Alaskans Need To Prepare To Stop The Dunleavy For Governor Campaign

[What Do I Know?  tends to shy away from taking explicit partisan stances on political races, preferring to present facts and let the reader decide.  And technically, my objections to Sen. Dunleavy are not because of his party membership, but because of his individual actions.  The specific actions I saw that so disturbed me were in defiance of the vast majority of his party. This post is an early warning]


From a Walker/Mallot (for governor) campaign email:

"The Walker Mallott campaign released polling this morning that shows Governor Bill Walker and Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott leading a two-way race against potential opponents Mike Dunleavy and Kevin Meyer by 36% to 33%."

From my perspective, this is truly scary.  I watched Dunleavy up close in May of 2015, when he chaired a committee responsible for passing Erin's Law (which had overwhelming bi-partisan support) during a summer special session.  Here's a quick summary of my  impressions a year later as in a post where I wondered whether Mat-su shouldn't be allowed to be annexed by Texas.

I wrote about Sen. Dunleavy last summer when he tried to gut the proposed Erin's Law by filling it with his far-right wing national parents' rights nonsense.   I say 'nonsense' because it's only about parents' rights in a very twisted way.  One whole section, for example, is really about crippling Planned Parenthood.  He had language then, and it's back now in SB 191, to ban school districts from contracting with any abortion provider or anyone who has any contract with an abortion provider.  I wrote about all of this in detail last summer. This was all understood to be aimed at Planned Parenthood.  

During that special session, I coined the term "to dunleavy" which summarized my impression of what Sen. Dunleavy was doing to Erin's Law during that session.  (The link explains the poster.)

Note:  This is a warning about Mike Dunleavy and not an endorsement of Walker/Mallot.  There are still possibilities of other candidates to challenge them both from the Left and Right.  And I would add that I think the Kevin Meyer is a much more decent person, but he suffers from the fact that his full-time employer is Conoco-Phillips.  While that, inexplicably, is not a conflict of interest in the Alaska legislature, it would be seen as much by most people who study governmental ethics.

Alaska is now the 30th state to accept Medicaid expansion

An email this afternoon from my Alaska State Rep, Andy Josephson says:

"Today, Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced plans to take advantage of federal funding to expand eligibility for Medicaid in Alaska. This action is supported by the Alaska Independent Democratic Coalition, which made Medicaid expansion a priority during the First Session of the 29th Alaska Legislature. Medicaid expansion comes with tremendous benefits including over a billion dollars in new federal revenue over the next six year, the creation of 4,000 jobs, and $1.2 billion in additional wages and salaries. Studies suggest Medicaid expansion would result in $2.49 billion in increased economic activity across Alaska.

There are multiple legal opinions showing that the Governor has the authority to expand Medicaid. Medicaid expansion is supported by the public and, I believe, a majority of lawmakers but that did not sway the Majority leadership, which refused to allow an up or down vote on the matter. I believe the Governor’s decision is justified based on the merits of the argument and the inaction of the Alaska Legislature. . . ."

The Republican leadership in the House and Senate in Juneau refused to pass this and fortunately Walker has found a way to do this administratively.  They have been and still are wrong on so many issues:  climate change, medicaid expansion, oil taxes, big construction projects, passing budgets that ignored warnings about declining oil revenues year after year, etc, etc. etc.  Influence from major donors/lobbyists (oil and construction particularly) or national far right wing pressure like the Koch's ALEC keep them from getting it right, from making decisions that benefit Alaska in the long term.   One can make micro-level arguments for many of the things they did or didn't do, but the long term evolution of things has proved their blindness to the larger issues.  

I make that fairly sweeping statement in light of this example of the Alaska Republicans who spearheaded the move for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman and who fought the addition of lgbt folks to Anchorage's anti-discrimination ordinance:

"On Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unanimously ruled that sexual orientation discrimination is already illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner reports, the EEOC's groundbreaking decision effectively declares that employment discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers is unlawful in all 50 states."  [From Slate]

I guess the Anchorage ordinance has been effectively amended, at least in employment.  

And in light of Obama's visit to the Federal Correctional Institution El Reno near Oklahoma City to highlight the horrendous outcomes of the simplistic War on Drugs and Three Strikes You're Out programs which gave non-violent drug offenders long prison sentences.  This resulted in (Obama's stats) the US, with 5% of the world's population having 25% of the world's prisoners.  In ripping apart families, huge costs of prisons, and so many lives wasted behind bars.  And the Right's solution of privatizing governmental functions including prisons, meant there was now a new industry with a vested interest in expanding the prison population.  This is also in light of the legalization of marijuana in a number of states - both medical marijuana in many states and recreational marijuana in a few. 

Reasons Why Alaska Legislature Republican Majority Leaders Hate Governor Walker

Alaska's Republican majority leaders have done their best to show their disdain for Governor Walker.  They refused to meet in Juneau despite his calling for the special session to be there.  They've said no to most of what he wants to do.  Why all this antipathy?  

I'm sure readers will think of a lot more reasons, but here are a few I can think of:

1.   He left the Republicans and became an Independent
2.   This let him by-pass the Republican primary
3.   He joined with the Democratic gubernatorial candidate as his Lt. Gov partner
4.   He won the election beating their oil company loyalist sitting governor Parnell
5.   He's acts like an adult
6.   He knows how to think for himself
7.   He understands the economics of Medicaid expansion and thus supports it rather than stick to Republican ideological anti-Obamaism

But I think the most important issue for the Republicans is the fact that

8.  the next governor will be able to appoint two members to the 2020 Alaska Redistricting Board. 

