Governor, Commissioners And Legislative/Administration Pay Raise Process Badly Flawed

Are the Alaska State Officers Compensation Commission pay raise recommendations for the governor, his commissioners, and the legislature reasonable?  My basic response is "No."  First round, the Commission only recommended raises for the administrative branch (governor and department commissioners), but not legislative branch.  The legislature rejected it.  All the members of the Commission then were either removed or resigned and governor appointed a whole new board which came up with new recommendations in a matter of days including a 67% increase for legislators.  

I'm going to take a look at this from human resources perspective.  While this isn't something I've spent my life on, I did teach human resources at the graduate level including compensation and I was involved in a major classification study at the Municipality of Anchorage - from helping write the RFP to working with the consultants - so I know a little more than the average person about how this should work.

Here are the basic issues for me: 

1. Compensation changes in large organizations are usually preceded by a study that gathers relevant data which becomes the basis and justification for the changes.  The final report also would discuss the fiscal implications of increases in compensation.  The report the Commission posted on its website in January is NOT a serious compensation study.
2. Traditionally, commissioners of state departments, like US cabinet officers, serve for a relatively brief time.  It's been considered an honor to serve one's state or country and good commissioners are respected for taking a break in the careers to serve the public.  Those coming from the private sector often take a cut in pay to serve.  Such servicet also makes someone more desirable for jobs after their service because they better understand how government works and they have personal connections that can be helpful.  So prestige and public service, but not a high salary, have been the traditional remuneration for these kinds of jobs.  No one seems to have discussed this. 
3. The Commission did not follow the steps listed in the statutes that establishes the Commission.
4. Given that the first Commission recommendation was no raise for the legislature, and the second Commission's recommendation was a huge raise, there's the appearance that the governor was really offering the legislature a bribe so that he could get his own salary and those of his commissioners raised.  This is obviously speculation.  But it's consistent with the governor's reelection campaign where he basically offered voters a higher Permanent Fund check if they reelected him.

That's the gist of this post.  If you want more details see below.  

[I'm trying to give you some headlines to act as guideposts, but separating out the issues so neatly also hides the interconnectivity of the issues.  I'm doing my best but also mindful if I wait to make this perfect, the issue will no longer be current.]

How to determine fair pay

There is no foolproof way to do this, but human resources experts have come up  two standard, general approaches to calculating salary:

• What is a job worth?  Classification and Pay studies try, in the simplest terms, to examine the duties of each job , the qualifications required  for each job, and the value that work contributes to the organization. You can see more details here.  It's an imperfect system at best as it tries to pin down and quantify many qualities that can't be quantified in a system that is constantly changing.  
• Market analysis looks at what specific jobs get paid in other organizations in order to determine what pay must be given to compete for workers.  This works best for common job types, but less so for more specialized positions.  This system tends to keep high wage jobs high and low wage jobs low.   You can learn more about this process here.

Large organizations often do a combination, trying balance both those strategies.  

Commission Doesn't Seem To Have Done That

The Alaska Compensation Commission proposed significant raises.  There is no evidence they did any serious data gathering or analysis to arrive at their recommendations.  The Compensation Report at the Commission's website basically says it was decided to increase legislative salaries by 2% a year to match inflation, but that hasn't been done.  So let's add up all those years and bingo, here's the number.  (OK, I'm being slightly facetious here.  You can see the study here.  Don't worry.  It's short. Two and a quarter pages, and that includes the cover page.)

This is NOT the serious report one would expect.  The posted one was dated January 24, 2023.  That's the one that didn't recommend any increases for legislators and was quickly voted down by those legislators.  

The new Commission, quickly created after the legislature turned down the original Commission's recommendations, doesn't have a study up on the website, presumably because there was no time to actually do one between their appointment and their recommendation a couple of days later.  

Basically, the January report  reads more like something written by a bunch a guys meeting to play poker one night, but they have to get this recommendation out before they play cards.  

"What do you think guys?  

"Is this fair?" 

"Yeah sure, that sounds good." 

