I ran into three legislative spouses lunching together Wednesday at the Silverbough. Spice (that's the alternate plural, right?) Sid Atwood (Rep. Cissna), Tina Seaton (Rep. Seaton), and Kayla Epstein (Rep. Gruenberg) were plotting, it turns out, to sell daffodils for the American Cancer Society. They had over three hundred bunches. Even for the Cancer Society spring comes later in the rest of Alaska. Their daffodil drives aren't until later in March.
Today it looked like every office in the Capitol had daffodils. Nice, because it's gray with snowflakes outside.
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Thursday, March 11, 2010
Snow Run
I was getting used to no snow. Then Monday morning everything was white. Tuesday it was all gone. Then Wednesday everything was white again. But I needed to go run and Basin Road is close. As I ran, part of me said, "You keep going the same trail, you'll run out of things to take pictures of." And then I realized there were billions of pictures out there.
The snow wasn't deep. I figured the avalanche danger wasn't great with a one inch base.
The snow wasn't deep. I figured the avalanche danger wasn't great with a one inch base.
What a great place to clear my head.
Sexual Assault Prevention Month and the UA President Search
Tuesday HCR 20 came before the State Affairs Committee and Wednesday it was already approved on the floor of the House of Representatives. There were a number of speeches in support of the bill, a lot of statistics (Sponsor Rep. Fairclough said Alaskans are two and a half times more likely to be the victims of rape than residents of any other state), and wringing of hands about how horrific this situation is. And a few people, I remember Rep. Joule specifically, called on their colleagues to do more than make proclamations, that they should fund the programs that fight sexual assault.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Regents Candidly Talk Procedure, Sports Center, and Land with U. Booster Caucus
Monday, the University Booster Caucus had an informal meeting with three of the University of Alaska Regents, Mary Hughes, Carl Marrs, and Robert Martin. The video has three segments.
1. Regent Hughes answers a question from the Caucus: "Some of our colleagues say that the regents don't really read their packets and are just a rubber stamp for the president of the university. How would you respond to that?"
2. Regent Marrs responds to Rep. Pete Petersen's question about the progress of the sports center at UAA.
3. Regent Marrs responds to a question, and follow up question by Rep. Berta Gardner, on the land grant legislation before the legislature now.
Below the video are some quotes from the video. This morning I heard a good wrap up on yesterday's resolution of the land grant issues on KTOO, but I can't find the piece on the APRN website. (I'm sure that's my problem, not theirs.) Basically, as i recall it through my just waking up haze, they put restrictions on logging and made decisions about which parcels to include and which to exclude. For those with a particular interest in this, I've posted the audio portion of the Community and Regional Affairs Committee meeting yesterday that discussed this. It's at the bottom of the post.
Regent Marrs on UAA Sports Center:
"It's on our list, but it's not on the priority list of the short term for the University we're more student oriented toward the learning process than we were toward that type of facility to have state funding."
Regent Marrs on proposals to give land to the University:
"What we've really done is laid off a chunk of DNR's costs to the University and the funds go back to the general fund with really no guarantee of us getting that. That's not a good deal for the university."
"There are other ways of slicing this cake and making it work."
"The legal side of this on all those pieces of land, especially in Southeast, we're gonna end up with litigation on probably everything that we have."
"I really appreciate the House and Senate have recognized the obligation to grant land to the University, but if we're going to do that let's do it in a way that the University will benefit out of it and not have the sort of obligation to pay for it and maybe never get anything back."
Rep. Berta Gardner:
"First time I didn't support it because what I thought was going to happen is when the University came to the legislature and asked for funding somebody would say, "We just gave you a bunch of land, why are you asking us for money?" and that in fact did happen."
"It hands you potentially a bunch of lawsuits and all kinds of agitating from communities that don't want this section logged or developed or whatever.."
Regent Marrs:
"It is a land grant school and was set up that way...I think it's an obligation of the state's, it shouldn't have anything to do with the funding, it's something that was owed."
