - Bernadette Wilson got 16,456 votes (10%) and David Bronson got 13,349 (8%).  With Begich out, that left Republican Treg Taylor to move up to the fourth spot (and the general election ballot.)  But he was disqualified for not filling in the financial disclosure info when he signed up to be a candidate.  Then his Lt. Gov candidate moved up to be the governor candidate and chose Treg Taylor's wife to be her running mate.   Though she may have the same disclosure problems her husband has. 

I'm hearing complaints from people I know, and I feel it myself, that these politicians don't trust Alaskan voters to rank the candidates.  

They don't trust the voters to rank their preferred Democrat first and the other one second.  

With two strong Democrats running for governor, it was a chance to demonstrate how RCV should work.  Each should have strongly told their supporters to vote for them first and the other Democrat second.  Emphasized that they were very similar on policy issues.  This would have been especially important this year because we also vote on whether to end RCV (and I feel compelled to always point out we would also end open primaries and disclosure of those who give dark money.  And other things are in there, like having Governor and Lt. Governor run separately, not as a team.)

Tom Begich sent a letter out to supporters that justified getting out of the race as a matter of money:

"At a time when so many Alaskans are already stretched thin, we cannot keep asking them to give more and more just to compete with much larger amounts of money flowing into politics in Alaska. Continuing through November would require millions more, and we believe that the strongest path to victory is to bring Democratic voters, donors and resources together behind one candidate.

Before we made this decision, I spoke directly with Jonathan about the priorities at the heart of our campaign and the promises we made to Alaskans.

We share a commitment to strong public schools, affordable energy, housing and health care, and making sure Alaska receives its fair share from our resources."

But it's clear both parties are wary of having more than one candidate from their party running for the same office.  The Republicans did everything they could to push the candidacies of marginal Democratic candidates onto the US Senate race.  At this point that seems to have failed.  Right now we have Peltola (the Democrat who got 49.5% of the vote in the primary) and three Republicans - the current US Senator Dan S. Sullivan, Daniel J. Sullivan, and Jerry Heikes.   [I'd note that today the Anchorage Daily News said that Democrat David Leslie has dropped out of the race under pressure from Democrats, and that Jerry Heikes, listed as a Republican, has moved up to the fourth spot.] 

And right now, there is one Democrat and three Republicans running for Governor.  (The deadline to drop out has passed, but there are questions about Jodi Taylor's financial disclosure which is pretty much the same as her husband's was.)    [UPDATE 9/9/2026:  Treg Taylor is back on the ballot on orders apparently from the Lt. Governor's (the same Nancy Dahlstrom from 2024) superiors because, they say, lots of people have left things blank and not been disqualified.]

I'd also note that Candi English (Treg Taylor's running mate) moving up as a governor candidate raises new questions.  She's been relatively invisible and it seems odd for her to leapfrog over other candidates onto the general ballot.   

There is no perfect system.  Whatever system you have, people figure out ways to game the system.  Ideally, we will not get rid of Ranked Choice Voting in November and we can learn how to make it work.

As I looked back on the 2024 US House race, there were four candidates:

• Mary Peltola
• Nick Begich
• Eric Hafner (who was then and is now a prisoner in a New York prison and labeled as a Democrat)
• John Wayne Howe (Alaska Independence Party)

This is a disparate group of candidates.  You can't judge RCV based on whether voters in this race chose to use more than one vote or not.  Why would a serious voter cast a vote for someone in prison across the country?  Possibly as protest.  But then why cast a second vote?

Peltola voters have no reason to cast a second vote.  What would be the point?  

But, in fact, people did cast second votes.  The first person eliminated was Eric Hafner.  

The charts come from the Alaska Division of Elections page here.