"We're done.  Start dealing."

That is NOT how you run an efficient and effective organization.  This is a good old boys style of operating.   

Do we know what the cumulative costs of 60 legislators (40 house members and 20 Senators) would be?  No. 

What about the impact on the state employees' health system and retirement system?  

What do we compare ourselves to?

Was there any consideration of how much Alaskans get paid compared to other state legislators?  There is in a comment or two that observers made after the proposal went public, but was that part of their discussion?  The Juneau Empire writes very briefly about that:

"Alaska ranked 12th in legislative salaries in 2022, although it also is among 10 states that are classified as full-time legislatures whose members receive an average salary of $82,258, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. The raises would rank Alaska fourth among all states in 2022 (although other states’ salaries may have also changed since then), with California topping the list at $119,702 (plus roughly $210 in per diem)." (emphasis added)

Full time legislatures? 

Is that from discussion among Commission members or research the Juneau Empire did?  But even so, while the Alaska Legislature has exceeded its 90 day limit regularly in the last few years, calling it a full time legislature is something of stretch.  Certainly it's not a full time permanent legislature.  It meets for four or five months full time, then lots of members go back to their regular jobs.  Do we want to continue with part time, amateur legislators?  Do we want professional legislators?  More on this below.

Size of population, land mass?

And how do we compare based on populations of the states?  Alaska is the third smallest state (after Vermont and Wyoming)  How difficult is being an Alaskan legislature compared to legislatures of other states?  Ours is  the smallest legislature in the country. By a lot, compared to most states, though a few - Delaware, Nevada - are close to our size. One could argue that means more work per legislator, or one could argue it means far fewer people to deal with and negotiate with which should make it easier.

Alaskan is also the largest state geographically, with at least one house district larger than many states, yet with few roads.  On the other hand,  manyAnchorage legislators could walk across their districts in an afternoon.  It does seem reasonable evaluate pay of Alaska legislators based on how much it costs 

• to get to and from Juneau
• to meet with their constituents (though electronic meetings are much more common these days, the reliability of internet can be terrible in many remote villages)

Other considerations that were raised in media coverage

Alaska Public Media reports that Senate President Gary Stevens said,

“I think the younger folks that are entering the Legislature, they deserve to have a livable wage,”

Compensation Commission Member Larry LeDoux is  quoted in the Juneau Empire:

“I think if we’re really going to have a citizen legislature we need to have a salary that will allow citizens to maintain their households while they serve in the Legislature.”

  One could argue that a citizen legislature is a more amateur legislature and shouldn't get paid professional salaries.  

Professional or Amateur ("Citizen Legislator")

Do we have a citizen legislature or a professional legislature?  What does 'professional' legislator even mean?  One with many years of experience in the legislature?  Or one with educational training and work experience in a field relevant to understanding the issues facing the state?  

Surely we have a number of legislators who would qualify as 'professional' by those definitions.  But we also have people whose basic qualification is that they are residents of Alaska with a party brand that is in the majority of their districts.  And some sort of name recognition in that district helps.

Amateur suggests this is public service more than a career.  That they just need enough to get by for a term or two.  But people get addicted to the Juneau summer camp atmosphere and to the prestige that comes with being called Representative or Senator.  And after two terms as a Representative or just one term as a Senator - the next term vests them in the State retirement system.   But I appreciate the argument.  I'd note that I did spend a session in Juneau blogging the legislature on my own dime.  It's doable, but my kids were on their own by then.   

Former legislator Adam Wool from Fairbanks wrote in a March 29, 2023  letter to the editor in response    (sorry there's a pay wall) :

"But I feel compelled to counter the narrative I’ve been hearing lately that the current pay is not sufficient to entice legislators with young families to come to Juneau. As a legislator who had a young family, I find this untrue.

The salary of $50,000 per year, although not great is what a beginning teacher makes, and although it isn’t high, it isn’t low for a job that is only full-time for four months per year. The job also includes full medical benefits and a pension plan, another draw for a young family.

