Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon has appointed one of the legal counsels for the Alaska Federation of Natives to the Alaska Redistricting Board.
The appointment of Nicole Borromeo, who signed the recall petition against Gov. Mike Dunleavy, shocked Republicans, who were reminded by Must Read Alaska last week that Edgmon had signed a pledge to have the majority of the Committee on Committees approve his pick.
That committee majority that apparently approved the pick would have to include two of its Republicans — Rep. Chuck Kopp of District 24, Rep. Jennifer Johnston of District 28, Rep. Louise Stutes of District 32, and Rep. Steve Thompson of Fairbanks District 2.
The redistricting seat should have been picked by a Republican Speaker of the House, based on the overwhelming majority of Republicans elected, but seven Republicans bolted from the caucus in 2019 and installed Democrat Bryce Edgmon as Speaker. They won powerful seats in the process, including seats on the Committee on Committees. Kopp is Rules chair and Johnston is co-chair of Finance. Thompson is Majority leader and Stutes is whip.
The Alaska Redistricting Board is the group that redraws the political boundaries of the state following every U.S. Census. It is an exercise that will take place in every state at the close of the Census this year.
The choice of a hardline radical may cost Kopp and Johnston their races this year in the Legislature, and could hurt Thompson as well. Stutes is probably safe in her district, which encompasses Kodiak and Cordova.
Edgmon said earlier this week he intended to appoint an Alaska Native to the Redistricting Board. As part of his agreement with the Republicans who installed him, he re-registered as a nonpartisan voter in 2019. But he’s a lifelong Democrat, and the reregistration was merely to give the seven cover for not installing a Democrat Speaker, which would have brought sanctions from the Alaska Republican Party.
“Ms. Borromeo has served as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Alaska Federation of Natives since 2014. In that capacity, she provides executive level leadership and advises the AFN President and Board on a wide array of legislative and litigation matters, including voting rights. In addition to her decade of legal and public policy experience, Ms. Borromeo spent two years working on Capitol Hill for the late Sen. Ted Stevens and the Senate Appropriations Committee,” the Speaker’s press release noted.
Borromeo lives in Anchorage. She earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a law degree from the University of Washington School of Law. Ms. Borromeo was recognized as one of Alaska’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2018.
Other members of the board are E. Budd Simpson and Bethany Marcum, appointed by the governor, and John Binkley, appointed by Sen. Cathy Giessel.
This is the second part of the series by Alexander Dolitsky of Juneau.
This is a response to recent comments on my column, “White Privilege in America” (see below) by those whom I consider friends and good neighbors.
I understand and appreciate the authors’ emotional and factual narrative. In this, I want to clarify my position on “white privilege” vs. those addressed in prior articles.
In regard to “disparities” in criminal justice, specifically in incarceration rates relative to proportional representation in the general population, proportional representation in the general population is not the relevant metric. Proportional representation in the population of people conducting criminal behavior is the important metric for comparison. I don’t know those data, but I sure know that this comparison to the general population is nonsense, yet we see it all the time for all sorts of “racial discrimination” statistics.
The rest of the narrative in both articles is just about injustices done to other people than whites. And then the conclusion is that, therefore, in comparison white people have been “privileged.”
So, what really is the point? That life is unfair; that injustices have occurred; and that by extension, white people must now fess up to their privilege and be ashamed of themselves (like most of these authors) or even be made to pay for their supposed sins of the past?
The whole premise is that race, especially by skin color alone (“white”), is of paramount importance in categorizing and understanding people, and that by recognizing somebody as “white,” tells much about the relative advantages they have had in their lives. But that is such an over-simplistic, purely racial view of human society.
The truth is that the relative advantages and disadvantages that have been experienced by individual white people vary across an enormous spectrum within human culture, and assuming that the color of one’s skin alone is enough to indicate anything about where any one person might fall on such as spectrum is pure nonsense.
Categorizing people by race and prejudging them by race is racial prejudice. Why don’t we make a concerted effort to stopracial prejudice rather than redirecting it?
In my opinion, discrimination may take different shapes, forms, conditions, behavior, race, religion, ethnicity, etc. For example, Jews, (another invisible minority) are judged as “privileged “ only by white skin color.
In fact, antisemitism is racism as much as assumptions about “white privilege.“ Frequent discrimination of immigrants, disabled people, LGBT community, etc. is based on either their sexual preferences, physical limitations or social status, and, yet, they are in a category of “privileged” because of their skin color—white.
Historically, Jews have been discriminated for over 2000 years, and often times based on their physical characteristics, appearance, religion, behavior, and funny talk. The dilemma I have is this: How long we should keep referencing our past?
For example, my grandfather Roman Umansky, was killed by German Nazis in 1941 in Kiev, Ukraine. He was captured and brutally killed. I never met my grandfather Roman. But I don’t expect young generation in today’s Germany to apologize to me for the atrocities committed to my former country, Soviet Union, and for killing my grandfather. I will not forget, but I forgive them.
In short, in my prior article entitled “White Privilege in Today’s America,” I shared my experience as an immigrant in our country, and I refuse to be categorized under umbrella of “white privilege.” I am just American.