Hafner got 3558 votes.  The Hafner voters gave 267 to Nick Begich, 661 to John Wayne Howe, and 1313 to Mary Peltola.  That totals 2214 second place votes transferred to other candidates.  62% of the people who voted for Hafner ranked a second candidate.  That seems to be a fair number.  (I understand exhausted on the chart to mean that there wasn't a second choice vote.  Overvotes, I think means they marked more than one person for the same ranking.  [I called the Division of Elections in Anchorage to check.  They referred me to the main office in Juneau.  The guy who answered the phone had to go ask someone else.  But eventually he confirmed that my guesses were correct.  I also asked about the Fraction column and he had to go ask again.  Apparently for some jurisdictions the votes can be divided into fractions, but Alaska doesn't do that so these are whole votes, or 1.]

John Wayne Howe got 13,871 votes and 7541 of his voters (or 54%) ranked someone second.  

Given that Eric Hafner and John Wayne Howe voters were probably disaffected voters who chose a) a New York prisoner and b) and Alaska Independence Party candidate as their first choice, these seem like fairly high percentages of voters using RCV.  

If there were two strong candidates from the same party with very similar policy positions on the general ballot, I'd guess there would be a higher percentage of second place votes.  It's true that the first time around (2022), Sarah Palin and Nick Begich (both Republicans) attacked each other instead of working together.  In 2024 the second place 'name' Republican, Nancy Dahlstrom, dropped out rather than run against Nick Begich.  

But we won't see two such candidates from the Democratic side in state wide office elections this year.  We will see that with Republicans in the Governor's race, but not really in the US Senate race.  There we have one Democrat (Peltola), one main Republican (Sen, Sullivan), and two lesser Republicans.  The three Republicans are not likely to cooperate and tell the voters to rank the other two Republicans. But the 2024 numbers suggest that the most voters will rank a second choice. 

The US House race was the only statewide election in 2024 except for the presidential election.  I'm guessing the presidential election could have been RCV, but in any case Trump won a majority so if it was RCV, there was no need to go to the RCV round,  

My biggest concern here is that the politicians aren't going to let us actually use ranked choice voting because if they have two main candidates competing, they'll pull the one with fewer votes out.  The three Republicans on the ballot for governor are an exception to the  trend I'm calling out here.  Let's see if they cooperate and tell voters to give their second and third place votes the other Republicans.

[This is not as succinct (or probably as clear) as I wanted this to be, but I need to move on.]

[UPDATE: September 24, 2026:  I've responded to the anonymous commenter here.]

"Yes, but we're not Congress, aren't we?" Giessel Said

Wednesday I reported that Sen. Hollis French had sent a letter to Sen. Cathy Giessel requesting that the witnesses - oil company representatives - be asked to testify under oath.

For those who want just the summary, scroll down to:  It All Seems to Boil Down To


That afternoon, the committee met and the Anchorage Daily News reports that Giessel opened the meeting by saying they would not administer oaths and when French attempted to respond to her, she had his mic shut off and the televised portion when silent.

Obviously, the issue, as far as Giessel was concerned, was not open for debate.  I've tried to glean from the Daily News article by Rich Mauer   Giessel's main objections.  This snippet seems to get most of them which I've highlighted:

“It’s unfortunate we have to have this kind of duel on the floor,” she said. Acknowledging that the use of sworn testimony wasn’t quite without precedent, she said it was last used by the Legislature in 1997.     
“We are to conduct ourselves with some decorum, and to spring that on people who are coming to testify would simply be unprofessional of us,” Giessel said. “I’m not an attorney, as the previous speaker is, but it is my understanding that the preparation for testimony under oath is a different type of preparation than simply coming and providing information.”    
As the Senate broke, French said as he was leaving the chamber that his request was hardly extreme. “You can’t contest a traffic ticket without taking an oath,” he said.    
At her desk in the chamber, Giessel talked to Senate President Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla.     
Doesn’t Congress swear in witnesses? a reporter asked.     
“Yes, but we’re not Congress, aren’t we?” Giessel said.     
“This is redneck Alaska,” Huggins said.    
“There was no criminal activity that was being investigated,” she said as Huggins called her away.