The tax-free per diem of $300 per day while in Juneau is much more than adequate. Many of us paid around $1,500 per month in rent; some even had roommates, which made it lower. A few rented bigger houses, some owned condos and one even lived on a boat he owned. Between restaurants, cooking at home, eating in the legislative lounge and the various dinners and receptions we attended, food totaled around another $1,500 per month. Altogether, that leaves about $6,000 per month of untaxed income to send home, making the salary closer to $80,000 per year."

Nat Herz, a reporter who covers the legislature, thinks they should get the salary raise, but cut out the per diem.  That's not an unreasonable suggestion - though it has tax consequences for the legislators.  

These are the kind of things a good compensation study would have looked at in detail instead of making broad generalization about pay and then suggesting a huge increase without any back-up data.

We also heard from the governor and a legislator that the State department commissioners' salaries were too low in an Anchorage Daily News article about the first recommendations that were voted down by the legislature:

"[Senator] Stevens said Dunleavy has told him that he has struggled to hire commissioners on their current $125,000-per-year salaries. Eagle River Rep. Dan Saddler, who worked at Division of Natural Resources between stints serving in the Legislature, said $125,000 may sound like a lot of money, but that it can be an impediment to hiring highly skilled administrators.

“There are more opportunities in the private sector for people with those administrative talents,” he said."

 

In it for the money or to do public service? 

 This, again, gets back to the issue of whether being a commissioner is a regular job that people apply for because of the pay, or a way for a seasoned professional to spend a few years taking a cut in pay to do public service.  

A Brookings Institute study in 2002 which looked at Federal appointee salaries (not just cabinet secretaries) did not put much emphasis on the public service motive, but did say this:

"People who accept top federal appointments derive non-monetary benefits from their service, of course, and these benefits help to explain why government service continues to attract outstanding candidates. Many public-spirited Americans are eager to serve in influential or high-profile positions, even if the financial rewards are far below those obtainable in a private-sector job. Experience in a senior government job allows workers to acquire skills, knowledge, and reputation that may have considerable value outside the government. Few appointees say they are forced to accept a big cut in earnings when they leave federal office. More than one-third of the appointees who served between 1984 and 1999 say they modestly or significantly increased their earning power as a result of holding a senior administration job (Light and Thomas, 2000, p. 35)." (emphasis added)

The Center for Presidential Transition, answering the question "I Was Offered a Political Appointment—How Much Will I Be Paid?" in 2020, writes: 

 "The government does not pay senior officials the kind of money typically found in the private sector. In the government, you may run a multi-billion-dollar program with thousands of employees and make less (sometimes much less) than $200,000 per year. You should also not be surprised if you receive a political appointment and have subordinates who make more than you. Career employee pay is much more controlled by statute and regulations, and is not connected to the pay of political appointees."(emphasis added)

So what's a reasonable pay level for Alaska state commissioners? Chron  lists the salaries of the top appointees in the US federal government:

"Level I Officials [highest Federal level]

Twenty-one federal officials have Level I jobs and earn $210,700 annually, as of 2018. These positions include all cabinet secretaries, such as secretary of state, secretary of defense and secretary of education, as well as the U.S. attorney general, U.S. trade representative, the director of the Office of Management of Budget, the commission of Social Security for the Social Security Administration, the director of the National Drug Control Policy in the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the director of national intelligence."

I doubt that any Alaska commissioners have more responsibility than the top people in the US President's staff.  So this is easily a ceiling figure, though one could also argue being a Commissioner in Alaska doesn't carry the prestige of being a Cabinet member in Washington DC.

The Commission's Process Doesn't Follow Statutes

The Alaska Statutes clearly spell out some procedures the Compensation Board is supposed to follow:

(c) The commission shall meet at the call of the chair. Notice of a meeting shall be mailed to each member at least 20 days before the date scheduled for the meeting.

(d) The commission shall meet to discuss its findings and recommendations at least twice before submitting its final report to the presiding officers of each house of the legislature and the governor.

They did not give 20 days notice.  They came up with their recommendations in about two days after being appointed.  

