Capitol Undercurrents

Wild and natural?—Picture this (or not, depending on your moral compass): 1) the governor wants to hold a press conference Monday at the Council on State Government national meeting in Anchorage with the Legal Seafood chain restaurateur who advertises salmon by saying “If it’s not wild, it’s not Legal;” 2) the governor wants to use the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s adorned-with-fish-pictures booth as a backdrop for the press event; and 3) then somebody mentions a problem—the ASMI booth is right smack up against another CSG booth sponsored by the American Association for Nude Recreation with some tasteful au naturel pictures of its own. Not wanting to confuse the wild and natural messages, the governor moved the press conference to another booth sponsored by the state.

The sound of four hands clapping—
I wasn’t there but an attendee well known for impeccable credentials in the truth department said when Gov. Murkowski received an award for being the outgoing head of the Council of State Governments at a Monday evening gala dinner two of his cabinet members (Corrections’ Mark Antrim and Labor’s Greg O’Claray) leapt to their feet to lead a standing ovation. Nobody else followed, including other cabinet members and the chief of staff.

Four strikes ‘n y’r out—Remember the big dust-up when voting pamphlets arrived a few days late (but well before the election) in a very small number of election districts back when Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer was in charge of elections? Despite the fact it was a contractor’s problem, the Republican partisan corps opened up with all the howitzers. Where are they now? The courts slam-dunked Lt. Gov. Loren Leman Wednesday and told him to reprint all general election ballots. The judge said Leman presented a “factually inaccurate” description with “impermissible advocacy” ballot description of the initiative to provide for election of U.S. senators to vacancies instead of the process used to appoint the governor’s daughter. This is the fourth time he’s lost in court on this one ballot issue alone. Sponsors of the initiative had to sue him three times before to: 1) force him to timely complete his statutorily-mandated duty to review their initiative petition; 2) force him to certify the petition; and 3) force him to put the initiative on the ballot. We don’t know how much the court battles cost the state (in dollars or in wasted AG time) but we do know the lite guv’s latest loss will cost close to $300,000 in ballot reprinting costs to protect, as the judge said, the “sanctity” of the election process.

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

• 90 percent of those who submitted comments on the draft plan’s road/shuttle options endorsed the existing ferry system but not a single road was re-examined;
• despite testimony about a lattice of roads disrupting communities and pressuring wildlife populations, the SATP says only “the substitution of land highway . . . will bring change” and deferred specifics to the NEPA review process but the U.S. forest Service said the plan didn’t describe several projects well enough to even start the NEPA review process;
• nearly all the comments from Sitka said they didn’t want a road to Baranof Warm Springs but no change was made;
• the governor wants $1.3 billion in congressional earmarks for Southeast projects to accomplish his plan but, assuming the highly improbable (can earmarks of that magnitude make it through a congress struggling with runaway budgets vs. tax cuts?), the $1.3 billion for the governor’s dream may doom federal dollars for a second crossing or safe intersections at Sunny Point and Yandukin Drive;
• Rep. Don Young’s transportation bill (TEA-LU) has just over 1 percent of the gov’s pie-in-the-sky aspirations for SE transportation but his bill is mired in conference committee and as chair of the House Transportation Committee even he doesn’t think his bill will pass this year;
• apparently, lack of immediate action in the federal budget is no problem for the SE plan because, says the state, it’ll just take longer to finish the plan but, oops, if it takes longer we’ll hit international maritime safety deadlines that’ll take our older ferries off-line;
• the road link plan, if accomplished, will require 13 ferries, not the current nine;
• and those ferries would be primarily short-run daytime boats despite the plan’s assertion that roads put the choice of travel times entirely into the drivers’ hands.