Additionally, Giesel is quoted as saying the request was:

• “unprecedented and inappropriate.”
• “Springing an under-oath requirement on invited citizens at the last minute is not only unfair but unprofessional,” Giessel said. The request by French, a former prosecutor, would bring a “criminal justice approach to this committee meeting,” she said. 

My reaction Wednesday, and the reaction of some others I talked to, was, "Gee, I thought it was expected that you told the truth."  But it turns out that unless you are sworn in, you can't be prosecuted for perjury.  So, if you lie, there are no legal consequences.

Let's look at the arguments one by one.  

• "to spring that on people who are coming to testify would simply be unprofessional of us,”
  There are two parts here.  1.  The timing and 2.  asking them to testify under oath. 
• Sen. French's letter is dated one day before the committee hearing.  I'm not sure when the witnesses were announced.
• Unprofessional is a word that many people use when they disagree with a practice.  Essentially it's a fancy word for 'bad.' For 'unprofessional' to have real meaning, one would have to cite a professional association (in this case relevant to legislative hearings) that has among its rules, regulations, or standards something about asking witnesses to testify under oath and/or related to a time limit.  
• "preparation for testimony under oath is a different type of preparation than simply coming and providing information."
• My sense of this, confirmed by an attorney friend, is that this isn't wrong, but it depends on the context and the experience of the people testifying.
• If under oath, it isn't hard to say, "I'm not sure of these numbers" or other qualifying comments.  In fact, the ConocoPhillips presentation even had a 200 word disclaimer (see below) on their forecasts. 
• These oil company representatives were not there to casually provide information.  These are well-paid professional spokespersons,  trained in presenting their corporations' views.  They had Power Point presentations (see below) that someone had clearly spent a lot of time preparing. 
  
• "we’re not Congress"
  I'm not quite sure how to interpret what she meant by this.  Obviously, the Alaska legislature is not the US Congress, but it is to the state of Alaska what Congress is to the United States.   Some possibilities:
• She may have meant that unlike Congress with all its intense security and many other restrictions, the Alaska legislature is much more casual.  And that is certainly true.  Anyone can walk into the capitol building and up to any legislator's office without going through security.  And being more casual, we don't have to administer oaths. 
• Or perhaps she meant we aren't gridlocked like Congress.  In Alaska the minority has no power to stop whatever the majority wants to do.
  
  However she meant it, it's more than clear that few other issues than SB 21 and its impact on oil companies will have greater impact on Alaska's future.  The oil companies are spending millions of dollars to defeat a proposition to overturn SB 21.  No one in Alaska has a greater financial vested interest in any legislation than the oil companies have in SB 21.  They have every incentive to make it appear that SB 21 has stimulated them to invest more in Alaska and to create more jobs in Alaska.  And that could include misleading testimony.
  
• There was no criminal activity that was being investigated  Note:  She didn't say there was no criminal activity, only that (if there were), it wasn't being investigated.  But we do know that battles over oil tax funding have, in the not too distant past, involved criminal activity that netted a dozen or so pleas and/or convictions.
   
• “unprecedented and inappropriate.”
• Sen. Giessel herself already corrected the unprecedented claim
• Inappropriate is like 'unprofessional' but even more vague.  It's a way of saying no in polite language but without giving a reason.
  
• "unfair but unprofessional" Unprofessional has already been addressed.  But we don't know what she meant by 'unfair.'  It's unfair to ask people to swear that what they are testifying is the truth?  

I checked with Sen. French's office to see if any reports were submitted to the committee.  Each oil company representative had a Power Point presentation (see below), but nothing too heavy with words.  My thinking was that if they had prepared reports that they knew were not quite truthful, it would be hard to withdraw them before the hearing.  But if you look at the presentations linked below, there's simply not that much content that could be faulted for perjury. It's mainly about plans, which can always be changed. There are claims about how much new money has been budgeted to be spent in Alaska this year and in the future.  Discussions about new projects and new work.  There is even language that talks about new investment in relation to SB 21:

Plans for over $2 billion gross in production adding investments announced since passage of SB21

Note that this only talks about timing, not about cause and effect.  Since the oil companies are in control of when they announce things, there's no reason to believe that this wouldn't have happened if SB 21 hadn't been passed.  Certainly these things take a long time to plan and cost out.  If the passage of SB 21 was the reason for this new investment, then surely they would have said so. But I didn't see that claim in their written documents, only that it happened after SB 21 was passed.