They do not seem to have met twice.  And if their "final report" is just the salary recommendations with no data to support those recommendations, they truly have no defensible basis for their recommendations.  

There is no evidence they met twice.  

What can the Legislature do now? 

I'm not 100% sure.  I can't find the statute that says what the legislature can do with the Commission's recommendation.  I'm not sure one exists.  

I did call Rep. Andy Josephson because he's a lawyer and until the last Redistricting Board changed the boundaries of his district, he has been my representative.  I asked how much leeway the legislature has to change the Commission's recommendation.  He thought they could vote for part but not all, but they couldn't change it.  He said there was a statute, but couldn't immediately find it.  He also said that since the legislature writes the statute, they could also change it.  But, I responded, that defeats the idea of having an independent commission, rather than the legislators themselves, setting the legislative compensation.  He agreed.  

Rep. Josephson also reinforced the idea that this was a pre-arranged deal.  That the Commission was set up to make this proposal.  And since the Governor appoints the members, I understood that this came from the Governor's office.  

Should the legislature approve the recommendations, could a member of the public sue because the Commission didn't follow its procedures?  Anyone can sue, but I'm not sure how the courts would respond.  

Last observation about the work the Commission should have done

Over the last few days, spending maybe 3-5 total hours on this, I'm offering you a lot more information about how to think about appropriate salaries than the State's Compensation Commission offered in their January report.  The second Commission hasn't even posted their report, and given they came up with salary recommendations in about two days, I'm guessing they have no report.  Though, what I've written is hardly a comprehensive salary survey and analysis that would normally be the basis of a professional report, it's way beyond how the Commission considered its recommendations.  

Conclusion

The jobs of governor, state department heads, and legislators are fairly specialized and unique.  Unlike organizations with hundreds of types of jobs, there are only a few types of jobs here and not that many comparables - the 50 states and the federal government.  This sort of study is probably much easier and could be done in less time than such a study for Conoco-Phillips or the Municipality of Anchorage.  It's not that hard, but the Commission didn't even make a symbolic effort to outline the issue and justify their recommendations.

The salary commissioners have let Alaska down. Their work is unprofessional and highly unworthy of the people of Alaska. They didn't even follow the statutory process.   Our legislators need a fair compensation package, not a wholesale giveaway to get them to approve salary increases for the governor and his cabinet officials.  

The legislature should reject these recommendations and ask the governor to commission a serious compensation study.  Or the legislature could commission its own study.  From what I can tell, they don't have the power (and shouldn't) to set their own salaries. Such a study would give them a basis for voting yes or no on the recommendations and/or could form a basis for the Compensation Commission to make new recommendations.  

That's how things should go, from a legal and rational perspective.  But this has become a very political (not partisan that I can tell) decision.  

Who Signed Petitions To Recall Dunleavy? Here Are Some Folks Who Did Today In Anchorage

I got there a little before 5pm.  There were lots of folks already.

Vic Fischer, one of the writers of the Alaska Constitution and one of the sponsors of the recall petition being interviewed.








And below are some of the people who signed this evening.  Mostly I left out faces.  For those whose faces are in here and want them out, my email is in the upper right.  Let me know.  I've also blurred signatures that I thought might be legible on petitions.

Alaska Now Is Like a Home Invasion - What Do You Do When Your Governor Is The Terrorist Destroying Your State?

Imagine people in your house hauling out your furniture, setting off bombs in different rooms, and tearing out the wiring, plumbing, and foundation and nobody can do anything about it.

If someone physically destroys university property, he can be arrested.  But if the governor destroys the university through line-item vetoes, and he's got 22 legislators on his side, we're just screwed.

It's like watching a terrorist in slow motion, like in a dream in which you can't move. This is what's happening in Alaska.  The governor is systematically destroying the state.  This is no hyperbole, no exaggeration.  And we're struggling to figure out how to stop him.

