For the first time in Alaska history, no men have applied to the Alaska Judicial Council for a position opening up in 2025 on the Alaska Supreme Court.
This all but guarantees that the Alaska Supreme Court will become a majority-woman body within a year. The filing deadline to replace Chief Justice Peter Maassen, who will reach the court’s mandatory retirement age of 70 next year, was last week.
Applicants for the position are first vetted by the Alaska Judicial Council, made up of the chief justice, three non-attorney members, and three attorneys from the Alaska Bar Association. After the council nominates two or more applicants, the governor has 45 days to make an appointment from the council’s short list. The council is scheduled to meet Nov. 4-8.
This will be the fourth justice to be appointed by two-term Gov. Mike Dunleavy, unless he joins a Trump Administration and the task falls to Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who would become governor. Whomever Dunleavy or Dahlstrom picks will make it a three-woman, two-man panel of justices.
The move to a woman-majority court may signal an even more left-leaning Alaska Supreme Court. Let’s take a look at the applicants:
Kate Demarest: Demarest has been an Alaska resident for 14 years and has practiced law for 16 years. She graduated from University of Minnesota Law School in 2008, and is a Senior Assistant Attorney General at the Alaska Department of Law in Anchorage. Demarest was a primary members of a pro bono legal team helped reach a settlement resulting of the dismissal of charges and release of four Fairbanks men who had been in prison since 1997 for a murder they said they did not commit. They became known as the “Fairbanks Four.” Demarest’s husband in 2015 flew his plane into the building where she worked in downtown Anchorage in 2015. He died but Kate was not in the building at the time and the incident was ruled a suicide.
Demarest applied for the open justice position in 2020 but was not chosen.
Josie Garton: Judge Garton has been an Alaska resident for 24 years and has practiced law for 42 years. She graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School ni 2000, and is currently a Superior Court Judge in Anchorage. She allowed a violent man to walk free when she judged him incompetent to stand trial; he then stabbed a woman in the back at the Loussac Library, severing her spine.
Aimee Anderson Oravec: Oravec has been an Alaska resident for 25-1/2 years and has practiced law the entire time. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law in 1998, and is General Counsel for Doyon Utilities, LLC in Fairbanks. She applied for a vacant position on the Alaska Supreme Court in 2022, but Gov. Dunleavy chose Sitka Superior Court Judge Jude Pate.
Margaret O. Rogers: Rogers has been an Alaska resident for 23 years and has practiced law for 21 years. She graduated from Vermont Law School in 2001, and is currently in private practice in Fairbanks.
Kate Vogel: Vogel has been an Alaska resident for 12 years and has practiced law for 18 years. She graduated from Yale Law School in 2006, and is the First Assistant United States Attorney at the U.S. Attomey’s Office in Anchorage. Vogel would have been the lead attorney who received the whistleblower complaint about U.S. District Court Judge Josh Kindred in Nov 2022. (He was forced to resign and the whistleblower has filed a complaint saying she lost her job.)
Holly C. Wells: Wells has been an Alaska resident for 19 years and has practiced law for 20 years. She graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in 2004, and is in private practice in Anchorage. She is on the board of thread, which is a nonprofit advocacy group that tilts left.
Laura Wolff: Wolff has been an Alaska resident for 7-1/2 years and has practiced law for 11 years. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2013, and is an Assistant Attorney General at the Alaska Department of Law in Anchorage.
For a vacancy in the Bethel District Court, there are two applicants:
Colleen Baxter: Baxter has been an Alaska resident for over 54 years and has practiced law for over 26 years. She is a graduate of Temple University Beasley School of law and is a magistrate judge in Kotzebue.
Sam Cason: Cason has been an Alaska resident for over 64 years and practiced law for over 33 years. He graduated from University of Arkansas Leflar School of Law and is in private practice. Until recently, he was an elected member of the board of Chugach Electric Association.
How many of them own more than one cat?
Absolutely. We should have cat limits for these positions!
Pick the one (if possible) which did not go to Ivy League schools or California schools.
Lefty woman are all in with DEI and wokeism. The rule of law matters no more to them. Make up the new rules as they go along with radical social changes in America. These women know nothing about security and the law. Pathetic!
Alaska’s “Californication”.
How does someone practice law for 42 years when they graduated from law school in 2000?
Practice makes perfect
Very good question. If you are not good in math, why are you applying for a seat on the highest court in Alaska. It seems, that the underlying education needs work first.
Underlying education means BA in music theory or child psychology. The new minimums for law school have seen the standards go down ……..way down. Just be woke and affirmative actioned. Law School has become easy. Phasing out LSAT scores and even Bar Exams. Lisa Murkowski would pass on first attempt.
Lisa……. I doubt it. Unless Franky was grading the Bar Exam.
Dog Years…..
Nothing but AWFLs welcome to the Karen Court
Men are discouraged from attending college, demeaned and emasculated if they are in college, and the cycle repeats itself in law school. Men are not primary candidates for employment by law firms. The Attorney General’s office has been dominated by women for many decades. With that as background, it should not be surprising to see few male applicants for appointment to the bench. Men are useful for lifting heavy objects and fighting nasty wars to benefit other people in hot places. Another great victory for feminism.
I would add that Aimee Oravec would be a good choice. Smart and rational.
Sounds more than a little sexist.. Like”no men need apply”
And why would a MAN apply for such a position? It’s common knowledge that the Democrat Party runs the Alaska Bar Association and since they generate the list given to the Governor, why in heavens name would any rational thinking man apply?
Do the political math.
Maybe the Guys Club knows something the Girls Club doesn’t, starting with who in Alaska’s judiciary benefits most from the FUBAR’d state of the grand jury system.