They're doing everything they can to make him look bad, hoping he won't get reelected.  If the letters to the editor are any indication, they're making themselves look bad instead.  And Walker, as I mentioned above, is the one who looks like an adult in all this. 

Speaking of redistricting, it's not too early to start thinking about the next Board and how it will work.  By leaving all the decisions about technology to the Board, things get rather late to do the best job of surveying the technology available.  Mapping technology is getting much more sophisticated and much easier to use.  By the 2020 round there should be better technology to create the initial maps and the public should have access to play with the maps and come up with better alternatives.  Just something to think about. 

Hiring A Mediator: Is Alaska's Governor Trying To Be The Adult?

Governor Walker has hired a mediator to try to get the two houses of the Alaska legislature to resolve their differences and pass a budget.

The governor has already had to send out layoff notices to state employees and if the budget isn't resolved by, well the new fiscal year this budget is supposed to cover begins July 1.   Below is my rough sense of what is happening in Alaska policy unmaking. 

Overview of Sticking Points

1.  Last year the legislature passed a $2 billion a year tax break for oil companies which includes big tax credits - to the tune of $700 million this year.  The Republican majorities in the House and Senate tell us this is contractual and can't be changed.  Though they have no problem breaking other contracts such as labor agreements. 

2.  The price of oil plummeted,  sharply cutting the state's basic revenue source.

3.  The budget passed by the legislature had a $3 billion gap between expenditures and revenue. 

4.  The state has a lot of money in different funds - mainly the Alaska Permanent Fund and the Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR).  But the legislature needs a 3/4 majority to get into the CBR.  Democrats were needed to get to the CBR and they wouldn't go along with the budget unless the Majority approved Medicaid expansion, union contracts whose raises the legislature had previously approved, and a version of Erin's Law to teach kids how to protect themselves from sexual abuse.

5.  The majority talked about moving money around in the Permanent Fund which on technical grounds would let them tap the CBR with a simple majority.  This move only needed a majority, but six of their own, sensing political suicide (even talking about messing with the Permanent Fund Dividend Checks everyone gets has been taboo) and severe limitations on future budget options, refused to go along. 

6.  The governor refused to sign a budget that was $3 billion in the red and sent it back to the legislature, set up a special session in Juneau (the state capital), and told them to fund union contracts, pass Medicaid expansion, Erin's Law, and a balanced budget.  (The governor is a former Republican who ran as an Independent because he didn't think he could get through a Republican primary.  During the campaign, he teamed up with the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who became his Lt. Gov running mate.  A major National Guard scandal for the sitting Republican governor helped Walker become governor.)

7.  The Republican majorities in the House and Senate threw a hissy fit and refused to meet in Juneau.  They held ten and 15 minute meetings - long enough to open and adjourn - and then called their own special session in the newly, and luxuriously, refurbished Legislative Information Office in Anchorage.

8.  The House majority and minority caucuses finally came up with a compromise budget - which got a few things the Democrats wanted (no Erin's Law, no Medicaid) along with a promise to vote for access to the CBR, but only IF the senate went along. 

9.  The Senate rejected the House compromise and sent back their own new budget.

10.  This budget was rejected by both the Democrats and the Republicans unanimously in the House.

So that gets us to now.  The governor announced that he'd hired a man who mediates business disputes.  The governor is an attorney who is used to working through business deals with mediators if nothing else works.  

This seems to me like a logical and reasonable approach.  The governor says the legislature is squabbling over 1% of the budget and seemingly is willing to risk shutting down the government over what he thinks are really tiny differences.  I would guess that while the financial differences are small, the ego differences are still pretty big.

My main question when I heard about the mediation offer was about separation of powers.  I would suspect given the already mentioned bruised egos, having the governor meddle with the legislature by hiring a mediator would add even more capsaicin to an already fiery stew.

But it is the kind of thing an adult would do.  I think of something I heard during the Alaska political corruption trials in 2007 -2008.  I believe it was someone working with the prosecution who observed that the businessmen (there were no women indicted) all quickly came to settlement agreements while the politicians were the ones who tended to go to trial.   The businessmen, he hypothesized, knew how to assess their situation and cut their losses while the politicians protested to the end that they didn't do anything wrong.

The governor tends to take more of a business approach than the Republican politicians in power in Juneau (well, in Anchorage at the moment), despite their non-stop pro-business rhetoric.  And lest I be accused of picking on the Republicans, let me say in my defense, that they are, and pretty much have been, the folks who call the shots in Juneau.  The Democrats are relegated to scraps that fall from the Republican table.  They haven't had any power over anything until their votes were needed for the CBR.  The Democrats, from my perspective, have still been meek in their demands (maybe requests is a more accurate term) but the Senate seems galled that they have to acknowledge their existence at all. 

Walker Or Chenault? - A Look At the Showdown Players

Dermot Cole's article in the ADN today, outlines the differences between the governor and the Republican leaders in the legislature over gas pipelines.

On the one hand Cole says the legislators see a partnership between the state and the oil companies.

