Left behind?--The U.S. Department of Labor reported a couple weeks ago that the average weekly wage for U.S. workers was $812 and that workers received a 5.7 percent boost over the last year in their wages. Members of the state's largest state employees union (ASEA) averaged $716.90 per week last year and got a 1.5 percent pay hike. On the other hand, the governor recently, and very quietly, boosted the salary of his commissioners. They used to make $91,200 in salary and $38,450 in benefits. Now they make $124,752 in salary and $49,000 in benefits.

Tidbits from the big city--The UA research arm (ISER) noted in a recent analysis that Anchorage has some unique issues: 1) the city's over 65 population is growing five times faster than the U.S. average; 2) as of 2000, 25 percent of those who had been residents in 1995 were gone with the likeliest to leave being white, middle class families; 3) while the city is near the top when calculating household income, two thirds of the new jobs created in the 1990s paid just $20,000 to $40,000 per year and the city lost more than 1,600 jobs that paid $60,000 to $120,000; and 4) while the PFD and lack of super-rich mean that the gap between the rich and poor isn't as wide in Anchorage as elsewhere there is a lot of poverty concentrated among minorities, single mothers, old people living alone, and young people without much education.

Quite a trip--Bloomberg News reported recently that Pacific salmon will swim as far as 2,000 miles up and down the west coast in their cycle of life but once caught will sometimes travel 8,000 miles round-trip to China where they are filleted before returning to the U.S. Trident is one of the companies sending Alaska salmon overseas where pin bones are removed by hand for about 20 cents per pound versus the $1 per pound cost in U.S. plants.

. . .something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear--NW scientists have documented ocean temps between two to five degrees warmer and it's apparently not due to El Nino. They say it may be caused by less upwelling (which brings cold water and nutrients to the surface) and that may be contributing to the deaths of seabirds and threatening salmon. "Something big is going on out there," says Julia Parrish with the fisheries school at UW. "I'm left with no obvious smoking gun but birds are a good signal because they feed high up on the food chain." A NOAA scientist adds: "People have to realize that things are connected--the state of coastal temperatures and plankton populations are connected to larger issues like Pacific salmon populations."

The other side--A good friend and good Democrat, prompted by last issue's undercurrent that noted the Prairie Home Companion joke about Democrats, sent as a counterpoint the following quote from Craig Carter out of an Oregonian column a month or so ago. Mr. Carter wrote: "other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children, and, now, die, I think the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives." There, balance restored.

Phone: (907) 465-4947
Fax: (907) 465-2108
Mail: Sen. Elton, State Capitol
Juneau, AK 99801
Email:
Senator.Kim.Elton
Jesse.Kiehl
Paula.Cadiente
Web: http://elton.akdemocrats.org

     For the first time in a long time, I did not renew my membership in one of the Alaska environmental groups I've supported financially. I'm abandoning my membership for now but not my commitment to many of their goals--clean and productive oceans; wetland and upland management based on good science, not political whim; and healthy neighborhoods.
     I've done this because I've come to believe the group too often requires of community, state, and federal leaders such a strict adherence to their stances that the exercise of my personal judgment as an elected official is not allowed. By doing that, they make it difficult for me and Alaska's other policymakers to meet in the middle.
     The most recent example was their decision to "spank" me because of my overt support of a resolution favoring the Kensington mine. I co-sponsored the Senate version of the resolution and voted for the House resolution (it passed the legislature with just one dissenting vote cast by a legislator from Anchorage). My 'yes' vote was an exercise of personal judgment that I applied to a difficult legislative issue.
     In my judgment: the jobs; the $16 million annual payroll; the mostly positive impacts of the Greens Creek mine on our community and the expectation that the Kensington's impacts would be similar; and the arduous public process that accommodated most of the concerns of the fishing community were plusses. Big issues on the minus side: still unresolved Berners Bay issues; and the unique and potentially troubling permitting of waste rock disposal in a freshwater lake. In this particular application of personal judgment, I came down on the side of jobs for the community and region. 
     In doing so, some friends were disappointed. But difficult issues ought not be resolved in city councils, borough assemblies or the legislature by members picking their friends and simply sticking with 'em regardless. Any 'public' official who believes his or her highest priority is simply to please their friends has forgotten the definition of 'public'. Any public official who subjugates the exercise of personal judgment to an interest group's collective judgment because they fear repercussions also has forgotten the definition of 'public'.
     Getting spanked by friends, even when you agree with them on the majority of issues that come before you, reflects a coarsening of the public process. Interest groups, whether business or environmental, religious or secular, too often forget about the beliefs they share and focus on points that divide. Instead of working out from what we share in common, we initially divide ourselves on those few beliefs we don't share.
     That makes understanding difficult and compromise almost impossible.
     Early in my legislative career, I was graded by a statewide business group and found to be a legislator who listens and is capable of changing his mind if the facts warranted. That seems to be a fair way of grading any legislator. But the legislative culture has changed since then. It is common now for many interest groups to take a whack at legislators who don't show total allegiance to that group's particular public policy recipe.
     That's corrosive in a couple of ways. 
     First, it trains legislators in the notion that they are better off if, on each and every issue, they pick a side early. No need to wait for fact finding. By picking a side early, a legislator has at least some "friends"--those whose dogmatic viewpoint is validated by the legislator. But a legislator who sometimes waits for the issue-vetting process to unfold is not embraced by any interest group. In fact, they are often distrusted by all until they lock in. That often leads to locking in too early and thus making compromise too difficult.
     Second, it's the interest groups who often contribute a major share of any legislative candidate's campaign kitty--through PAC contributions and/or donation recommendations based on voting records. That reality can, and unfortunately sometimes does, focus an incumbent's attention on special interest voting record purity rather than judgment. That elevates dogma above judgment and purity above progress.
     As you can probably tell by now, getting spanked got my attention. But the lesson I learned is not the lesson the group intended to deliver.
     Reflecting on the experience, I learned it certainly is easier to always agree with my friends. But, more importantly, I was reminded that going along to get along isn't the solution. And if my 'friends' are only my friends when I am their unquestioning public policy tool, then they need to review their definition of 'public official' and I need to review my concept of 'friend'.
     This experience also reaffirmed a pledge I made 15 years ago when I was first elected to the borough assembly. I promised myself I would quit running for office if, on reflection, I decided I took during my career as an elected official more than 10 votes based purely on politics and not on policy. Over the course of time, I'm up to seven votes that, looking back, were political (and, no, I'm not going to list them).
     Kensington was not going to be number eight, regardless of my 'friends' doctrinaire recipe.