"We need to find a way to be able to transfer those lands to the University without creating this additional burden and not having any guarantee that we'll get anything back out of it if we do something with those lands. And that's the problem with the bill the way it was written."
"The backbone of Alaska is its land and I think the University deserves part of that backbone to operate in the future. Those lands may not produce anything for 50 years, but it's there."
Below is the audio portion from the Tuesday, March 9, 2010 of the House COMMUNITY & REGIONAL AFFAIRS which discussed HB 295 UNIVERSITY LAND GRANT
1. Regent Hughes answers a question from the Caucus: "Some of our colleagues say that the regents don't really read their packets and are just a rubber stamp for the president of the university. How would you respond to that?"
2. Regent Marrs responds to Rep. Pete Petersen's question about the progress of the sports center at UAA.
3. Regent Marrs responds to a question, and follow up question by Rep. Berta Gardner, on the land grant legislation before the legislature now.
Below the video are some quotes from the video. This morning I heard a good wrap up on yesterday's resolution of the land grant issues on KTOO, but I can't find the piece on the APRN website. (I'm sure that's my problem, not theirs.) Basically, as i recall it through my just waking up haze, they put restrictions on logging and made decisions about which parcels to include and which to exclude. For those with a particular interest in this, I've posted the audio portion of the Community and Regional Affairs Committee meeting yesterday that discussed this. It's at the bottom of the post.
Regent Marrs on UAA Sports Center:
"It's on our list, but it's not on the priority list of the short term for the University we're more student oriented toward the learning process than we were toward that type of facility to have state funding."
Regent Marrs on proposals to give land to the University:
"What we've really done is laid off a chunk of DNR's costs to the University and the funds go back to the general fund with really no guarantee of us getting that. That's not a good deal for the university."
"There are other ways of slicing this cake and making it work."
"The legal side of this on all those pieces of land, especially in Southeast, we're gonna end up with litigation on probably everything that we have."
"I really appreciate the House and Senate have recognized the obligation to grant land to the University, but if we're going to do that let's do it in a way that the University will benefit out of it and not have the sort of obligation to pay for it and maybe never get anything back."
Rep. Berta Gardner:
"First time I didn't support it because what I thought was going to happen is when the University came to the legislature and asked for funding somebody would say, "We just gave you a bunch of land, why are you asking us for money?" and that in fact did happen."
"It hands you potentially a bunch of lawsuits and all kinds of agitating from communities that don't want this section logged or developed or whatever.."
Regent Marrs:
"It is a land grant school and was set up that way...I think it's an obligation of the state's, it shouldn't have anything to do with the funding, it's something that was owed."
"We need to find a way to be able to transfer those lands to the University without creating this additional burden and not having any guarantee that we'll get anything back out of it if we do something with those lands. And that's the problem with the bill the way it was written."
"The backbone of Alaska is its land and I think the University deserves part of that backbone to operate in the future. Those lands may not produce anything for 50 years, but it's there."
Below is the audio portion from the Tuesday, March 9, 2010 of the House COMMUNITY & REGIONAL AFFAIRS which discussed HB 295 UNIVERSITY LAND GRANT
Alaska Constitutional Convention Delegate Vic Fischer Discusses the Boundary Commision with Rep. Guttenberg
Vic Fischer is one of, I believe, three surviving delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention. I suspect that Hawaii is the only other state that might have writers of their Constitution still alive. So when Vic is standing around in the Capitol in Juneau, lots of people come by to say hello. Tuesday while I was talking to Vic, Rep. Guttenberg asked him a question about the Boundary Commission. The legislature just passed the 45 day deadline to pass legislation regarding an annexation in Fairbanks that was decided by the Boundary Commission. As they were talking I realized this was a unique moment - a legislator discussing Constitutional intent concerning the Boundary Commission with one of the writers of the State Constitution,. So I started my camera. Later both gave permission to post it. [Fishcher photo from University webpage on creating the Alaska Constitution.]