Brother Francis Dunleavy

"JPMorgan Chase JPM  agreed to pay $410 million to settle charges with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for manipulating electricity prices in the same markets Enron used to play its dirty tricks." And who did the dirty tricks for them? "Saddled with loss producing assets, the team at the Houston-based principle investments unit developed several bidding strategies which turned out some juicy profits.  Reporting directly to Masters, [Francis] Dunleavy and his team showed how “asset optimization strateg[ies]” managed to  turn out tens of millions of dollars in profits from units that lost millions at market rates."  From Forbes.

Our governor got elected with considerable financial and other backing from his brother Francis and from the Koch brothers (via their Alaskans for Prosperity).  And now he's making our state defenseless in the face of Outside resource extractors by destroying the independent expertise at the university that can challenge rosy corporate reports that assert 'no harm will be done.  The environment will be better when we are finished.'  And destroying the government's ability to monitor what they do.  And setting up a brain drain that will set the state back to Territorial days.

Once in office the Kochs gave him Donna Arduin (who practiced trashing states in Illinois, California, Kansas and Florida) to start taking apart those government structures that people most use - education, health, the Alaska ferry. The university is taking a 40% hit (which will cost much more in federal and private grants.) Even normally conservative Republican legislators have joined with Democrats to put the money back into the budget. But enough Republican legislators (22) held with the governor and the legislature couldn't get the necessary 75% of the legislature to override the governor's vetoes.



There have been protests in the streets, at the legislature. People have overwhelmingly testified against the cuts at every legislative hearing. People have called, emailed, and mailed legislators and the governor.  People are reading the parts of the constitution that talk about impeachment and recall and trying to figure out if the language covers his actions.  The constitution does require the state to " establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State, and may provide for other public educational institutions."  The University Board of Regents has already declared financial exigency.
The constitution also says "[t]he legislature shall provide for the promotion and protection of public health."  The Mayor of Anchorage has already declared a Civil Emergency in anticipation of the impacts of the governor's budget cuts on health and safety and homelessness.

Lawyers are, I'm told, working on lawsuits to stop this madness.

Not unlike at the national level, Alaskans are trying to figure out how to stop invaders, who got into the governor's mansion via election,  from destroying the state as we know it.

Our instincts tell us to keep within legal bounds as we watch him cut vital organs out of the university and kill the Alaska Marine Highway - the only 'road' that goes to many communities.  Imagine a governor bombing major highways so they are totally unusable.  That's what he's doing.

Everyone would love to physically remove the governor from our house to stop the damage.  Or twist the arms of enough (8) legislators until they vote to override the vetoes.  When is a coup justified?  We're too used to the rule of law, we don't know what to do when our elected leader, violates all norms of public participation, is set on destroying key institutions, and is immune to the pleas of the overwhelming majority of the population?

Letters to the editors use logic and reason, but our governor's logical assumptions are rooted in the orders he gets from the Koch brothers and their representatives, not the residents of Alaska and their representatives.  His mantra is "balanced budget, $3000 Permanent Fund Dividends, and no taxes" an unworkable formula.

When the dust settles, we'll probably find lots of legal violations on the governor's part.  One of his first moves was to privatize the Alaska Psychiatric Institute and turn it over, in a no-bid contract, to an Outside company with ties to Donna Arduin.  I'm sure there are lots of other acts like that.

While people continue to do battle some of us need to be working on the emergency recovery plans, but I don't think FEMA helps out with human caused disasters. (Well, they do help if someone causes a forest fire, but if your elected officials are the vandals?)

Obviously this is not just an Alaskan dilemma.  The White House has similarly been invaded.  But the attack on the university and its research capabilities is particularly troubling and a warning to people in other states.  This war on public education and science is, at least partially, aimed at making it harder to fight corporate 'expertise.'  This is going to happen in other states if it hasn't already.

Puerto Rico Got Rid Of Its Governor. Alaska, Now It's Our Turn

Puerto Ricans got 25,000 people out in the streets to protest their governor and after about a week he's announced his resignation.