"The ruling Republican majorities envision the state and the oil companies marching forward — more or less in unison — on a shared pipeline vision, capable of working out any disagreements that might derail the gas pipeline partnership."

 The governor, while fine with this partnership with the oil companies, thinks we should have a back up plan in case things don't work out.  

The legislators don't like this approach.

"They portray his plan for a backup export project as a signal to the oil companies that the state is not committed to its agreement."

They think the governor is trying to shake down the oil companies.  

“'You have made clear your desire to have a parallel project to use as leverage against our Alaska LNG partners in order to force changes in existing contractual terms,' House Speaker Mike Chenault and Senate President Kevin Meyer said in a letter April 10."

But the governor thinks the oil companies and the state, while having some overlapping goals, are still two separate entities negotiating a deal.  The oil companies will eventually decide based on their view of their best interests.  The state of Alaska, he thinks, should do the same.   The oil companies have back up plans if they don't like the final pipeline details.  The state too should have such a back up plan.

"Walker counters that it is not a matter of using leverage against the oil company partners, but of using leverage to protect Alaska. He said the oil companies understand this. Partners or not, many of the key details about the pipeline project have yet to be negotiated and Walker says he is only doing what the oil companies do for themselves — preserving options."

How do we assess which of these positions is sounder? 

One route is to look at the players and figure out their abilities and their loyalities. 

Mike Chenault has,  according to his legislative bio, graduated from Kenai Central High School in  1975. It's not clear what work experience he has.  He's listed as a vice-president of a construction company, he has military service, and has been involved with things like the local chamber of commerce.  He's been in the House since 2001, fourteen years.

You can be smart and learn a lot through experience in the world, without a college degree.  And you can get a college degree and still make bad decisions.  But most people agree that a good college education is worth more in most cases, than a high school degree. People put themselves in debt to get one, and businesses are willing to pay more for employees with degrees, and relatively few people at the top don't have college degrees.

A good college education should help broaden students' horizons by exposing them to a wider range of people than they saw in high school and a wider range of ideas and skills.  A truly good education would also help build a person's ability to reason and use logic as well as introducing them to the field of ethics.  Of course, not everyone who has a college degree got all those benefits.  And I can think of some pretty capable people who didn't get college degrees.  Mark Begich for one.  Bill Allen for another.  (And I don't mean that facetiously.  Allen was a high school drop out who through his own smarts and hard work built a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  This old post gives my impressions of him during the Kott trial.) 

I don't know a lot about Chenault's life beyond the bio mentioned above.  But he seems to have spent most of his life on the Kenai.  His actions this session reflect a man who's enjoying his power and not  having to defer to others. (He kicked Rep. Reinbold out of the caucus.  He's opposed the governor on medicaid expansion and this pipeline issue.  He's let approval of the governor's appointments languish and when the governor set a special session to vote on the appointments, he basically ignored it.  He got a great subsidy for a fertilizer company in his own district, even though the state is suffering from a huge budget shortfall this year and basic government programs are being cut.  Just a few examples.)  Rather than be a statesman who is respectful of those who see the world differently, he appears disdainful and petty.   He recently sent a nasty letter to Washington State saying neither they, nor any other entities, could treat Alaska like a colony.

My response was to posit whether 'other entities' included oil companies.  Alaska has a history of being treated like a colony and the oil companies are just the latest colonizers.  And his behavior here - that we shouldn't do anything to upset the oil companies, that we shouldn't have a backup plan as we negotiate with them - reflects someone who either has made a pact with the oil industry, or doesn't realize he's become their lackey.  His partner in the letter to Gov. Walker, was Conoco-Phillips employee and Senate president Kevin Meyer.  If we don't know for sure where his loyalties lie, we do know where his regular paycheck comes from.  The fact that Governor Walker defeated Governor Parnell (and Conoco Phillips attorney)  in November thus upsetting the easy pass for oil companies in the governor's office, likely contributes to the legislators' animosity towards Walker.

Walker, on the other hand, has a  BS degree in Business Management from Lewis and Clark College and his JD from the University of Puget Sound School of Law (now Seattle University.)  Practicing law you get to see the inner details of how companies operate. It can be brutal and nasty.  Walker understands that the oil companies' loyalty lies with their shareholders, not with the state of Alaska.

Like a few past Republican governors - Hammond and Hickel come to mind - he's not a patsy for the oil companies.  He understands that the state and oil companies are potential partners in a deal now and then, but in the long term, they have conflicting interests.  The state has an interest in getting the most possible revenue from our natural resources and the oil companies' interest is to do the same.  Some level of cooperation might be beneficial for both parties, but there is a point where each party must look after its own interests separately.

I'd also note that the oil companies spend a fair amount of money helping friendly legislators get elected, and then more for lobbyists to help those legislators figure out how to vote.  We saw how all that worked in 2006 courtesy of FBI tapes that recorded some of those normally out of the spotlight transactions. 

We could think of the legislature is the state's equivalent of a company's board of directors. 

I'm unaware of the state of Alaska paying to get its friends on the boards of directors of any oil companies and then pay for lobbyists to help them make decisions favorable to the state of Alaska.  Furthermore,  when we deal with oil companies, the state's books are public information.  The oil companies' books are mostly closed, even to state negotiators.  It's already a very unbalanced relationship.

