Given three names to choose from by the Alaska Bar Association-controlled Alaska Judicial Commission, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has chosen Fairbanks attorney Aimee Anderson Oravec to be the next judge on the Alaska Supreme Court.
The Alaska Judicial Council, which screens the applicants and forwards the finalists to the governor, made the announcement on Facebook, but the governor himself has made no official statement or published his decision, which gives the appearance that he is distancing himself from the decision. He had 45 days to make a decision once he received the three names from the Judicial Council.
No men applied for the role. Oravec was one of seven women who applied to fill the seat of retiring member Chief Justice Peter Maassen, who faces mandatory retirement in 2025.
Oravec arrived in Alaska in 1999 and has practiced law in Fairbanks and Anchorage for over about 26 years, currently as the top attorney for Doyon Utilities.
Last week, the court chose Justice Susan Carney to serve as chief justice for the next three-year term. With Oravec joining the court, it will be a majority woman Supreme Court made up of Oravec, Carney, Jennifer Henderson, Dario Borghesan, and Jude Pate. Barring some unusual circumstance, Oravec will be Dunleavy’s last appointment to the Alaska Supreme Court, as none of the five face mandatory retirement for many years.
This is Dunleavy’s fourth appointment to the five-member court, but his and all governors’ options are always limited by the constitutional role of the Alaska Judicial Council, which is dominated by liberal lawyers of the Alaska Bar Association, a professional group. The stranglehold the ABA has on the process is the main reason why the Alaska Supreme Court leans left.
The Alaska Supreme Court justice who has served longest in this era is Chief Justice Maassen, who was appointed by Gov. Sean Parnell in 2012.
Justice Carney, who will be the second female chief justice after Dana Fabe, who retired in 2016, is left-leaning. She is pro-abortion and she helped decide that the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend is just another appropriation by the Legislature, rather than an actual dividend for Alaskans to share in the oil wealth. She was appointed by Gov. Bill Walker, who was the governor who broke the Permanent Fund dividend formula and had that decision upheld by the Alaska Supreme Court.
I do not know what might be going through the Governor’s mind but have worked with Ms. Oravec and think this is a fine appointment.
How about you don’t pick who is rec’ed to you by the ABA?
How about you pick who you want to?
Alaska Constitution. – sd
Didn’t dunleavy try that first term? Seems like that was an issue in the failed impeachment.
It’s interesting that mike didn’t parade her out and showcase her.
Probably had to hold his nose.
Time to vote the judges into those positions, we are long overdue that opportunity. They need to be elected by the people, not the Alaska Bar Association,
Yup.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Umhhhhh. They, the judges, are not voted in by Alaska Bar Association.
The fact that unelected lawyers choose the only candidates from which the elected Governor can appoint to the Supreme Court illustrates a fatal flaw in our governance system.
Ultimately the highest special interest bidder(s) pays off the lawyers to pick the candidates to shape the court system. This in a state which owns the largest pork fund (Permament Fund) in the country, to loot and use to control the legislature.
Alaska is not, and never has been a fully sovereign state. It was purchased as a colony to exploit its’ resources, subjuducate the Native peoples to be obedient to outside rule (a more humane policy than the extermination practised down states), and insure the mass of immigrants were kept in check.
We have become just another Left Coast socially and economic failed state.
That is accurate and the State DOJ is guilty of NOT defending the US Constitution with regard to the rights of the individual. Every decision is complete ignorance of the rights of the individual in favor of the state and popular opinion.
Ultimately the guilt and blame rests on our generation, who were bequeathed with a resource rich state, and apathetically surrendered the power and sovereignity to unelected special interests.
Yes. And Bill Walker has been banished. Anyone seen him during the past couple of years? Nope.
He is still in hiding and silently paying his debts to Alaskans for what he did to them. Maybe he found God. Poor guy. Hope he recovers before it’s too late.
But he left behind the Alaska Natural Gas boondoggle, which will NEVER be economical to build. If it was an economically viable project, the companies that own all the natural gas would have built it. There is no way the state can DEMAND that the oil companies that are using the natural gas pressure to push mor oil out of the ground sell the natural gas. That leaves a very small quantity of state owned gas to move down the pipeline. Additionally, if there WAS a pipeline, the gas would cost more than gas imported from Louisiana would cost, delivered. All the running around with their hair on fire about the “shotrage” of natural gas is just smoke to use to continue paying someone that does ZERO $500,000.00 a year and is there to keep the deceit alive.
Bottom line:
Women in politics, and make no mistake that the Supreme Court is political, never works out good for the whole. Too much emotion and not enough common sense. The one big exception:
Margaret Thatcher.
I wonder what would happen if he just refused, stating, “there are no constitutional layers being recommended, so I am not morally comfortable appointing a socialist interpretationalist”.
We need to overhaul our justice system here in Alaska so badly!!!