It All Seems To Boil Down To:

Essentially, from what I can tell, this was a show hearing.  SB 21 gave the oil companies a $2 billion a year tax break, which the governor said would increase oil production and state revenue and jobs.  Prop 1 on the Alaska ballot in August would repeal SB 21.  The oil companies were being given a platform to prove how the passage of SB 21 was making Alaska a better place.  French wanted to require them to be subject to perjury prosecution if they lied. Giessel didn't. 


The Reports 

The reports that are linked online through Basis - the legislative website - are essentially Power Points with some text.  I've highlighted the main text below.  The links should take you to the reports themselves.

• Respol - basically pictures
• ConocoPhillips - pictures and text
• $1.7 billion net 2014 Alaska capital budget - 1750 new jobs
• 2014 exploration update
• Plans for over $2 billion gross in production adding investments announced since passage of SB21
• ExxonMobile- mostly pictures with a bit of text, here's what appears to be the key text:
• More than 729 positions on the slope, many of which are rotational
• 1,200 positions statewide
• 85% Alaskans
• Out of 92 companies, 73 are Alaskan
• BP   - Pictures and fair amount of bulleted text, below is their Investments in Alaska Summary:
• Actively investing in the North Slope oil fields
• Acquiring new seismic data in Northern Prudhoe Bay – 190 sq. miles summer and 220 sq. miles winter season, 150 jobs, ~$78 million, 55 million barrels resource potential
• Adding 2 new rigs with 200 jobs, $1 billion over 5 years – currently 7 rigs • Testing new drilling completions technology for challenging oil fields.
  i.e.: Sag River potential resource 200 million barrels
•  Restarted development Milne Point drilling in 2014
• Appraise/Select stage engineering for West End Prudhoe Bay with potential startup in 2018, $3 billion, peak 2022 est. 40,000 bopd
• Major facility investments committed to safe & sustainable operations, for example $76 million in 2014 Turnarounds with over 700 people involved, including GC2 Module built at NANA’s Big Lake facility – 79 jobs, $13.5 million, potential 2,000 bopd.

Here's the ConocoPhillips disclaimer:

The following presentation includes forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events, such as anticipated revenues, earnings, business strategies, competitive position or other aspects of our operations or operating results. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict such as oil and gas prices; operational hazards and drilling risks; potential failure to achieve, and potential delays in achieving expected reserves or production levels from existing and future oil and gas development projects; unsuccessful exploratory activities; unexpected cost increases or technical difficulties in constructing, maintaining or modifying company facilities; international monetary conditions and exchange controls; potential liability for remedial actions under existing or future environmental regulations or from pending or future litigation; limited access to capital or significantly higher cost of capital related to illiquidity or uncertainty in the domestic or international financial markets; general domestic and international economic and political conditions, as well as changes in tax, environmental and other laws applicable to ConocoPhillips’ business and other economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors affecting ConocoPhillips’ business generally as set forth in Item 1A of ConocoPhillips’ 2012 Form 10-K and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other notes:

I also called Sen. Giessel's office to ask her about these statements and to see if I had missed anything.  I talked to an aide, who, after my first question - about what professional standards the Senator was referring to when she said it was 'unprofessional' said he'd have the Senator call me back and answer the questions.

That was Wednesday.  My cell phone did ring.  I got a call from "an inmate of Grayson County" that I could accept for $9.99. I assumed it was not Sen. Giessel so I hung up.
It's Saturday now and there have been no messages from her on my phone.

