Juneau headed toward ethics showdown

Governor, lawmakers pledge cooperation; actions suggest possible cracks in solidarity as white paper, legislation emerge from Palin’s office

Rose Ragsdale

For Petroleum News

It may not be the OK Corral, but that didn’t keep Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and state lawmakers from starting this year’s session with their ethics guns blazing.

Days into the session a Palin initiative has ruffled the feathers of Republican leaders and raised questions about the durability of a fragile bipartisan peace that the Palin administration and the Alaska Legislature have pledged for conducting business this year. In drafting new ethics legislation, lawmakers hope to remove a cloud of suspicion that has settled over Alaska’s state offices.

The governor and numerous lawmakers have proposed ethics legislation in response to displeasure with the status quo in Juneau that Alaskans demonstrated in the November general election.

Ethics in politics emerged as a priority issue after FBI agents raided the offices of a half-dozen state legislators Aug. 30. Since then, one former state lawmaker has been indicted on corruption charges, while another was fined more than $5,000 in January by the Alaska Public Offices Commission for improprieties.

The FBI’s investigation is ongoing, and knowledgeable sources predict more misconduct among Alaska elected officials may come to light.

Balancing reform with lawmaker rights

A part-time Legislature is not unusual. Lawmakers in about 20 percent of the other 49 states work full time and earn a professional wage, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In California, for example, lawmakers earn $110,000 a year.

By contrast, Alaska lawmakers earn about $24,000, though interim pay, per diem and expense allowances can more than triple their state income. Many Alaska lawmakers also supplement their earnings with other jobs between sessions. These include a substantial minority who serve as consultants for oil and gas, mining and fishing companies, Alaska Native corporations and labor unions, which are among the most powerful special interests that lobby the Legislature in Juneau.

Prohibiting this “moonlighting” could restrict legislative service to retirees and the wealthy in Alaska, unless Alaska also paid their state politicians to work full time.

Alaska’s founding fathers felt strongly that the state should have a citizen Legislature, said former Sen. Vic Fischer, a member of Alaska’s constitutional convention.

A more basic question also is being raised in Juneau these days. Exactly what is ethical conduct for an elected official?

To help the Legislature get at the answer, the Select Committee on Ethics and a governor-appointed bipartisan team came forward with significant tools recently.

The select committee, which has both state legislators and private citizens for members, invited two nationally known experts on political ethics to conduct workshops for Alaska lawmakers and their staffs in January.

Well-known Republican attorney Wev Shea and veteran former Democratic Anchorage legislator Ethan Berkowitz wrote a white paper in December to guide Palin and the Legislature in drafting ethics legislation.

Palin, who unveiled the white paper Jan. 17, has used it to help her draft ethics bills, which she introduced in both chambers of the Legislature Jan. 25.

White paper identifies goals for reform

“The privileged few, big money lobbyists and ‘political consultants’ must not continue to control Alaska’s isolated capital,” they wrote.

The duo identified six goals for ethics reform:

1. Ensure the highest ethical standards for all state employees, including the governor and legislators.

2. Ensure the governor’s actions are transparent and all public servants are held accountable for their actions.

3. Give the governor and the Legislature the teeth to enforce all ethics and disclosure laws. One or more watchdog agencies should be funded to do this.

4. Alaska’s open meetings law should apply to the Legislature. The Republican caucus has been criticized by the news media in the past for holding closed-door meetings.

5. Legislative vote trading must not be tolerated.

“Vote trading seems to be a complete distortion of how government conducts business,” Berkowitz said Jan. 25. “If we challenge some of our basic assumptions, maybe we can do things differently.”

6. The Attorney General and the state’s district attorneys must set the highest ethical bar.

Separately, Shea also recommended the formation of an ethics commission composed of private citizens to advise and assist Palin with ethics reform legislation.

White paper ruffles feathers

House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, said news of its existence came as a complete surprise to the Legislature when the leadership had just met with the governor the day before about ethics legislation.

“The way it was done when we are supposed to have an open environment, we were a little frustrated. We had no idea it was coming,” he said. “We are less concerned about the white paper and more concerned about the way it was done.”

When asked why the governor surprised the lawmakers Jan. 17 with the work that Shea and Berkowitz completed Dec. 20, a Palin spokesman declined to give a reason.

“We’re going forward,” said Charles Fedullo. “We’re going to work with the Legislature from this point on to make sure that we develop ethics legislation (that works.) We want to restore Alaskans’ trust in the public process.”

When Palin unveiled the white paper, Senate President Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, said lawmakers were involved in an all-day seminar on legislative ethics and the best way to devise reform legislation, and legislators introduced numerous pieces of legislation during the same period.

“I have noted very little impact that the white paper has had on the process or the discussion on this issue,” Green added.

Bill focuses on executive branch

• Greater access to campaign and financial disclosure reports through mandatory electronic filings;

• If lawmakers and other public officials receive more than $1,000 for work, they must specify how much they received, how many hours they worked to earn it, and describe, in detail, the nature of their work;

• Full and prompt disclosure of interests after leaving public office;

• Helps clear up ambiguities about when public officials have a conflict of interest, including standards for the executive branch which define when the value of their stock or business interest is significant;

• Bans gifts from lobbyists to all public officials, including staff;

• Prohibits executive branch officials from accepting gifts from a lobbyist, unless the lobbyist is an immediate family member; and

• Tightens certain employment restrictions after leaving public office.

Under the bill, all provisions would be effective as soon as the legislation is enacted, with the exception of electronic filing, which would take effect July 1.

Harris said the governor’s legislation, House Bill 109, will get a quick hearing and serious consideration.

“I know there are major changes coming in the state’s ethics rules in a bipartisan way,” he said. “But it may or may not curtail the public demanding more scrutiny.”

Though Palin did not address the idea of “prohibiting vote trading” in her proposal, Fedullo said she fully supports the sentiment.

But the practicality of enforcing a ban on vote trading would require major changes in the way business is done in the Legislature, Harris predicted.

“To do away with vote trading, we’d have to do away with the Constitutional Budget Reserve,” he said. “We need three-fourths of the members of both houses to vote to tap funds in the CBR. If members want projects for their districts, they withhold their vote for the CBR until they get the projects.”

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.