By SUZANNE DOWNING
A group calling itself Alaskans for Fair Courts is suing Gov. Mike Dunleavy over one of his recent appointments to the Alaska Judicial Council.
The group claims that because the appointee is a retired attorney, he’s ineligible to serve as a non-attorney member of the Council.
The group’s lawsuit hinges on a narrow and novel reading of the Alaska Constitution, which says members shall be appointed “without regard to political affiliation,” but makes no mention of retired lawyers.
That argument is flimsy on its face. But if Alaskans for Fair Courts is truly concerned with upholding the integrity of the Judicial Council, they might want to turn their scrutiny to someone a bit closer to their ideological home: Fairbanks attorney Savannah Fletcher.
Fletcher was appointed to the Judicial Council by the Alaska Bar Association, a move that received little media attention. Unlike the governor’s appointments, which face immediate public and political scrutiny, the Bar Association’s picks tend to slip under the radar. She was reappointed in April — by the Bar Association.
And in this case, that’s a problem.
Fletcher’s résumé reads like a blueprint for progressive political activism. She works on behalf of the Northern Justice Project, a hyperpartisan law firm that engages in “law fare” and operates at the far edge of the political spectrum, closely tied to the Alaska Democratic Party. She also served on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, where she rose to become presiding officer before her failed attempt at state office. Her tenure wasn’t without controversy.
Earlier this year, a nonpartisan ethics committee found that Fletcher had violated the Borough’s ethics code — not once, but three times — while serving on the Assembly. The findings were serious enough to warrant a formal censure by her fellow Assembly members. In government service, a censure is no small matter. It signifies a breach of public trust, conduct unbecoming of someone in a leadership role. But her professional code of conduct as an attorney is also a matter of concern.
Fletcher was the only attorney on the Assembly at the time. She had both the legal training and the ethical obligations of her profession.
But when she ran unauthorized political radio ads and then misled her colleagues about it, she crossed the line. Rather than acknowledge the misstep, she hired a lawyer to defend her in what should have been a straightforward matter of admitting she erred, and offering resumption to resolve the matter. The effort to deny her responsibility failed, and she was censured during a public hearing.
To be clear: Attorneys are held to high standards for a reason. They are officers of the court. The Alaska Bar Association routinely disciplines lawyers who violate public trust or act unethically.
Yet in Fletcher’s case, the Alaska Bar looked the other way, and then rewarded her with a seat on the Judicial Council, the very body responsible for helping choose Alaska’s judges.
It gets worse. Fletcher’s biography proudly notes that she once clerked for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Susan Carney. That’s notable because Justice Carney now serves as Chief Justice, and holds the tie-breaking vote on the very same Judicial Council.
So let’s summarize: A politically connected progressive attorney, formally censured for ethics violations, gets quietly appointed to a powerful body with input into who becomes a judge in Alaska and she has a personal tie to the Council’s tie-breaking vote.
If Alaskans for Fair Courts were genuinely concerned about political influence or the integrity of the process, this is where their lawsuit would begin. Instead, they’re focused on parsing words in the Constitution to disqualify a governor’s appointee based on a status (retired attorney) that the document doesn’t even mention.
Their silence on Fletcher is telling. So is the presence of Bruce Botelho as their co-chair. Botelho, a former Democratic Attorney General, remains one of the most influential political operatives in Juneau. His fingerprints are all over the city’s Democratic machine—from the mayor’s office to the left-leaning “Juneau Independent” news site. The board of Alaskans for Fair Courts also includes heavy-hitting Democrats and politicos such as AFL-CIO president Joelle Hall, who is rumored to be considering a run for governor.
Among the officers of Alaskans for Fair Courts is attorney Tom Amodio, who, as a private attorney, works for the Alaska Democratic Party. In 2024, Amodio asked the court to force Democrat Eric Hafner off of the ballot. Hafner, a Democrat and a felon, was going to take votes from Mary Peltola, the sitting congressional representative. The court ruled against Amodio, who routinely files lawsuits on behalf of the Democratic Party against the Division of Elections.
When Alaskans for Fair Courts calls for fairness, what they really mean is control. This group is an undeclared arm of the Democratic Party.
If we want truly fair courts, then the standard must apply to everyone, regardless of party. That means examining all appointees to the Judicial Council, not just the ones made by a Republican governor.
Integrity isn’t partisan. And neither should be our courts.
Suzanne Downing is the founder of Must Read Alaska and serves as editor.