My point is simply that any categorization and prejudging anyone on the basis of their skin color alone is by definition racial prejudice. Isn’t it? Prejudging someone on the basis of their race. What part of that is so complicated to understand?
Certainly, racial prejudice and discrimination is wrong in any case and shape. Labeling all “whites” as a racial category that has been “privileged” is prejudging all individuals in that category on the basis of their race alone. To call that a “fact” rather than “racial prejudice” is either extremely hypocritical (that racial prejudice is OK if targeted against your chosen target group) or is ignoring the concept as defined by the English language.
I think my immigrant story, probably similar to many other immigrants in the United States, is important because it illustrates the ideals expressed in the U.S. Constitution, especially in relation to equality for all without regard to race, ethnicity or origin; that I have fully accepted those ideals; but that now I find a significant segment of American society overtly acting directly against them by blatantly espousing racism (so-called “white privilege”). Even politicians seem to feel free to do that in public forums.
To me, this seems inappropriate. There should be no tolerance for racism at all. We should celebrate hard work and the American ideals versus racist concepts and accusations masquerading as kindness and understanding of supposed injustices that are also often used to advance a political agenda. Period.
Alexander Dolitsky is an author, anthropologist and historian who lives in Juneau. Born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union, he received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1977; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and attended the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present.
A day after a group of Republicans attacked upstart candidate Jesse Sumner with a recall petition to try to remove him from the Mat-Su Borough Assembly, Sumner has apologized for misstatements about Rep. David Eastman’s per diem. Sumner is challenging Eastman in the District 10 Republican primary.
Sumner had said that Eastman took per diem while the Legislature was meeting in Wasilla in 2019. That was not possible, since legislators cannot take per diem when the Legislature is meeting within 50 miles of their home. A handful of Eastman supporters decided to go after his Assembly seat for those misstatements. They started an application for a recall.
“I apologize. I made a mistake and I take complete ownership. When I said that my opponent had the most per diem during the 2019 special session in Wasilla, I was inaccurate,” Sumner said.
“I apologize to my opponent, his supporters and the voters of District 10. I assure everyone, I did so unintentionally,” Sumner said.
Sumner provided the actual chart of per diem for 2019, which shows that Eastman took $48,622 in per diem, $22,704.92 in relocation reimbursement, along with the $50,400 in wages he earns as a legislator.
His per diem is slightly more than Speaker Bryce Edgmon of Dillingham, at $47,716, and slightly less than Rep. Neal Foster of Nome, who took $51,642.
Sen. Donny Olson billed the state for over $50,434 in per diem, putting Eastman in third place for the most per diem taken last year.
However, for the weeks that the session was called to Wasilla, he was not permitted to take per diem.
For per diem in 2017, Eastman’s per diem and relocation appears to be 171 percent higher than then-Sen. Mike Dunleavy’s per diem that year. Dunleavy lives in Wasilla and is now governor.
The Chair of District 9 Republicans says she is taking legal action against a Facebook personality known as “Politidick.”
Carol Carman, a conservative in D-9, has been Chair of the distict since 2016, reelected in 2018 and 2020. But this year, Politidick decided to try to force her out of her chair. She says has been accused on Facebook of illegal activity and that Politidick has been running a harassment campaign against her and her family.
Carman has asked Politidick to cease harassing her multiple times but the response has been threats, she said.
Carman started a GoFundMe page to help her with legal fees. She would not reveal all the problems she has had with the harassment, but says that the original harassment page on Facebook that was started against her was removed, evidently by Facebook, but that other harassment has continued, including personal messages.
There is a fable of unknown origin about a scorpion and a frog. The scorpion wants to cross a stream but cannot swim; the scorpion asks the frog for a ride a ride across the stream. The frog is doubtful because he fears that the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion assures the frog that he won’t sting him because if he did, they’d both die.
Of course, the frog accepts the scorpion’s assurances and allows the scorpion to ride on his back across the stream. Before reach the opposite shore, the scorpion stings the frog, and as he is dying, the frog asks the scorpion “why?” The scorpion replies that it is in his character, and they both die.
Police unions all over America, including here in Anchorage, are living out this fable, but with the Democratic Party.
The Alaska State Troopers’ union, from its formation in 1979, used the State’s management like the cabin boys on a Greek freighter.
By the late 1980s, we at the State of Alaska were tired of it, resolved to effectively confront them, and were pretty successful at it.
Anchorage, on the other hand, kowtowed to the police unions.
In my last years with the State, the Troopers would flop down the Anchorage cop contract and say, “We want what they have,” and we’d say, “Well, go to work for them.”
That’s changed a bit in the last decade or so since there is nobody left working for the State who knows what they’re doing.
I think it is accurate to say that the cop and firefighter unions own the MOA government. The brazen stupidity of Anchorage’s AO-37 gave Alaska’s unions power and influence they didn’t even have in their glory days during the pipeline construction days. Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is their boy; they own him.