By the way, that's Rep. Bob Lynn of Anchorage mugging in the background toward the end.
By the way, that's Rep. Bob Lynn of Anchorage mugging in the background toward the end.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Capitol Shots: Vic Fischer, Dave Donaldson, Rep. Gutenberg, Bill Sheffield, Max Gruenberg at Work
Here are some pictures from today. I'm also working on some video. My brain was full about 3:00pm. Then got a nice call from my son who was walking his dog in what he described as the first non-winter day in Washington DC, a balmy 60˚ or so. Warm as Juneau has been, we haven't even seen 50s. J1's call gave me a little energy boost. So now I'll put up some pictures and try to make sense of things later.
I ran into Vic Fischer, one of the delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention and got to ask a few questions about Constitutional intent. Talking to him in the the Capitol hallway was a great way to get to meet people I didn't know.

One of the people I met was Dave Donaldson of APRN. If you've ever listened to Alaska Public Radio news, you've heard his voice. (He's at the bottom of the page in the link.)
Rep. Dave Guttenberg had a question for Vic (I'm not being overly familiar, I've known Vic a long time because I worked in the same space as ISER (Institute for Social and Economic Research) at UAA) about Constitutional intent regarding the Boundary Commission. There have been a lot of hearings titled "Boundary Commission" this session that I've stayed away from, but today I got an introduction. I have some of this conversation on video which I'll try to get up later.
Here's former Governor and current Anchorage Port Authority Director Bill Sheffield signing a photograph for Rep. Bill Stoltze.
And here's a followup discussion about HB 409 (actually Committee Substitute now) in Rep. Gruenberg's office. On the left is Rep. Gruenberg's staffer Ted Madsen and on the right is Rep. Lynn's staffer Mike Sica, and in the background Rep. Gruenberg is listening to Leg Legal's Alpheus Bullard discussing changes on the phone.
I ran into Vic Fischer, one of the delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention and got to ask a few questions about Constitutional intent. Talking to him in the the Capitol hallway was a great way to get to meet people I didn't know.

One of the people I met was Dave Donaldson of APRN. If you've ever listened to Alaska Public Radio news, you've heard his voice. (He's at the bottom of the page in the link.)
Rep. Dave Guttenberg had a question for Vic (I'm not being overly familiar, I've known Vic a long time because I worked in the same space as ISER (Institute for Social and Economic Research) at UAA) about Constitutional intent regarding the Boundary Commission. There have been a lot of hearings titled "Boundary Commission" this session that I've stayed away from, but today I got an introduction. I have some of this conversation on video which I'll try to get up later.
Here's former Governor and current Anchorage Port Authority Director Bill Sheffield signing a photograph for Rep. Bill Stoltze.
And here's a followup discussion about HB 409 (actually Committee Substitute now) in Rep. Gruenberg's office. On the left is Rep. Gruenberg's staffer Ted Madsen and on the right is Rep. Lynn's staffer Mike Sica, and in the background Rep. Gruenberg is listening to Leg Legal's Alpheus Bullard discussing changes on the phone.
State Affairs: Campaign Expenditures passes out with changes, Adj. General, Sexual Assualt Awareness Month, Towtruckers,
State Affairs Tuesday March 9, 2010
What Happened:
1. Tom Katkus' nomination to Adjutant General was moved to the next committee.
2. House Current Amendment (HCR) 20 declaring April Sexual Assault Awareness was passed to the next committee.
3. HB 401 - Campaign Expenditures. A Committee Substitute with about seven amendments passed out of the committee. Key changes as I understood this were:
a. section added to duplicate the federal laws prohibiting foreign nationals from participating in elections
b. requirement for five largest contributors to be listed by name in television ads was changed to include audio, then reduced to three instead of five. If I understand this correctly, it was also changed for the visual version as well to just three. It's not clear how these changes might affect what has to be reported to APOC. The audio was added. The change to three was made because Rep. Johnson complained that it would use up 1/3 of a 30 second ad to do that and it would be unintelligible if you read all the names. Then, to make things consistent, the number for the written contributors was reduced to three as well. At least, that's what I understood.
