The Alaska Legislature’s Select Committee on Legislative Ethics meets Monday at 10 am in the Anchorage Legislative Information Offices, at the corner of Benson Blvd. and Minnesota Drive in Anchorage (Wells Fargo Building).
On the agenda are two House complaints to be taken up in executive session, which is behind closed doors.
The meeting, except for executive session (which will be almost all of the meeting), will be teleconferenced. The call-in numbers are:
Anchorage Only: 907-563-9085. Juneau Only: 907-586-9085. Outside Anchorage or Juneau: 1-844-586-9085
Ethics complaints are kept private so that they don’t become politicized, so there’s no documentation about what the complaints are about. If media reports are made about the specific complaints before they are adjudicated, the complaints are typically dismissed as having been weaponized.
The committee meets on an as-needed basis to administer the Legislative Ethics Act, AS 24.60. The requirements and prohibitions in the Legislative Ethics Act apply to legislators, most employees of the legislative branch, and the public members of the Ethics Committee. The committee has no jurisdiction over those who work in the Executive Branch of the State of Alaska.
The committee is made up of Republican Sen. Gary Stevens, the president of the Senate; Democrat Sen. Loki Tobin (she/her) of Anchorage; Republican Rep. DeLena Johnson of Palmer; and Democrat Rep. Sara Hannan of Juneau. Of the legislators on the committee, Johnson is the only solid Republican, as Stevens is the majority leader of a caucus dominated by Democrats.
Public members of the committee are committee Chairman Dennis “Skip” Cook, an attorney from Fairbanks; Joyce Anderson of Anchorage; Deb Fancher of Anchorage; Gerald McBeath of Fairbanks; and H. Connor Thomas, a Nome attorney who is a registered Democrat. Besides the Democrat, the other public members are registered nonpartisans.
The Ethics Committee is staffed by Administrator Jerry Anderson and Administrative Assistant Jacqueline Yeagle.
