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.