I have not looked at the details of the various oil pipeline proposals.  I did, in 2008 hear the arguments for the deal with Trans Canada. But I' haven't stayed informed since then.  So I don't really have a clue which deal is the best.  The money to be invested in the back up plan sounds like a lot, but the numbers involved here are a lot.

I also was there when Byron Mallot talked about Walker's character and decency playing a big role in his becoming his running mate.  I don't see those qualities in Chenault.  He comes across, at least in how the media portray him, as more of a street fighter defending his personal turf. 

That doesn't mean Walker is right.  He's been a long time champion for his pipeline option. 
But all things considered,  it just seems to me that Walker has the interests of the people of Alaska more in mind than do Chenault and Meyer.  His stance with the oil companies is more like 'trust but verify' whereas the Chenault Meyer stance seems to be just 'trust.' 

". . . with the state's dire financial crisis, pursuing expensive litigation that has little chance of victory is an unwise use of our dwindling resources," [Updated]

[UPDATE April 4, 2015:  Here's an update where the governor says he wouldn't have done it, but his attorney general called the shot.  Since he's the one who can hire and fire the AG, sounds like a lame excuse.]  

"Despite my personal views on marriage, with the state's dire financial crisis, pursuing expensive litigation that has little chance of victory is an unwise use of our dwindling resources," he [Walker] said."  (ADN October 13, 2014)

Yet today I learned that Alaska is party to the Amicus Brief against gay marriage in the appeal of the 6th Circuit Court's decision to the US Supreme Court.  

The governor's statement comes pretty close to an explicit promise.  I know lots of Alaskans who took it as a promise not to pursue the state's appeal of the decisions against the decisions that resulted in gay marriage being legal in our state, despite our state constitutions amendment saying marriage is between one man and one woman.

Given that, it didn't occur to anyone that we would join to fight for the rights of  Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, and Kentucky to block gay marriage.

As an Alaskan, I'm chagrined and embarrassed.  Governor, you don't have a lot of support among the Republicans in the legislature on key issues.  You shouldn't also piss off the majority of Alaskans who elected you as well.

Here's the outline of the argument being made in our names:

Argument................................................................................ 2
    I.    Determining the shape and meaning of marriage is
 a fundamental exercise of self-government by
state citizens .................................................................. 2
    A.    Our Constitution ensures that state citizens
 have the sovereign authority to govern themselves ............................................................... 2 

    B.    The States’ exercise of sovereign authority is
 at its apex in domestic relations law........................ 4 

    C.    In deciding whether to adopt same-sex marriage, state citizens exercise their sovereign authority to determine the meaning
of marriage ................................. 7 

    II.    A decision constitutionalizing same-sex marriage would erase the sovereignty of state citizens to determine the meaning of marriage............................... 9


   A. Such a decision would abandon the premise of Windsor .......................... 11 

    B.    Such a decision would dilute the numerous democratic victories recently won in the States
by proponents of same-sex marriage..................... 17 

    C.    Such a decision would eliminate the States’
role as laboratories of democracy in the realm
of domestic relations ............................................. 19 

    D.    Such a decision would announce that state citizens are incapable of resolving this issue through constructive civil discourse...................... 21 


OK, with that off my chest, does Alaska's name on the brief matter?  I suspect not much, but it is one more state the group can point to.   I'm guessing our Department of Law didn't contribute a lot to the amicus brief from the states.  But, it's the first major broken promise to the coalition that elected Walker.  We knew Walker was a Republican, but he did promise to focus on the gas pipeline and the budget and leave social issues alone. 

West Point Grad Laurie Hummel To Be New Alaska National Guard Adjutant General

The ADN has a good report on this up already so I'll try to add what I know about Laurie Hummel.

I first 'met' Laurie Hummel when she was interviewed by the Alaska Redistricting Board to be their executive director.  I was so incredibly impressed by how perfectly her background qualified her for the job AND by how well she presented herself and her knowledge.  She was both assertive and respectful.  In that interview she was asked to describe her managerial experience as it related to the job.  It was all impressive and you can see my very rough transcript here.

A part that particularly warmed my blogger heart was when she spoke about confidentiality and public information.  She said you have to set up categories:

"what you have to share, should share, can’t.  Things that have to be shared with the public [you share]  and that’s how it should be.  I come from climate that values ethics.  I hold the highest ethical standards. I see a big difference where there’s an enemy.  Here I see no enemies.  Press and people are not enemies."

I was blown away by Hummel that day and wrote one of the most enthusiastic posts I've ever written about anybody on this blog.

Second Applicant Incredible: Laurel Hummel, Vet and Geographer

When the Board decided not to fill the position, I was seriously disappointed and wrote a two part post exploring possible reasons why.

• How Could Redistricting Board NOT Hire Laurel Hummel? Political Neutrality Appears Ripped To Shreds - Part 1
• How Could Redistricting Board NOT Hire Laurel Hummel? Political Neutrality Appears Ripped To Shreds - Part 2

The last post I did that focused on Laurie Hummel was about her announcement to run for State House.  

Laurie Hummel Announces Bid for State House Seat - Laurie Who?

I was (and still am) so impressed with Hummel that I decided I had to help her win.  People complain about the lack of good politicians all the time.  But there won't be any unless the rest of us work hard to elect those who are willing to run.  It was time for me to get directly involved.