Alaska's governor, apparently taking orders from his Outside handlers, is poised to destroy Alaska as we know it.  As I've written before, the only explanation that makes sense to me is that the Koch brothers want to defund government so that there are no obstacles for Outside corporations to plunder Alaska's resources.  No university scientists to challenge their reports, no government regulators to monitor their activities, no public processes to hinder their profits.  And, based on what happened at the Dunleavy chaired hearings a few years ago on Erin's Law, he personally would like to weaken public schools to the point that people either home school or demand vouchers for private schools, including religious schools.

Our university's Board of Regents has already declared financial exigency because of the budget cuts, and Anchorage's Mayor has declared Civil Emergency because of the impact of cuts on health and safety.

Puerto Rico's population is around 3 million. (Google searches give a variety of numbers, many estimates based on the 2010 census data, plus an AP report from April saying the population has dropped 4% since Hurricane Maria.  So, for my purposes here, 3 million is close enough.)

25,000  is .8% of Puerto Rico's population.  Yes, less than 1%.

Alaska's population was 736,239 in 2018 according to the State Department of Labor.  So, if we go for 1% of our population, that would be 7369.  7000 is a good round number.

So, if all the groups that are working to overturn the Governor's draconian (yes, that term has been used in the past, but this time it's not metaphorical) can get together and we can get 7000 people to rally around the Atwood Building - 550 W 7th Ave - where the governor's Anchorage office is, for a week, maybe we can get the kind of attention Puerto Rico has gotten.  I don't think we can persuade Dunleavy to resign.  He's not paying attention to Alaskans.  But maybe we can get some more momentum for overriding his vetoes and/or impeachment.

Is this an achievable number?  It's a tiny fraction of our population, but when that many people take to the streets, as Puerto Rico has shown, people pay attention.  We don't need the same 7000 people every day.  And if smaller rallies appear in other towns and villages, the world would notice.

Large rallies should be in addition to all the other pressures being put on our politicians to save Alaska form this impending calamity.

Gubernatorial Debate - Walker, Begich, Toien, But No Dunleavy [UPDATE - Walker's Lt. Gov Resigns] [2nd UPDATE]

UAA, the ADN, and a few others sponsored a debate at UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium, Monday evening from 5;30pm to 7pm.


It was a pretty low-key affair with each candidate showing courtesy and significant agreement with each other.  My quick crowd estimate (counting people in a few rows and then counting how many rows) gave me a 200-300 estimate.  

Current Governor Bill Walker, Independent, was sincere, practical, sounding a bit frustrated that the legislature wouldn't do the responsible thing and create an overall fiscal plan including new revenues.  He was critical of the fact that they had used up, I believe he said, 80% of the budget reserves in the last four years.

Former US Senator and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, Democrat, had similar themes though he also argued strongly that the Permanent Fund needs Constitutional protections or politicians will use it up.  He also called for new revenues.

Libertarian candidate Billy Toien's take was a little different.  He pointed to stacks of documents - 30 years of budget data he claimed - and said there is no crisis.  He argued that there were various special funds - I think he said about 50 - that should all be put into the general budget and the deficit would go away.  Some were mentioned - like the Alaska Aerospace Corporation and the Alaska Railroad.  I'm skeptical that moving them all into the general budget would solve our fiscal problems, but it raises the issue of whether these units get considered for cuts during budget time in the same way that regular government agencies do.

Toien, unlike Walker and Begich, was opposed to all new taxes and existing taxes and seemed to believe that the additional revenues generated by putting the independent units' funds into the general budget should be distributed to the people of Alaska.

Republican Mike Dunleavy, we were told, had a conflicting engagement and wasn't there.  His presence probably would have added some lively debate.  And he was criticized by the other three - they said he was making short term promises with no eye on the future and that all the things he promised - maintaining the permanent fund and current services, plus cutting the budget, and no new revenues - were impossible to achieve.


I thought Begich and Walker treated Toien with the sort of condescending respect one would use for a little kid who participates in an adult activity.   But everyone was very cordial.

There were three ADN journalist who were given a chance to ask question.

Tegan Hanlon.