There was a lot of language like, "But the amendment would keep it in. I'm going to withdraw my amendment and add a new one. To delete on Amendment 2 lines 14 and 15 and instead amend section 9 of the bill to read as it does, change in to on and on page 5 change in to on and retain the language referring to 067." which made it hard to be totally sure what was actually done at the end.
There was also discussion about language that exempts a 'person' from making an anonymous expenditure under certain conditions. The Leg. Legal attorney said the language was in due to US Constitutional guarantees.
This is one of the more important bills this session. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision saying you can't ban corporate independent spending in elections, Alaska has no laws requiring disclosure of who is making the contributions, because all such contributions had been banned. This bill incorporates three House bills and there is also a Senate bill working on this to require disclosure of independent contributions. I'll do a separate post on this because it's so important.
4. House Bill 20: This was introduced by Rep. Ramras on behalf of tow truck drivers who because of a court case Aurora v Credit Union 1, banks that have liens against cars can force tow truck lots to give up the cars without paying any of the towing fees. The tow truck companies have to get in line with all other creditors. This bill would put tow truck drivers at the top of the list of lien holders. I talked to a bank lobbyist about this after the hearing (he'd missed it and asked what had happened.) After our discussion, it seemed to me that this was an overly complex way to solve the problem. It would just seem easier to pass a law saying that lending institutions have to pay any towing and storage fees before they can recover a car. But I'm not an attorney, so there's probably a lot more to it than that.
The Rough Details
OK, so that's the overview. Below are my notes from this morning's State Affairs. Use them with CAUTION. They just guide you to what was discussed, but with omissions as the words flew faster than my fingers, and even errors where I might have misconstrued what someone said. But the tape is you back up. I'll try another post which gives the highlights of what happened when I figure them out.
(H)STATE AFFAIRS | STANDING COMMITTEE * | ||||
Mar 09 Tuesday 8:00 AM | CAPITOL 106 | ||||
+ | Confirmation Hearing: | TELECONFERENCED | |||
Adjutant General Thomas Katkus, | |||||
Commissioner, Dept. Military & Veterans' | |||||
Affairs | |||||
=+ | HB 409 | CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURES | TELECONFERENCED | ||
*+ | HB 251 | PRIORITY OF TOWING LIENS | TELECONFERENCED | ||
*+ | HCR 20 | SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS MONTH | TELECONFERENCED | ||
+ | Bills Previously Heard/Scheduled | TELECONFERENCED |
What Happened:
1. Tom Katkus' nomination to Adjutant General was moved to the next committee.
2. House Current Amendment (HCR) 20 declaring April Sexual Assault Awareness was passed to the next committee.
3. HB 401 - Campaign Expenditures. A Committee Substitute with about seven amendments passed out of the committee. Key changes as I understood this were:
a. section added to duplicate the federal laws prohibiting foreign nationals from participating in elections
b. requirement for five largest contributors to be listed by name in television ads was changed to include audio, then reduced to three instead of five. If I understand this correctly, it was also changed for the visual version as well to just three. It's not clear how these changes might affect what has to be reported to APOC. The audio was added. The change to three was made because Rep. Johnson complained that it would use up 1/3 of a 30 second ad to do that and it would be unintelligible if you read all the names. Then, to make things consistent, the number for the written contributors was reduced to three as well. At least, that's what I understood.
There was a lot of language like, "But the amendment would keep it in. I'm going to withdraw my amendment and add a new one. To delete on Amendment 2 lines 14 and 15 and instead amend section 9 of the bill to read as it does, change in to on and on page 5 change in to on and retain the language referring to 067." which made it hard to be totally sure what was actually done at the end.