After I became involved in her campaign  I felt I could no longer report on the race.  Sure, I could have declared my involvement and written, but I didn't want this blog to be a billboard for one candidate.

Hummel ran a great campaign and came very close to beating an incumbent in her first race.  
Today I learned of her appointment to be Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard by Governor Walker.

I called Hummel today to congratulate her.  She told me she hadn't expected this.  Her husband, Chad Parker, is a colonel in the national guard and when the governor asked her to take the position, she decided she'd ask to be deputy.  That's a civilian, state position, that wouldn't put her directly over her husband.  But Chad told her she couldn't turn this opportunity down.  Accepting the position requires her husband's resignation from the Guard.

In October, during the campaign, she'd written an op-ed piece in the ADN on how to reform the national guard. (I'm assuming my readers know about the scandal which played a role in defeating our former governor's reelection bid.)  She listed six steps to heal the Guard, which I'm abbreviating here.  You can read the whole piece here.

1. Immediately hold legislative hearings -- with witnesses under oath -- to independently investigate malfeasance in the Guard.
2. Appoint an independent special prosecutor to address criminal actions not currently enforceable by the Guard’s antiquated, ineffective state version of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
3. The Legislature must create a viable UCMJ. The Guard must advise and guide but the state’s Military Code is a state statute. This is the province of our Legislature. The heavy lifting for creating a meaningful and effective code is done in committee. This would appropriately be accomplished by the House Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs. But again, nothing is happening on that front.
4. Separate the adjutant general (TAG) position from the commissioner, DMVA position. Tom Katkus and his predecessors were dual-hatted as the TAG and commissioner.
5. Fill the existing military legislative liaison position to the Alaska Legislature.
6.  The commander-in-chief (our governor) must demand, receive and embrace unfettered access to Guard issues and take a personal and active part in restoring a culture of transparency. 

She was hoping to work on these as a legislator and these focus on what the legislature and governor need to do.  But now she gets to work on these from the inside and from the top.

Side note:  Hummel will become the first female adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard.  She told me there had been women heads in Vermont and Ohio, but they have left office.  Other states are appointing their heads now as well and she wasn't sure if there would be another woman among them.

As I explore google's offerings on "women adjutant generals national guard" I get
Ohio's Maj. Gen. Deborah Ashenhurst and Vermont's Major General, Martha T. Rainville and Alaska's Col Laurel Hummel in the first five hits.  Moving down the lists there are a number of male adjutant generals whose page mentions "the fine men and women."  


But then up popped up BG Mary Kight who became California's first female, African-American adjutant general in 2010.  Are there others?  If Hummel pops up already, I'm guessing that if there were other women appointed to be their states' adjutant generals recently, they would show up.  But proving there are no black swans is harder than proving there is one.

University of Alaska Gets Four New Regents

The Governor's office announced the appointment of four new regents for the University of Alaska.  The indented text comes directly from the governor's press release.  The photo sources are linked to the names under the images.

“These appointments represent a broad spectrum of Alaskans and Alaska,” Governor Walker said. “All four will bring unique qualities to the Board of Regents that will help guide the future of our great university system.”

Andy Tuber

Andy Teuber (pronounced “TOO-ber”) of Kodiak has served as the Chairman and President of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) for seven years. During his tenure, he negotiated a $153 million settlement with the Indian Health Service for contract support costs, and has directed the organization from a $5 million loss in 2009 to a financially healthy position that allows the Consortium to invest its additional revenue in service expansion and improvements to ensure Alaska Natives have better access to health care. For the past nine years, Teuber has also served as the President and CEO of Kodiak Area Native Association, a non-profit corporation providing health and social services for the Alaska Natives of Kodiak Island. He holds a master of business administration degree from the University of Washington, Foster School of Business. 

Sheri Buretta

Sheri Buretta (pronounced “bur-ETTA”) of Anchorage is the Chairman of the Chugach Alaska Corporation Board of Directors. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the Alaska Federation of Natives since 1997, and the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation Board since 2012. Born in Anchorage, Buretta’s family is from the village of Tatitlek in Prince William Sound. She holds an associate’s degree in accounting from the University of Alaska and an associate’s degree in business from Gulf Coast Community College in Florida. 

 John Davies

Governor Walker also appointed John Davies (pronounced “DAVE-ease”) of Fairbanks to the Board of Regents. A former member of the Alaska House of Representatives, Davies has a long career in public service, including 10 years in the Alaska Legislature and seven years on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly. For the past 12 years he has worked as a Researcher at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks, where he carries out research on public policy related to energy efficient building techniques for cold climates. Davies also worked for 12 years as a state seismologist and research associate for the UAF Geophysical Institute. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Reed College, and Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. 

 Lisa Parker

To represent the Kenai Peninsula, Governor Walker appointed Lisa Parker of Soldotna to the Board of Regents. Currently the External Affairs & Government Relations Manager for Apache Corporation, Parker has an extensive background in natural resource development and state and local government. Prior to her work at Apache, she spent eight years as the Government and Community Relations Manager for Agrium USA, one of the world’s largest fertilizer manufacturers. She is also the former Planning Director for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, and served six years on the College Council for the University of Alaska, Kenai River Campus. Parker, a lifelong Alaskan, holds a Bachelor Degree in Political Science from The American University in Washington DC.

