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How 'bout that--Rep.
Beth (Kerttula) has now spent more time in the legislative majority
than I have. During the brief House coup, she spent about 30 hours
as a member of the legislative majority.
Offered without
comment--A Los Angeles Times correction: "The Inside
Politics column in the Nov. 8 California sectioncontained an item about an election night
celebration that said several local prosecutors appeared to have
made frequent trips to the open bar. It was a cash
bar."
Good little
doggy--People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals just
launched a fish "empathy" campaign to encourage consumers not to eat
fish. The campaign encourages people to think of fish like they
think of their  pets--as sentient beings and not food. The Seattle P-I
quoted one Seattle commercial fisherman who fishes for salmon on a
40-foot fishing vessel with his brother and their West Highland
Terrier named Dolly as saying they wouldn't eat Dolly "unless we run
out of fish".
Spelcheck--Governing
Magazine reports that Livermore, California spent $40,000 on a mural
near the entrance of their new public library that portrayed the
tree of knowledge with small portraits of great artists, writers,
 scientists and others. Of the 175 words on the
mural, 11 were misspelled--including scientist 'Einstein' (Eistein),
playwright 'Shakespeare' (Shakespere), and painter 'Gauguin'
(Gaugan). The artiste was asked to return and fix the misspellings
but responded with a no dice. "People that really love art, they
wouldn't even have noticed it if [city officials] hadn't pointed it
out." What, she didn't think library patrons would
notice?
Pay as you don't
go--The New York Times reported that the five wealthiest
states were all blue (meaning they voted for Kerry) and that they
paid  nearly $68 billion more in taxes than they got back in
federal services while the five poorest states were all red and
received $33 billion more in services than they paid in taxes. The
newspaper also reported that the Bible Belt states were red and have
divorce rates around 50 percent higher than the national average
while blue state Massachusetts has the lowest divorce
rate.
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The governor
is aggressively sprinkling pixie dust all over his record as the
 10th chief executive of our grand state.
A couple of months ago he caused to be
written and distributed a progress report as seen through his eyes
entitled A Return to Common Sense. A week or so ago the governor
inserted a 12-page tabloid in major-city newspapers with a masthead
that trumpeted Breaking New Trails.
Now
his press guru says the governor wants to star in a half-hour weekly
show with a faux news anchor supplied by the governor's publicity
office. The show would give the governor a
unique-in-the-annals-of-Alaska opportunity to spin his leadership
and would be underwritten by corporate or individual sponsors that
pick up the cost of airtime (though not the cost of production or
state staff diverted to the effort).
The
black ops side of this vigorous PR initiative is a behind the scenes
press intimidation effort. The governor's chief of staff has been
quietly involved in at least two attempts in recent weeks to
negatively affect the employment of Alaska journalists who seem to
be allergic to political pixie dust designed to make the governor
soar. Both journalists, so far, have survived the fits of
pique-ishness from the third floor.
To
be fair, part of what the governor does is boilerplate for
politicians, including me. I do an end of session newsletter,
sometimes in tabloid newspaper style, that recounts what did and
didn't happen and not coincidentally mentions my successes and what
remains to be accomplished. Production and distribution costs for
this annual newsletter come from my office account and indirectly
from me (office accounts are handled in two ways: legislators get a
check at the beginning of the year to spend however they want or,
for those of us who opt for an itemized account, whatever is left at
the end of the year is remitted to us in the form of a
check).
I also do this
electronic newsletter twice a month during the interim and once a
week during the session. Because I write it and it's distributed via
email there are no production or distribution costs. This forum is
less newsy and more opinion-oriented. My main goal here is to let
constituents know what and how I'm thinking and to spark a dialogue
on public policy issues.
Most other
legislators do the session newsletter and many do special reports
throughout the year. None of the legislators' efforts, though, are
as aggressively positive or as sophisticated as the governor's
reports and  newsletters. That could be because either we are more even
handed or because we don't have 10 employees doing
communication/press/constituent relations work that is supplemented
with help from press liaison folks in 14 state
agencies.
Most legislators, too, are
smart enough to avoid recommending to news executives who they
should hire or fire. We understand the culture of journalism and
know that news folks are unlikely to make employment decisions based
on what a politician wants. In fact, if a politician wants a
journalist fired it generally tends to make them bulletproof in the
newsroom.
And, while some legislators
may drool over the idea of a weekly TV program paid for by special
interests to spin the issues from their perspective, most would
avoid that opportunity because it creates at least  an appearance of a conflict.
Legislators who didn't avoid the opportunity would run smack up
against legislative ethics statutes that prohibit, with a few
exceptions not applicable here, a legislator or legislative employee
from soliciting, accepting or receiving a gift or gifts worth $250
or more. That law precludes, even if I were so inclined, my
solicitation for ads to defray the expense of my end of session
newsletter or for pop-up ads in this electronic
newsletter.
The executive branch ethics
law isn't quite so definitive. That law provides a public officer
can't take a gift if it could be reasonably inferred the gift is
intended to influence the performance of an official. Reasonably
inferred is tricky. While I may believe that a half-hour fake news
program paid for by a generous benefactor who wants to give the guv
TV face time so he can spin policies as aggressively as a silk worm
on caffeine is a gift that keeps on giving for both the governor and
the corporate sponsor, others may disagree.
Before the governor goes too far down
the TV program road, paved by the sponsorship of special interests,
he may want to check on the legal propriety with his Attorney
General--or not. Maybe not. The governor probably should have
the idea vetted by someone other than the AG who is now being
investigated by an independent prosecutor because of his cozy
financial relationship with a coal technology firm that became part
of a trade agreement he helped negotiate with Taiwan. (Now wouldn't
that be interesting if that coal firm wanted to be a sponsor of the
guv's TV program?)
The governor's new
and aggressive "is it real or is it Memorex (not real)" PR campaign
reminds us we need to be good message consumers. We need to consider
the information source because what's written or said reflects the
filters it passes through.
So, when we
read the governor's tabloid insert (with a production cost of more
than $24,000 not counting state staff time to write and edit), we
have to remember this won't be an information source designed to
tell us whether the cut of the longevity bonus caused some Alaska
seniors to move south and spend their retirement paycheck or
investment earnings elsewhere. It won't be the place you go to find
out how many families were bumped out of Denali Kid Care or the
scoop behind the ethics scandal that forced GOP chair Randy Ruedrich
from his $100,000 plus state job.
And we
can't expect the governor's progress report, his list of
accomplishments, to tout his effort to allow pollutant mixing zones
in salmon spawning areas or tell us how many ferry workers quit
instead of following the headquarters to
Ketchikan.
And I doubt, too, that his
faux news program, bought and paid for by special interest sponsors,
will discuss the disappearance of the Alyeska Central School, the
cuts to community schools, or special agreements between resource
agencies so all speak with one voice before public hearings on
important resource management issues. It is even more unlikely, if a
major oil company becomes a sponsor, that the any of the governor's
bought and paid for TV programs will discuss a fiscal plan that may
include revisiting an oil tax structure that may have worked in the
1980s but may not work in this new
century. |