There was also discussion about language that exempts a 'person' from making an anonymous expenditure under certain conditions. The Leg. Legal attorney said the language was in due to US Constitutional guarantees.
This is one of the more important bills this session. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision saying you can't ban corporate independent spending in elections, Alaska has no laws requiring disclosure of who is making the contributions, because all such contributions had been banned. This bill incorporates three House bills and there is also a Senate bill working on this to require disclosure of independent contributions. I'll do a separate post on this because it's so important.
4. House Bill 20: This was introduced by Rep. Ramras on behalf of tow truck drivers who because of a court case Aurora v Credit Union 1, banks that have liens against cars can force tow truck lots to give up the cars without paying any of the towing fees. The tow truck companies have to get in line with all other creditors. This bill would put tow truck drivers at the top of the list of lien holders. I talked to a bank lobbyist about this after the hearing (he'd missed it and asked what had happened.) After our discussion, it seemed to me that this was an overly complex way to solve the problem. It would just seem easier to pass a law saying that lending institutions have to pay any towing and storage fees before they can recover a car. But I'm not an attorney, so there's probably a lot more to it than that.
The Rough Details
OK, so that's the overview. Below are my notes from this morning's State Affairs. Use them with CAUTION. They just guide you to what was discussed, but with omissions as the words flew faster than my fingers, and even errors where I might have misconstrued what someone said. But the tape is you back up. I'll try another post which gives the highlights of what happened when I figure them out.
New Snow and LOTS OF WIND
We woke up Monday to more snow than there's been since we got here mid January. That isn't saying a lot, but for the first time there was snow on the walkway from our front door to the gate to the street, so I shoveled it, well scraped it off is probably more accurate.
J had tutored at a housing project on Douglas Island. It's really not that far - maybe a mile and a half - but I suggested she take a bus back because it was so windy. It says 'gusts up to 50 mph.' But she wanted to get her walk in, so I started out to meet her. This view is from the bridge over Calhoun near the Fifth Street stairs. You can see the water in the channel. Then I got into wind that definitely required conscious attention to stay upright. I haven't figure out how to photograph the wind, except for flags. Today needed a video and audio, but even then the full effect wasn't visible in the branches of the trees. An example: a light wind can lift a baseball cap fairly easily, but I had to hold on to my knit wool cap because I could feel it being tugged off.
Fortunately, it was warm enough that the slush on the sidewalks was more soft than icy. J said, and I surely believe it, that the wind had been worse crossing the bridge.
A good thing about not having a car is that you aren't even tempted not to walk on days like this. We definitely get more every day exercise than at home.
This picture was still from inside and eating breakfast.
And this is on the way to work. I've got a picture of this
lawn almost green a couple of weeks ago.
And the totems were dusted too.
J had tutored at a housing project on Douglas Island. It's really not that far - maybe a mile and a half - but I suggested she take a bus back because it was so windy. It says 'gusts up to 50 mph.' But she wanted to get her walk in, so I started out to meet her. This view is from the bridge over Calhoun near the Fifth Street stairs. You can see the water in the channel. Then I got into wind that definitely required conscious attention to stay upright. I haven't figure out how to photograph the wind, except for flags. Today needed a video and audio, but even then the full effect wasn't visible in the branches of the trees. An example: a light wind can lift a baseball cap fairly easily, but I had to hold on to my knit wool cap because I could feel it being tugged off.
Fortunately, it was warm enough that the slush on the sidewalks was more soft than icy. J said, and I surely believe it, that the wind had been worse crossing the bridge.
A good thing about not having a car is that you aren't even tempted not to walk on days like this. We definitely get more every day exercise than at home.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Senate Judiciary Committee - Campaign Expenditure and Hate Crimes
I'm here because the Committee is supposed to discuss campaign expenditures.