The Board has eleven members.  So this is almost 40% of the Board.  The only person I know at all is Lisa Parker, the daughter of Walt Parker.  Walt was one of the greatest Alaskans I've known.  The group represents people whose highest degrees are  an Associates degree, Bachelors degree, Masters degree, and Doctoral degree.

Since the Board of Regents sets the policy the University of Alaska,  it's important to have people who know how universities work from the inside, not just as a student, but also as a teacher and as a researcher and as an administrator.    I think it's important to have people with an Associates degree to represent the perspective of those students.  I would like to see more with PhDs.  The Board already has several people with business degrees, so I would like to see more diversity in subject matter.  Our society is already dominated by a business way of calculating and making decisions.  But we can't judge people by their degrees, but by who they are as individuals and what they value, and what they do.  Let's hope these four bring new energy and vision to the University of Alaska.

[The four regents stepping down were profiled here.]

Four Regents Terms Up; Expect New Appointments From Walker Soon

The University of Alaska regents whose terms expire in 2015 include:  (descriptions are excerpted from from the University website bios of the regents.)

[UPDATE Jan 27:  Governor Appoints Four New Regents]

Term: 2005-2015 

Timothy C. Brady of Anchorage was appointed in 2005 by Governor Murkowski and reappointed in 2007 by Governor Palin. Regent Brady is from a pioneer Alaska family. He serves as president of Ken Brady Construction Company, where he has worked in various positions over the past 30 years. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Arizona State University's School of Engineering, Division of Construction. Regent Brady is involved with the Anchorage Downtown Rotary, Boy Scouts of America, American Red Cross, Better Business Bureau, and Associated General Contractors of Alaska.

Every time I look at these, I have new questions.  In this case, it's about why would Brady have to be reappointed by Palin?  He'd only served two years of an eight year appointment.

Term: 2007-2015 

Fuller A. Cowell of Anchorage was appointed in 2007 by Governor Palin. Regent Cowell was raised on a homestead in Fairbanks, attended Lathrop High School and studied biology at UAF. He completed his bachelors of business administration with an emphasis in marketing at National University, Sacramento, California graduating Summa Cum Laude. Cowell completed the Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois. In 1995, he was awarded the UAF Alumni Achievement Award for Community Achievement. The award was established to recognize outstanding UAF alumni.

I posted about Cowell in more detail when he was the lone regent who voted to retain the president's $320,000 longevity bonus.  

Term: 2007-2015 

Patricia Jacobson of Kodiak was appointed by Governor Palin in 2007. Regent Jacobson grew up in southern Arizona. She graduated in 1969 from the University of Arizona with a BA in Elementary Education, and from the University of Alaska in 1972 with an MA in Elementary Education.  Regent Jacobson taught various elementary grades, primarily gifted classes, for 26 years, 25 of which were in Kodiak. She was appointed to the Professional Teaching Practices Commission (PTPC) by Governor Hammond in 1979. She received the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship for Alaska in 1992.  As a teacher, Regent Jacobson was active in Kodiak and Alaska NEA and is a life member of NEA-Retired. After retiring she worked independently for the Kodiak School District as the village technology liaison, serving all of Kodiak's villages and logging camps, until she was elected to the local school board, ultimately serving as its president.  

She was chair when the president's bonus was approved and supported it strongly when it was challenged.

Term: 2007-2015  

Kirk Wickersham of Anchorage was appointed to the Board of Regents in 2007 by Governor Palin. Wickersham is an actively retired attorney and real estate broker. He is the developer and owner of FSBO System, Inc. a company that provides professional coaching to home sellers, and a former chair of the Alaska Real Estate Commission. Previously, he was an economic development consultant and won a national award for innovative community development regulations.

I'm pleased to see that each of these regents stayed in service for the whole eight years of the terms.  In the past, there has been very high turnover with people leaving well before their terms were up.

Let's hope there are some people with a higher education background in the new group.   

"BP president disputes governor's claims on oil tax"

That was yesterday's (Saturday) headline in the Alaska Dispatch.

I want to note it here, because under Sean Parnell, the oil companies never had to dispute anything with the governor.

I don't know yet that it means anything substantive, but it's refreshing.

There's been a lot of talk about Public Private Partnerships.  So much so that some people just say P3.

Governments have always bought goods and services from private companies.  Partnerships tend to go further and tend to mix governmental and private sector roles.  Theoretically, this can work out well.  Often though, this can be a ploy for the private sector to acquire government assets at low prices, chanting the mantra of the private sector being more efficient than the public sector, and then raising prices and profiteering from the arrangement.  The privatization of parking meters in Chicago seems to be a good example.

Government has a role to perform those functions that the private sector can't or won't perform.

When two people, two businesses, or a government and a business, decide to go into partnership, both sides need to vigorously guard their interests.  The term 'trust, but verify' has been used in diplomacy a lot lately, but it's also a good term for business relationships.

Unfortunately, corporations have a record of gaining leverage in their government partnerships through their support of candidates in elections.  Throughout the world, including the US, large corporations buy key decision makers who then give away government assets and interests.  I have no doubt that banker Frank Murkowski, as governor, was a willing partner with the oil companies and not a strong, cautious, demanding partner.  For whatever reasons, Sarah Palin was much more adversarial with the oil companies.  But her running mate Pat Parnell had been a Conoco -Philips attorney.  Instead of bargaining for the best deal for the state and people of Alaska, Parnell gave the oil companies what they wanted.  Whether he knew he was doing this or whether he has lived in the oil world so long he believed the narrative, I don't know.

