SPECIAL SEE YOU IN ANCHORAGE (I HOPE) EDITION

What? A Minority Amendment Passed? No!

Well, if this isn’t the end of the session, we can see it from here. We have long floor sessions punctuated by long at-eases; committees meeting to send selected bills scurrying along; rumors circulating 19 to the dozen. They’re even serving dinner in the legislative lounge. Heck, things are so discombobulated that a minority member can get an amendment passed.

That’s what happened on Wednesday, when the House majority was busy stuffing one bill into another and creating an in-state gas pipeline juggernaut. Even though there’s not – you know – an in-state gas pipeline project anywhere in sight.

One part of the bill was particularly troubling, a provision that would have allowed the Alaska Permanent Fund to invest $1 billion in a project. Supporters said that the fund would still be bound by investment rules, but that the provision was a sort of signal that the legislature would like it if the fund invested.

I am not a fan of politically motivated investing. There have been too many boondoggles financed that way. And if we start nudging, pushing, herding – pick a verb – the permanent fund in that direction, pretty soon there won’t be a permanent fund. So I introduced an amendment to remove that language and – lo and behold! – it passed.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Then I remembered that it’s the end of the session. Weird things happen.

Palin- 104, Legislature- 2

The legislature voted down two of Gov. Sarah Palin’s 106 nominees for state jobs, boards and commissions on Thursday. One was a Board of Fisheries nominee named Brent Johnson. The other was the man she wanted to make attorney general, Wayne Anthony Ross. I voted against both. Here’s why.

Fish politics is an intense and touchy business. Fish board decisions can make the difference in business success for commercial fishermen or affect the ability of Alaskans to catch fish with rod and reel or dip net. So who gets a seat on the seven-member board is really important to a lot of Alaskans.

Johnson is a commercial fisherman, a Cook Inlet set netter, and his appointment would have given commercial fishermen a majority on the board. It would also have meant that all of Interior and northern Alaska would not have been represented on the board.

I heard nothing bad about him personally or professionally, but that lack of balance led me to vote against his nomination. I didn’t like doing it. Not enough people volunteer for public service, and voting against someone who does goes against my grain. But the governor’s decision to unbalance the board left me with no choice.

Ross is a different matter. He came to the confirmation process with a lot of baggage. Native organizations opposed him for his stand on subsistence. His calling gay people “degenerates” was problematic. Judging by my email, lots of women were not enthralled by what they saw as his patronizing attitude toward women. And his performance over the past couple of days on the mess Palin has made of filling the Juneau Senate seat wasn’t stellar. Add to that the fact that he’s reached an age where most men are retiring rather than taking a new job, and you had a recipe for disaster.

I discounted a lot of that. People don’t have to pass a political litmus test with me, or even have both feet firmly planted in the 21st century. But the very last thing state government needs right now is another controversial figure in an important position. That, plus my doubts about his being able to manage a large organization like the Department of Law, put me in the “no” column.

I’m sure there are many other important developments that I am forgetting, but frankly I’m too brain dead to write about them. If we get out on time – oh please-please-please-please-please – I’ll try to recover enough to do a wrap-up next week.

Best wishes,