But none of the Senators are here 18 minutes after the starting time. But in the audience you can see (l-r front row) ADN reporter Rich Mauer, newly arrived to take over from Lisa Demer and Rep. Bob Lynn, chair of the House State Affairs Committee which has been holding hearings on House campaign expenditure bills. Behind Rep. Lynn is AP reporter Jeremy Hsieh.
1:50 pm Committee Chair Hollis French and Sen. Egan are both here now. I'll post this now and add to it as things progress.
This is pretty messy, I'll post it now, but go through it and clean it up. Of course you can listen to the actual hearing at Gavel 2 Gavel. DO NOT RELY ON THIS FOR ANY MORE THAN A ROUGH SENSE OF WHAT HAPPENED. A number of people spoke faster than I could type. Think of this as a guide to what you should look for on the audio.
But none of the Senators are here 18 minutes after the starting time. But in the audience you can see (l-r front row) ADN reporter Rich Mauer, newly arrived to take over from Lisa Demer and Rep. Bob Lynn, chair of the House State Affairs Committee which has been holding hearings on House campaign expenditure bills. Behind Rep. Lynn is AP reporter Jeremy Hsieh.
1:50 pm Committee Chair Hollis French and Sen. Egan are both here now. I'll post this now and add to it as things progress.
(S)JUDICIARY | STANDING COMMITTEE * | ||||||
Mar 08 Monday 1:30 PM | BELTZ 105 (TSBldg) | ||||||
=+ | SB 209 | STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS; REGULATIONS | TELECONFERENCED | ||||
=+ | SB 260 | ELECTRIC & TELEPHONE COOPERATIVES' VOTING | TELECONFERENCED | ||||
*+ | SB 202 | HATE CRIMES | TELECONFERENCED | ||||
+ | SB 284 | CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURES | TELECONFERENCED | ||||
+ | Bills Previously Heard/Scheduled | TELECONFERENCED |
This is pretty messy, I'll post it now, but go through it and clean it up. Of course you can listen to the actual hearing at Gavel 2 Gavel. DO NOT RELY ON THIS FOR ANY MORE THAN A ROUGH SENSE OF WHAT HAPPENED. A number of people spoke faster than I could type. Think of this as a guide to what you should look for on the audio.
Cliff Groh Speculates on Why Young and Ben Stevens Unindicted
Alaska attorney Cliff Groh, who's writing a book on the Ted Stevens' investigation and trial, has posted his speculation on why Don Young and Ben Stevens haven't been indicted yet.
Here are some of his key points, and then he fills a lot in between these lines. Check out the whole post at his blog Alaska Political Corruption.
Again, you can read the Cliff's detailed explanation at his blog, Alaska Political Corruption.
Here are some of his key points, and then he fills a lot in between these lines. Check out the whole post at his blog Alaska Political Corruption.
1. The Department of Justice appears to feel both singed and relatively short-staffed after the Ted Stevens case blew up and former legislators Pete Kott and Vic Kohring got out of prison. . .
The meltdown of the Ted Stevens prosecution and the continuing revelations of the prosecution’s failures have put a cloud over the lawyers best-informed about the Alaska public corruption investigation and dirtied up the government’s primary cooperating witnesses. . .
UPDATE (March 7): Bill Allen is less likely to be cooperative as a federal witness against Ben Stevens or Don Young if Allen comes to believe that the Anchorage police--or especially the federal government--is investigating him for allegedly committing sex crimes. . .
2. A controversy over the constitutionality over one of the feds’ primary weapons against public corruption has appeared to make them wary about bringing more complicated cases in this area. . .
3. The combination of his extensive financial disclosures and—perhaps—his relative invisibility on incriminating tapes may help prevent the prosecution of Ben Stevens, and Don Young’s apparent receipt of things of relatively little value may be aiding Alaska’s only Congressman avoid charges. . .
Again, you can read the Cliff's detailed explanation at his blog, Alaska Political Corruption.
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