But I do know that when businesses work with each other, it's like playing poker.  Each side wants to get the best deal it can from the other.  There's bluffing, there's careful calculation, there's distraction, and eventually there's an agreement, or not.  The positive spin of the word partnership may be the ideal, but competent government representatives know that the other side is out to get the best deal and if they can do it at the expense of the government they will.  Often, government partnerships happen when the private sector companies aren't willing to take the risk themselves and want the government to cover their losses.  The State of Alaska has a history of funding such risky operations - from dairy deals to barley to fish processing, just to name a few.  It was hard for legislators to say no when money was flooding into Juneau.

So this headline brings a little hope that our new governor is willing to stand up to the private sector.  It's only an early sign.  We have to see what the follow up is.  There will be a lot of pressure by the private sector to play the anti-government card.

Alaska Dems Join Alaska First Unity Party - Daring or Desperation?

What Just Happened?

Alaska's Democratic candidate for governor Byron Mallot on Wednesday became the running mate for a lifelong Republican Bill Walker who is running as an Independent.  There will be no Democratic candidate for governor and Mallot has taken the number two spot on the Alaska First Unity Party ticket.

Mallot's Lt. Gov running mate, Hollis French, and Walker's running mate, Craig Fleenor, both agreed to withdraw.

The ADN has a page looking at how things got to this point.

So Who Is Bill Walker?

Bill Walker is a Republican running as an independent against the sitting Republican governor Sean Parnell.  From Walker's "Why I'm Running" statement:

 “It is time to pull together in order to move the state forward and seek not what is in the best interests of the Republicans or the Democrats, but aggressively pursue what is in the best interests of Alaskans,”. . .  

“I am not running for governor to advance a political career. I am running to assure that Alaska regains control of our resources and our future without bowing to party or special interests.”

People I've talked to say he's a straight-up guy and that this is genuine, not posturing



So, Daring or Desperation?

First, never accept simplistic binary options like this.  Either/or statements, especially about human relationships, are almost always gross simplifications.  There are lots of options between the two poles of the continuum. And there are other continua you could lay over this situation.

Second, I'd say it was both.  Let's start with the desperation part and then go to the daring.

The Desperation Part
 
Mallot has an incredible resume of service to Alaska:

• life-long Alaskan who's held high level positions 
• in most administrations since Statehood, including Executive Director of the one sacred agency in Alaska, the Permanent Fund, 
• in banking, heading several banks and serving on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
• in Alaska Native leadership positions including CEO of Sealaska Native Corporation and President of the Alaska Federation of Native
• in local politics as Mayor of Juneau

But as a campaigner, he's failed to light up audiences. Republicans will claim this abandonment of a Democratic candidate on the ballot just shows how weak the Mallot's campaign is and they wouldn't be wrong.   Polls showed Republican governor Sean Parnell way ahead in a three way race against, it's closer in a two way race.  


The Daring Part

Daring:  : "willing to do dangerous or difficult things"

The Democrats are making a number of unprecedented moves and putting their fate in the hands of a Republican who lost in the Republican primary in 2010. There are a number of open questions:

• What will be the long term effect of not having a Democratic candidate - the first time since statehood in 1959?
• What influence will the Democrats have from the second spot on a team headed by a Republican. [Actually Walker changed his affiliation to Undeclared just before this went down.  But that doesn't change his long held conservative values.]
• Will a Walker/Mallot coalition in Juneau be better than Parnell/Sullivan?  [It's hard to ask that question with a straight face, but it's true the election will be between two Republicans.] 
• Will Democrats field a candidate against Walker in 2018, if the Independents win in 2014?
• Will Walker stick by his non-partisan rhetoric after the election?  After four years?
• How will this affect the next redistricting in 2020 if Walker is reelected?  Will he let his Lt. Gov pick one of the two governor picked members of the board?

While the agreement includes Walker promising not to push for more abortion restrictions, there's no guarantee of what will actually happen if he gets elected.

What I see as significant about this move is the willingness of the Democrats to marry outside their religion - so to speak - in order to defeat Parnell.  Third party candidates have impacted Alaska gubernatorial elections in the past, and with Walker and Mallot likely to split their voters if they compete, people expected that Parnell would cruise to reelection.

So, What Are The Answers?

Were they desperate?  I don't know that that's the right word, but unless something quite remarkable happened, they weren't going to win the election.  The odds for the Walker/Mallot team are much better.  I would say that Mallot has the experience and knowledge and integrity that would be great in a governor, but not the skills that are great in a candidate.  Some of this may be cultural.  Modesty, not trying to bring attention to oneself, speaking slowly and deliberately have all been mentioned as characteristics of traditional Alaska Native cultures.  But modern American electioneering - the self-promotion, the need for snappy sound bytes - don't favor that style. 


Were they daring?   To the extent that they broke with politics as usual?  Absolutely.  They weren't hung up about not having a Democratic candidate running for governor.  They accepted Mallot running for Lt. Gov with a conservative Republican.  (Who changed his affiliation to Nonpartisan just before this happened.)  I was surprised by the reporters at the press conference who harped on Walker's changing to Nonpartisan and on Mallot's 'abandoning' the people who voted for him as the Democratic governor candidate.  Yes, there might be a few people who aren't into daring, but there will always be people who can't handle change. 