Title Note:  I didn't comment on Sen. Giessel's grammar because:
a.  it's not really relevant
b.  it's a quote and not necessarily accurate
c.  much of our spoken English wouldn't pass grammar tests when written down

2010 Alaska Proposition 2

[UPDATE 2012:  Here's the post on the 2012 Prop 2 to reestablish an Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program.]


I've been trying to avoid this.  KSKA has done a pretty good job and you can listen to Kathleen McCoy's Hometown Alaska show with guests representing both sides.   And Lisa Demer at the Anchorage Daily News on Friday covered it in depth. 

So I can just step back and leave the details to the others and try to put it into a larger perspective.


The PR characterization by the pro and anti forces:

PRO:  Alaskans for Parental Rights
ANTI:  Alaskans Against Government Mandates

Comment:  The pro forces win here, by being closer to what the measure is about.  The bill would require notification of parents before a pregnant girl under age 18 can have an abortion.  The anti forces seem to have taken a lesson from some of the right wing groups that have stretched the names they use to fight things they don't like.  Many things the government does (including things the anti-forces believe in) are 'government mandates' and yes, this would require doctors to inform the parents, I think this is fairly misleading.


What it's really about:

This is basically an anti-abortion measure.  An earlier law which required parental consent for an abortion for girls was thrown out by the Alaska Supreme Court.  This is an attempt to at least require parental notification.  But is this about parental rights?  Technically, yes, but it sure smells like it's really an attempt to make it harder to get an abortion.


What it's really about 2:

This is also about the balance of power between parents and their daughters.  The pro forces would give more power to the parents.  The anti forces would maintain the daughters' freedom to make these decisions.

The anti forces argue that there are girls whose dysfunctional families make it impossible, even dangerous, for the girls to go to their parents.  90% of the girls, they say, actually do talk to their parents.  Their concern, they say, is the 10% in dysfunctional families, or who may even be pregnant by a family member.

The pro forces say they have taken care of this by including an option to have a judge make the decision.  (Would you trust a random judge to make this sort of decision for you?)
The anti forces are particularly concerned about rural girls and the difficulties they already face.



Types of Parents and Types of Kids

As I see it, we have a continuum of parents from 

1_______________________2___________________________________3

1. Parents who essentially have abandoned their kids to do their own thing - either because they are working so much, or they are dysfunctional and can't control their own lives let alone their kids' lives. 
   
2. Parents who teach their kids to make age appropriate decisions about their lives and encourage them to become independent and think for themselves as they mature and give them the skills and information to do this - including birth control and sexual health information.
   
3. Parents who want to keep a close control of their kids and have very specific expectations for how their kids should behave and what they should do, even if the kid doesn't fit their mold.  

There are more different kinds of parents along the line and I'm sure readers could fill in different types of parents and where they fit on the continuum.

There are also different kinds of kids:

1___________________________2____________________________3

1.  Kids who are physiologically incapable of making many decisions for themselves.  FAS kids, for instance, come with many different kinds of abilities, some of whom really can't make good long term decisions and need protection from being taken advantage of even as adults.


2.  Kids whose families have not prepared them to make responsible decisions or who temperamentally are not suited to making important decisions on their own.

3.  Kids who have good smarts and have been trained or simply had an aptitude  to take personal responsibility and make important decisions about their lives.

I guess what I'm saying is that we can't generalize about the power relationship between kids and their parents.  In some cases the kids are better equipped to make important decisions about their own lives.  In other cases not.

There are cases where good kids make it through bad families, and there are cases where despite the best parenting, the kids turn out difficult.


I would argue that most parents would like their kids to consult them for important decisions.  And I dare say that in most families this happens.  In cases where girls cannot be persuaded by counselors to include their parents in the decision, I would guess that the girls probably have a good reason.  But not always. 

Does it really matter if it passes or not?

