1. Robo booboo. I’ll start by rapping myself on the knuckles. I added to the crescendo of robo calls in the final days of the election. We (I) need to remember we put phones in our homes for our use—not for others to send automatic ‘sales’ messages. But, goaded by a Republican Party flier mailed to Juneau voters suggesting I was endorsing Lisa Murkowski, I cut a robo call for Tony Knowles rebutting the GOP inference. In retrospect, I realize I didn’t need to add to the flood of calls because Juneau voters are smart enough to understand that just because GOP party chair Randy Reudrich implies something doesn’t mean it’s true. He’s the one, after all, recently fired from his state job and fined $12,000 for saying one thing and doing another.

2. Lemon pledge. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich consistently focuses on good policy first and good politics second. But asking Anchorage-area legislators (half the legislature) in the heat of an election battle to pledge their troth to a very expensive Lake Otis and Tudor intersection is a ‘lemon’ and sets a bad precedent. Other communities should worry about any political pledge that elevates Anchorage fixes over other fixes. We need to fund transportation, education and other initiatives based on prioritized need not legislative regional mass. If the legislature makes decisions on regional pledges—every region of the state loses except the Anchorage Bowl.

3. Grassroots ‘n special interest fertilizer. So much for Alaska ballot initiatives always being about grassroots democracy. Our ballot initiatives too often are about Outside, monied special interests trying to make Alaska law—law they don’t have to live with because they reside down south. Exhibit number one this election is the marijuana initiative. A Washington, D.C. group spends $871,000 and counting to change the laws Alaskans live by. I find it odd that Alaska law says Outsiders cannot contribute more than $5,000 to Alaska Senate candidates—under the presumption that Outside dollars may influence lawmaking—but allows hundreds of thousands of Outside dollars to be spent on direct lawmaking by initiative. Bill Moyers once suggested that people who have more money should feel free to buy more cars, more homes and more gizmos than the rest of us but they should not be able to afford more democracy. They also should not be able to buy laws they don’t have to live by.

4. Lite guv vs. weighty issues. I was a policy wonk for Lt. Gov. Terry Miller in the Jay Hammond administration. We were expected to do four things: approve notaries, baby-sit the administrative code and state seal, and run elections. The last mandate was the most important so it’s distressing when the courts have to weigh in to ensure fairness. Here’s Lt. Gov. Loren Leman’s record for the first general election he supervised: 1) he rejected signature books for the marijuana initiative and the court said he trivialized the process and ordered him to accept them; 2) his chief of staff wrote the opposition statement to that initiative and a judge said the lite guv violated his obligation to assure the “integrity, credibility and impartiality” of state elections by letting his staffer pick up the pen in such a manner; 3) he dragged his feet when it came to authorizing signature books for the elect-a-senator initiative and the courts ordered him to do it by a date certain; 4) he did not certify the elect-a-senator initiative and the courts again reversed his decision saying Alaskans “ought to have the chance to decide if they want to sign the petitions to get it on the ballot”; 5) the lite guv then rejected the elect-a-senator initiative saying it was similar to a law passed by the legislature but the court said it wasn’t and ordered him to accept the initiative; and, to cap it all, 6) the court ordered the lite guv to reprint general election ballots at a cost of several hundred thousand general fund dollars because his ballot summary of the elect-a-senator ballot question was “inaccurate and biased.” One could make the argument that the lite guv did not find much education in the first five kicks of the mule and one could wish the sixth and most expensive kick will better assure the integrity of the next general election he supervises in 2006.

5. Is it a takewalk? A total of 34 incumbents were up for re-election in the general election and all 34 won despite a recent statewide poll showing Alaskans gave the legislature a grade hovering between a C- and a D+. The question we ought to ponder is: has doubling campaign contribution limits, coupled with changes that allow more lobbyists to contribute to more candidates, made incumbents less vulnerable?