I think that the 89-2 vote by the Democratic central committee suggests that they felt it would take them from a certain Parnell victory to a good chance of a Parnell defeat.  And I'm sure they would say that was more important than some hypothetical obligation to primary voters in this instance. 

And it's daring in the risky sense, because if Walker is elected, there's no telling what he will actually do as governor.  Lt. Govs have been left out in the cold before.  I wonder to what extent Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell's speedy approval of this plan was partly in reaction to how he's been treated by Parnell.  And Walker promised that Mallot would be in the governor's office, not 300 feet away. 

People have had time to watch Walker.  Mallot said that on the election trail the last year, he's grown to know and respect Walker, and Walker said the same of Mallot.  My sense is that Walker's zeal is for energy issues and a gas pipeline and he can live without pushing conservative social issues.  But that does remain to be seen. 

I think the most attractive part of this ticket will be the bold action they've taken to break from traditional partisanship.   They aren't just talking nonpartisan - they've done it.   If the people who complain about how bad partisan politics has become are serious, then voting for Walker/Mallot is a way of showing it. 

And while Republicans have a large edge over Democrats in voter registration, more people are registered as Nonpartisan and Undeclared than as Democrats and Republicans combined.  (If you register as Independent in Alaska, that's really the Alaska Independence Party that's at times advocated for Alaska to secede from the US.  Nonpartisan means you aren't connected to any party, and Undeclared means you don't want to say.)


So, I'd say this was a daring act spurred by the belief that there was not way the Democrats or Walker, both running separately, could defeat Parnell.  It will stir up an election already packed with initiatives (legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum wage, and  protecting Bristol Bay salmon ostensibly from Pebble Mine) and one of the most expensive US Senate races in the country between Sen. Mark Begich and Dan Sullivan.  There's also an Anchorage Municipal referendum to repeal a controversial labor ordinance.    



Below is video from the Tuesday (September 2, 2014) announcement at the Captain Cook Hotel.  First, Mallot, and then Walker.  So you can get a sense of these two candidates yourselves.




Here's Walker.






More photos of the press conference are at this previous post.

Walker and Mallot First Public Appearance As Running Mates

Mallot and Walker

Time doesn't wait for lazy bloggers and my post about the unprecedented abandonment of a Democratic candidacy for governor wasn't finished when it was time to get to the Captain Cook to see the new election team.

So I'll put up some pictures here and give a few highlights.  Then I'll go back to the original post and finish it. [UPDATE Sept 4:  Here it is with video.]





Craig Fleenor, Walker's original running mate, opened things up with what would be one of the themes of the day - this is not about me, it's about what's best for Alaska.  Hollis French was not there, but Walker said he was part of the discussions leading to this decision and he had been invited. 

The audience

Judging from the number of media in the audience at the Captain Cook's Quarterdeck, you'll be seeing and hearing plenty of video and getting lots of accounts of what happened.


Mallot spoke first, surrounded by his wife and son. He spoke of how this came about - the polls strongly said he couldn't win if both he and Walker ran.  He said that the two had become friends at debates where Gov. Parnell did not show up. 

It was a hard decision and if the Party hadn't approved, he would have kept on as a Democrat. 

Mallot did allow that while the two were sitting in the back of a four-wheeler in Gamble, he did wonder what would happen if Walker fell out. 


Walker, surrounded by his wife, some of his kids, and Mallot,  said that Wally Hickel had introduced him in this very room when he ran for Governor last time.  He noted that Hickel told him he should run as an independent, not as a Republican.  "He was right."

He called himself a conservative, and in response to questions, said they were running on fiscal and energy issues, not social issues.  He would leave abortion laws as they are and he had no interest in vouchers.  He's not running on social issues.



The major theme seemed to be:  end to politics as usual, end to partisanship, his government would be peopled with qualified candidates regardless of political affiliation.

He also said that the Lt. governor's office would be in with the governor's office, not 300 feet away.  They would work as a team.

Another theme was integrity and honesty - at one point Mallot said people would have to trust him, that they should look at what he's said in the past and what he's done.  This skeptic, based on what I've heard about these two candidates in the past and saw today, these are two, as Mallot said, "very principled men."

When asked what this administration would be known for in after their first term, Walker listed:

• Lowering the cost of energy in Alaska
• Education improvements
• An administration that went where other were uncomfortable to go
• Infrastructure improvements
• The gas pipeline
• Action, not so much talking and studying

When asked about the difference between Walker/Mallot and Parnell, Walker said:

• Leadership - there isn't any now
• Putting Alaska first
• Listening, reaching out
• No party lines - if it's good for Alaska, we'll do it

He also made the state deficit a key focus.  The governor's budget office foresees deficit spending for the next ten years.  We have to acknowledge it, do something about it, stop studying.  There were no vetoes of the capital budget by the governor.  We can't keep doing that.  No more no-bid contracts for work like the LIO remodeling.

"We need an owner of the ranch, not a ranch hand, as governor."


There was a sense of excitement in the room.  This decision - a Republican and a Democrat joining together - certainly is a dramatic action rather than just words.