Annie Zak and Tom Hewitt.  I wasn't taking notes, but all the questions were pretty routine.  Things like, what is on the top of your list of things to cut?

I was waiting for one of the candidates to mention KABATA (the Knik Arm Bridge And Toll Authority), but no one did.

Toien came across to me as the kind of guy who has latched on to a couple of ideas that may, by themselves, have some merit.  But that they were utterly untethered from the bigger picture.

Walker is sincere and has 'the adult in the room' sort of tone.  He takes his job seriously but it seemed all process - we have to do things reasonably, take the revenues seriously - and little content, and he didn't spell out why he would be more successful with the next legislature than he has been so far.

Begich was able, as he always has been, to talk fluently about facts on all sorts of issues and tie things together.  He has the enviable ability to smile and respond with humor to anyone, even those whose ideas he is totally opposed to.  I would have like to see how he interacted with Dunleavy.

Dunleavy appears to believe, as do many Alaskans, that he has the election in the bag because Begich and Walker will cut into each others' vote count.  So he can just skip forums like this one.  If that's true, Alaska is in for a rough next four years.  Begich's strategy on entering the race - that he or Walker would drop out after the primary when it was clear which had the better chance against Dunleavy - hasn't worked out.

[UPDATE Oct 16, 2018 4pm:  Walker's Lt. Gov Byron Mallott resigned last night, apparently due to comments made about women or to a women.  The Governor has replaced him with Valerie Nurr’araaluk Davidson, Director of Rural and Native Affairs.  See ADN for more details.  It's amazing how quickly many Democratic men step down after an incident like this compared to Republican men.]

[UPDATE Oct. 16, 2018 5pm:  A FaceBook post 15 minutes ago::
Kate Laird: This is the most interesting bit: Asked whether Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Begich could replace Mallott on the lieutenant governor ticket, akin to the formation of the 2014 “unity ticket” between Mallott and Walker, Heckendorn [Walker's campaign manager] said, “We have been in conversations with Begich about the best way to move forward for Alaska, and those conversations will continue. We’ve been in conversations before we had any idea of what had happened with Byron. We’ve been in conversations with Begich for a few days about how to move forward in a way that’s best for Alaska.” <nevermind my minor question about why they couldn't have had that chat before ballots were printed ...>]

Why is Mark Begich Running For Governor? Tom Begich Explains

Like a lot of people, apparently, I was surprised and concerned when Mark Begich threw his name into the Governor's race.  A three way race could well give the office to the likes of Mike Dunleavy.  (I'm afraid my opinion of Dunleavy is not very positive, though I acknowledge it's based on one event - the hearings he chaired in Anchorage during a special session.  His committee's task was simply to pass a bill - Bree's Law, to teach kids to defend themselves from sexual predators -  that the Senate had passed unanimously the previous year but the House hadn't gotten too.  The House subsequently passed it and now the Senate merely needed to pass it one more time.  It should have taken five minutes.  It took days.  Dunleavy tried to water down bill and add his own - already rejected during the regular session - amendments.  Here's one of the posts that sums up much of those hearings.)

I consoled myself and others about Begich's decision by saying, "Mark is a good politician and candidate, he knows the issues and he is a real extrovert.  But much more important is that he wouldn't jump in this race without talking to his brother, State Senator Tom Begich. And Tom knows the numbers of Alaska politics better than just about anyone else.  I know this, and got to know Tom, when I was covering the Alaska Redistricting Board.  Tom was at most meetings along with his equally knowledgeable Republican counterpart Randy Ruedrich.

So, when I saw Tom at the immigration rally on Saturday, I gave him pretty much that preface I gave others.  Here's what he answered.  [It was noisy Saturday.  There was music and lots of people talking around us.  The audio is mostly understandable, but I've made a transcript.  There were a few parts I wasn't completely sure of, but nothing that changes the basic meaning.  The transcript follows the video.]