In the KSKA debate both sides seemed to agree that there were about 125 girls under 18 who have abortions in an average year in Alaska.  If it's true that 90% inform their parents (and I didn't hear the pro-forces challenge this), then all this is about 12 girls a year.  It doesn't stop them from getting abortions, it only delays it for 48 hours or so.  This may prevent a few girls from getting abortions, or, as the anti forces argued, it may cause some girls to take desperate measures to end their pregnancy.

Anti-abortion advocates will say that each abortion is a murder and so any abortion prevented is worth any effort.  I don't think abortion is a good thing.  No surgical procedure is a good thing if it can be prevented.  Rather than spend all this time and money on trying to change the law this way, it seems to me that everyone's time would have been better spent on serious sex education and birth control to make sure that there are simply fewer unwanted pregnancies and this would decrease the number of pregnancies.



Other Issues

It was suggested that this law would make doctors consider their own legal liability when trying to determine what is best for their patient.  Doctors have to deal with informing parents and in some cases getting girls to judges. 

The pro forces have very effectively taken the comparison between parents permission required for schools to give a kid an aspirin to their not even being informed that their daughters are pregnant.

There is a major difference here though.  Schools are not medical institutions and except for school nurses the personal are not medically trained.  These rules are in place to be sure that a teacher or an aide doesn't give an aspirin to a kid who is allergic to aspirin and would have a serious reaction.

Doctors, however, will be making the decisions about whether the child has an abortion.  I don't know how they work out getting the girl's medical record before making this decision.  And some girls may not even have a medical record. 

I did another post the other day that suggested if people didn't read and/or understand the bill, they should either not vote or vote no.  I would advise anyone who hasn't read this bill and doesn't understand it after they read it, should simply skip this measure and go on and vote for the candidates.  Or they should vote no.

Checking Alaska's Proposed Election Regulation Changes

My wife had the section of the ADN that I wanted to read on Sunday.  So I picked up the Classified Section.  It had a long notice:

"NOTICE OF PROPOSED CHANGES TO IMPLEMENT BALLOT MEASURE 2 AND MAKE CLARIFYING CHANGES IN THE REGULATIONS OF THE DIVISION OF ELECTIONS"

This link gives you that notice posted on the State's public notice site.

Given that lots of State Legislatures are busy passing laws intended to disenfranchise voters, this seemed like something I should look at a bit more carefully.  This is definitely one of those places where "the devil is in the details" applies.  

I've taken some time in the last couple of days to mesh the proposed changes into the body of the current regulations.  I've put the proposed changes in red so it's easy to find them.  The whole thing is at the bottom of this post.  

Things To Know About The Proposed Changes

• The announcement lists all the changes to be made.  To be clear, it tells us what needs to be done, but it doesn't tell us the new language, so we don't know what they intend to actually say.
• Most of the changes seem to be apolitical technical changes because of 
• passage of Proposition 2  which (1) changed the primary to be a single election with all candidates for each position running against all the others, and (2) changing the general election to ranked choice voting
• State is no longer using Accu-vote machines, so all references to those machines are to be deleted
• US Supreme Court Decision   Shelby Co v. Holder to no longer require preclearance of changes in election laws for Alaska and 15 other states.
• Some changes appear to be substantive and while they are simply spelling out the steps to determine the practical implementation of Prop 2, in some cases the wording could potentially directly or indirectly impact the elections, such as:
• Add 6 AAC 25.071 to specify when and how votes for write-in candidates will be counted.
• Add 6 AAC 25.072 to define duplicate rankings and determine how they will be counted.  
• Change 6 AAC 25.225 to determine the process for filling a vacancy in the candidacy for lieutenant governor.
• Change 6 AAC 25.240 to remove the specific number of petition booklets that the division will issue. [Current number is "500 or less."  Minimally they should change  'less' to 'fewer.']
• Change 6 AAC 25.683 to update a statutory reference; allow someone with a power of attorney to cancel a voter’s registration; remove a reference to selecting a primary ballot; and allow a special power of attorney to include the power to cancel a voter’s registration.  [Currently someone with power of attorney can register folks and help with absentee voting.  I understand the need to remove deceased voters from the rolls, but my sense is that this could also be used badly.  Think Brittany Spears.  I haven't heard the arguments, but at this point I think Vital Statistics should share deaths with the Registrar.  Given this political climate, I can see people with this power disenfranchising people they disagree with politically.  I don't know, just raising questions here.]
• Many changes I'm still trying to figure out what they mean such as 
• Add 6 AAC 25.069 to determine that the general election ballot will include space for one write-in candidate per race, except that the races for president and vice-president will not allow write-in candidates.
• Some I have a giant "WHY?" for.  There are probably good reasons but it seems odd.  For example: 
• Add 6 AAC 25.195 to specify that ranked-choice tabulation will begin the 15th day after the election, with only first-choice results reported before then.  [I'm guessing this has to do with the need to know the last place candidates in each race, because then the second place vote for the last candidate is given to the next ranked candidate. They may be assuming that you need all the absentee votes in before going to this process.  And that may be true in some or even most cases as they need to know the losing candidate before reassigning the 2nd place votes.  But I suspect in some cases you'd know before every last ballot is in.]

