By BOB BIRD
Alaska’s “model” Constitution is truly a model in some ways, like a preening beauty from the cover of Glamor magazine. It was crafted using a template from the Rockefeller-funded-and-founded University of Chicago.
It has received fawning reviews since before statehood. Sure, there are plenty of modifications, the best being the “common use” clause under Natural Resources. About the only thing that the Left really fears is the part about any new constitutional convention. The public gets to vote on that every 10 years.
It is not unreasonable for conservatives to worry about how a convention is put together and what its outcome might be. In the many queries I have received from citizens and the media, and again here, I have stated that in order for a true grassroots convention to occur, the Legislature must craft a precinct-structured system. If this is not done, it will likely be controlled by the very Leftists who fear the assembly of such a convention. And it ought to be done before the vote is taken, to assuage the concerns of the citizens.
Unlike what the media tells us, the most serious mistakes we are facing in the Alaska Constitution are found not over the Permanent Fund dividend, or even the Judicial Council, but in Art. XII, Sections 8, 12 and 13. Read them. They are chilling, and lie are the root of all our crises in economics and liberty.
Section 8 is nothing short of an “Anti-Tenth Amendment”, giving the state unlimited power. Section 12 and 13 defeat the very purpose of statehood, denying the state to ever claim title to its own real property, properties retained by the federal government in defiance of Article 1, Section 8, clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution and the ignored Tenth Amendment.
Such conditions were never imposed on the states east of the “middle border”, a term referencing the north-south axis running from North Dakota/Minnesota to Louisiana/Texas.
The other problems, like a rogue judiciary or a judicial council system, would not even exist if we ever had a governor or a legislature that understood proper constitutionalism, and that the judiciary is not a “co-equal branch,” whose opinions must be obeyed, but a weak sister, whose judgments need not be obeyed by an executive, and can be restrained by the Legislature.
Although the Federalist Papers are not part of even the U.S. Constitution, they did assist in getting it passed, and by a wafer-thin margin at the approving convention in the key state of New York.
Virginia, the biggest prize of all at the time, was also reluctant to approve, and reserved for itself, along with New York and Rhode island, a secession clause. You can look it up.
The Federalist Papers are a treatise on federalism and limited government philosophy. It is safe to say that they apply to our own state constitution, and this is reflected in many ways.
In Federalist #78, we read (with the emphasis entirely Alexander Hamilton’s): The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
Allow me to cite some direct quotes, first from a governor. When told that he need not enforce a state Supreme Court decision, he said twice, and six months apart: “It’s going to take some time for me to wrap my head around this.”
And from a prominent legislator: “Bob, I don’t doubt your word, it’s just not the way I learned it.” My reply was, “Me too. But I un-learned it, just like we all can.”
So, let us shatter the law-school oligarchy’s vice-grip on constitutional interpretation, if not from The Federalist Papers, but from how our own state constitution was crafted.
- The legislature is supreme. It can impeach any member of the judiciary or executive branch. Neither of them can do the same. Art. II, Sec. 20.
- The legislature has the power of the purse. It can never be surrendered. Art. IX, Sec. 1.
- It can override the governor’s vetoes. Art. II, Sec. 16. Both #2 and #3 have just been overthrown and claimed by the judiciary, an obviously impeachable offense.
- The legislature controls the courts’ jurisdiction. It can disqualify the courts’ from whatever legislation is passed from their judicial review. Art. IV, Sec. 1.
- So-called “case law”, the corpus of judicial decisions that are known only to lawyers, are no laws at all. True laws are defined in Art. 12, Sec. 11, and are applied only to what the legislature enacts, not the judiciary or executive orders.
As has been pointed out regarding the U.S. Constitution: “It is not that the Constitution has been tried and found wanting. Rather, it has been left untried, and found difficult.”
Constitutionalizing the PFD is worthy, but to truly limit federal power, we need to disown parts of Article XII. And to limit judicial overreach, while we might rearrange the way we choose our judges, we merely need to re-word what the constitution already indicates, so that it is clearly understood by the citizens, and can no longer be ignored by the case-law oligarchy.
Bob Bird is chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show, the Bird’s Eye View on KSRM radio, Kenai.