Reasonably close transcript:

Steve:  Tom
Tom:  Hey Steve, how’re you doing?
Steve:  I trust your judgment . . .
Tom:  I’m glad
Steve:  . . . But I’m really concerned about Mark jumping into the race, so tell me why this is happening.  Is this going to lose the race altogether?
Tom:  Not a chance.  When you look at the numbers we use  to analyze the race, what is . . . the key  here is to make sure a progressive is elected governor of the state of Alaska. I spent time talking to the Governor, the Lt. Governor, and others.  My brother.  Facilitating for the last week before the filing deadline.
And you know, it was our belief, based on the data, based on those discussions, that the governor wasn’t going to be in a position to win this race.  And, you know, we can’t sacrifice a progressive agenda, we can’t take that risk.  The imperative was to be sure that the strongest progressive candidate was in the race.  And that that candidate was part of our base party.  Try to remember, our primary is open to Independents and Democrats.  The Governor was ??? going to be in that primary and changed his mind.  That’s a problem.  There would have been another D probably if Mark hadn’t filed.  And Mark would have been, was, is the strongest D.
I never would have supported my brother getting into this race if I didn’t think he could win this race, and I’m certain that he can.  That being said, the question is how do we all come together as progressives?  There’s not a lot of hostility here between the Governor or between my brother.  What there is, is the need to have the strongest candidate face Mike Dunleavy.

Look, we’re talking about the situation now where the Supreme Court at the Federal level where you’re going to have Choice at risk, LGBT rights at risk.  There are a number of things that are going to take strong governance at the local level to ??? those issues.  Mark is the best candidate by far for that.
So with all that said, I believe Mark has the wherewithal to do it and the ability to do it.
Let me add one last thing.  Mark as the Democratic candidate brings other resources to the table.  The Democratic Governors’ Association resources, DFC resources that otherwise wouldn’t be coming to the state.  [http://www.democraticfreedomcaucus.org]   That’s going to help our down-ballot races, which matters a lot.
I know that both campaigns are going to continue to talk throughout this process, throughout the primary.  I’m certain that at the end of August, everybody will sit down and talk about who’s in third, who’s in second and make the right decisions.  I just believe that’ll happen.  But if it doesn’t happen, we have data that shows Mark wins a three horse race and he’s the stronger candidate in a two horse race.  And that’s what matters.  We have to win for progressives, we have to win.
Steve:  So you’re saying, if Mark didn’t get in the race, Dunleavy would have won anyway?
Tom:  I believe that to be true, yes.
Steve:  Thank you very much.
Tom:  You’re welcome.  

After I stopped the camera, I did ask Tom about the data he was basing this on.  He mentioned some polls, but pointed specifically to a poll that had been posted on Midnight Sun which showed, in a three-way race,  Dunleavy with 38%,  Mark Begich with 33%, and Walker with 23%.  These numbers were based on Begich having just gotten into the race and not having done any campaigning.   He also said that the Permanent Fund was really hurting Walker.  He also pointed out that Walker was a pro-life Republican.  He'd lost in a previous Republican primary so last round he entered as an Independent.  Walker and the Democratic candidate - Alaska Native and former head of the Alaska Permanent Fund Byron Mallott - realized that neither could beat the Republican Sean Parnell in a three way race.  So their Lt. Governor partners bowed out and Mallot joined as the Lt. Governor candidate with Walker as the candidate for Governor.  And they won.  Walker's main goal at the time was to build a natural gas pipeline, force the oil companies to release the natural gas they had on the North Slope, and ship the gas to Asia.  While there is action on that project and an agreement has been signed with a Chinese partners, there is also a lot of skepticism about whether it will ever be built.

If the poll numbers don't change much by August - or if Begich moves up - would Walker be willing to step out of the race?  The Democrats did that in 2014 to help Walker get elected.   I imagine he'd want Begich to commit to the pipeline and perhaps be given a position to lead that fight.  Walker has acted as a rational adult in Juneau- at least as I saw it, making decisions based on facts and practical realities rather than ideology.  But his cutting back the Alaska Permanent Fund while the Republicans blocked any other sources of revenue - recouping the oil taxes they cut earlier, an income tax, even a sales tax - doesn't sit well with Alaskans.