I'm not saying that there is anything underhanded going on.  I'm just trying to make sure there isn't.  I  haven't had time to think through and raise these kinds of questions for all the changes yet.  I'm hoping also to clarify some of my question with the Division of Elections.  

But in the meantime, I thought I'd put this up so other people don't have to duplicate this effort and can just jump in and look at what's there.  It would be nice to break this down so different people are looking at different parts.  Not everyone needs to look at everything.  

Some Notes On My Method For Doing This

• Most changes apply to a single section only, but some apply to several (such as every time they mention Accu-vote they need to delete it.) I repeat the red changes for all the sections they apply to.
• When there are multiple changes to a single section, I give each a bullet so you know there are more than one.
• Some are changes to a section ("Remove"  or "Change") and some are actually newly numbered sections ("Add")  I put the ADD where it would go.
• I've put the proposed changes in red so it's easy to find them.  

The Proposed Changes Embedded in the Current Regulations:

Remove repealed statutory authority in 6 AAC 27.035 and 6 AAC 27.150.

Alaska Election Code Propos... by Steve

Alaskans Cheer Man Married to a Man While Attorney General Fights Same-Sex Marriage

The same week that the Alaska Attorney General

joined conservative legal groups in urging the California Supreme Court to delay finalizing its ruling to legalize same-sex marriage

approximately 22,000 Alaskans spent around $2.5 million to see a married gay man and to cheer him wildly.

[My tiny Canon Powershot SD550 was totally overwhelmed by the noise level at Sullivan Arena and didn't catch many of the decibels flying around.]


Perhaps these 22,000 were among those 71,631 people who voted against Prop. 2, the 1998 Constitutional Amendment to ban same sex marriages. Perhaps some of these people voted for the ban. Or perhaps they didn't vote at all.

The Amendment passed 152,965 yes to 71,631 no. It wasn't even close. But that was ten years ago. The evidence that sexuality is basically genetic and not a choice has grown, but this isn't something that lends itself to . this clear proof. Logically, to me at least, it makes no sense for so many people to 'choose' desires that result in their being so strongly condemned by society. And why would people who could 'choose' their sexuality commit suicide because their choice was condemned? Wouldn't it be easier to just choose a different desire if they could?

Given the wildly enthusiastic response of the Elton John audience last night, I suspect that today the vote would not be so lopsided. It might not even pass. Especially if the people who went to the concert campaigned against the amendment with 1/10th of the enthusiasm they showed at the concerts. And if they all contributed half what they paid for the tickets to see a man whose married to another man perform.

BTW, $2 from every ticket was earmarked for the Elton John AIDS Foundation, so that would be around $44,000 that Alaskans contributed.


Calculations:
The exact figures really don't matter as long as we are reasonably close. Calculations for the number of people who attended the concert were based on reported seating capacity of the arenas for the three sold out concerts (2 in Anchorage, one in Fairbanks)
and an estimate of how much they paid given the prices. For this I calculated one figure based on there being as many 'cheap' seats as expensive ones. Then I figured it again with 70% of the seats being expensive and 30% being cheap. Then I split the difference.

The Sullivan Arena's Seating Capacity

• Table seating: 1500
• Concerts: 8,751
• Basketball: 7,987
• Hockey: 6,290
• Boxing or wrestling: 8,935 for
• 5' crowd barrier available

Fairbanks (for Hockey)
Name of Home Arena: Carlson Center
Capacity: 4600 or so Dimensions: 200x100

The largest meeting and exhibition facility is the Carlson Center, which features a 35,000-square-foot arena and several meeting rooms, for a combined total of 50,000 square feet of space that can accommodate more than 1,200 meeting participants, 200 trade show exhibits, or 4,000 people for a concert or sports event.

While I suspect the first website is more accurate, and concerts should have a larger seating capacity than hockey (as in the Sullivan Arena), I'll be very conservative here and round it to 4500 between the two different sources.


Bent Alaska tells us the prices were:
$56.50 to $116.50 in Anchorage
$75 and $115 in Fairbanks

The image of Talis Colberg in the video comes from the State Website.

The California Budget Deadline and Human Capabilities

Article IV, Section 12 c(3) of the California Constitution says:

The Legislature shall pass the budget bill by midnight on June 15 of each year. 

This past Friday, October 8,  the legislature finally passed the budget - more than100 days after the fiscal year began. 
How can this happen?  How can the legislature be in violation of the State Constitution - 23 times out of the last 24 years it seems.

If your boss told you to jump over the building you work at, you'd laugh.
But if your boss told you do some report that was as impossible as jumping over the building, odds are you'd start scrambling to do it. 

We understand our physical limits better than we understand the limits of the more subjective aspects of our lives.  Is the

In addition to the June 15 deadline, the budget has to be passed by a 2/3 majority, a requirement added in 1933.  Given that the Republicans and Democrats ideologically disagree about how the world works and how human beings work, and given that each legislator has control only of his or her own vote - I suspect the deadline and the 2/3 majority requirement is like asking the Legislature to jump over the Capitol Building. 

The Constitution is a piece of paper created and recreated by human beings.  It's real to the extent that people believe in it. 

The California Constitution requires the budget to be passed by June 15, but if everyone looks the other way, it doesn't matter. 

To add one more hurdle to getting to the deadline on time, in 1978, as part of Prop 13, a 2/3 vote requirement was added for increasing revenues. 

[from Wyoming Legislature]

A California State Senate document on the History of the Budget from Fiscal Year 1965-66  to FY 2009 - 2010 shows that of the budgets between 1965-66 and 1978-79 (Prop 13 passed in this Fiscal Year I believe),  six of the 15 years, the budget was 'chaptered' after the beginning of the July 1 fiscal year.  All but two of those were done within a few days of the deadline (by July 4.)  One was July 6 and the worst was July 13.  (The deadline to pass the budget was missed 14/15 times, but only six times late enough to miss the July 1 beginning of the Fiscal Year.)

Since FY 1978-79, the budget was chaptered by July 1 nine times out of 31.  (I'm not completely sure I'm reading it right since FY 2009-10 says they passed the legislation in February which isn't the case.)  The delays are much longer - this year over 100 days.

Does this mean that Prop 13 made it worse? There's a correlation, but we don't know for sure that's the cause.  It could be that the political divisions got too fractious. 

Proposition 25 on California's November ballot would eliminate the requirement for a 2/3 majority to pass the budget.  It also adds a consequence for legislators by, according to Sunday's LA Times Voter Guide, "causing them to forfeit their salaries and expenses for every day they fail to settle on a spending plan."    (In Alaska, State judges have their salary withheld if they fail to submit an affidavit that they have no pending decisions or opinions over six months old.)

Remembering that some things we expect others to do, or others expect us to do are impossible, is useful.  Actually knowing when something is impossible is a lot harder.