But now, in mid-stream, the Berkowitz administration is threatening to sting the cop union. Berkowitz and his Assembly lackeys want to rein in the cops and limit their “use of force.” Berkowitz and his liberal allies want to turn us into Portland or Seattle, where the police are just bystanders to mob violence.
In urban America, the communists, excuse me, Democrats have repudiated their previous alliance with the cop unions. In my working days, I always assumed that if I could get the cops, the supervisors, and the guys who drove the orange trucks under contract I could handle the rest of them. I think the Democrats are going to get a lesson about that.
There is no way that cops are going to support Joe Biden and that is going to trickle down into down-ticket offices. The Democrats have made their bed with the Antifa and BLM crowd, and the cop unions aren’t in that club.
Bill Evans is the prominent conservative/Republican opposition to the Leftist/unionist contenders for mayor. Evans is widely thought to be the architect of AO-37. Now the unions/lefties have a tough choice. They hate Evans, but they now have to confront the fact that the lefties will throw them under the bus.
Cop unions all over America have to confront this conundrum; they’ve been kicked to the curb by every Democrat governor and mayor in the country. I wrote the section in my book (see below) about cop and correctional officer unions about 15 years ago, and I said all a Republican had to do was promise them that they wouldn’t put a criminal justice professor or a lesbian social worker in charge of them; I don’t think that has changed.
The Democrats have managed to turn every cop in America into a Trump supporter. Their unions will stay in the Democrat fold at least publicly, but they’re gone too.
My rule in dealing with lefties in my working days was, “Let them be themselves.” I think it was a good “frog and the scorpion” rule.
Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon.
Senate President Cathy Giessel today appointed Johne Binkley to serve on the Alaska Redistricting Board.
“I am pleased to announce that John Binkley has agreed to serve on the Redistricting Board,” she said. “John loves Alaska and Alaskans. He brings a wealth of statewide experience to the table and, most importantly for me, John is an excellent listener. Alaskans will have many concerns about redistricting, and they deserve to have their voices heard. I am confident that John is committed to a fair process and will listen well.”
Binkley was a state senator and representative, and has run for governor in the past, losing the primary to Sarah Palin. He is a successful Fairbanks businessman who also bailed out the bankrupt Anchorage Daily News, buying for the Binkley Company. His son Ryan runs the newspaper.
Binkley is involved in tourism from Ketchikan to Fairbanks. He is a riverboat pilot, a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot, hockey coach, and has lived in rural Alaska. He is a household name in Alaska tourism and politics.
He joins Bethany Marcum and E. Budd Simpson, the governor’s picks for the board that redraws the political boundaries after the 2020 Census. Giessel is in a tough primary race against Roger Holland. On Tuesday evening, Sen. Shelley Hughes said she was leaving the Republican caucus because of Giessel’s leadership.
Next to choose a member to the Redistricting Board is House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, who has a signed agreement that his choice must be approved by the majority of the Committee on Committees. He is on record saying he prefers to name an Alaska Native to the board.
In September of 2019, Anchorage Officer Cornelius Pettus responded to a call to an Anchorage address to serve a simple citation for bike equipment, and things went downhill from there.
Now, a grand jury has indicted him for beating up the bike owner, and another officer for falsifying a police report.
According to Pettus, the man had approached the officer with his fists balled up and in a fighting stance. That is what the police report shows, but the Grand Jury has said evidence shows otherwise.
Pettus has already pleaded not guilty in an Anchorage courtroom to the fourth-degree assault charge for beating then-49-year-old Samuel Allen.
Allen has a history of strong dislike of police and has made threats against police officers on YouTube. He is known to members of the police force, but it’s unknown if Pettus was familiar with him.
Today the Office of Special Prosecutions indicted Pettus and Officer Doerman Stout on obstruction charges resulting from their actions that day.
Chief Justin Doll sent out press release in which he convicted the two men in advance of their due process court date, saying, “In violating the law, these individuals not only disappointed the employees they work with, they also failed the community they swore to serve.”
In an usual statement for the force’s commanding officer, Doll said the two men had failed the community and disappointed their fellow officers.
There had been no charges against Stout, but the Grand Jury indicted him for his incident report that said the man took a fighting stance, based on evidence they saw, perhaps on the patrol car camera.
At a time when there is a national movement among Democrats and Black Lives Matter supporters to defund the police departments of America, the racial composition of all police-related incidences are of interest to the public. In this case, Officer Pettus is black, Stout is white, and Allen is Alaska Native.
“It is important to remember that neither officer has been found guilty of violating any laws. It is also important to remember that Officer Aaron Pettus and Officer Levi Stout are fathers, sons, friends, and comm?nity?? membe???rs,” said Jeremy Conkling of the Anchorage Police Department Employees Association.
“Unfortunately, it appears these officers have been caught in the crosswinds of an incredibly divided nation and a politicized criminal justice system. When politics are injected into the criminal justice system, justice is lost,” Conkling said.
“The APDEA supports our two officers. Tomorrow Aaron and Levi will stop receiving paychecks from the Municipality of Anchorage and will face a long, difficult road in proving their innocence,” Conkling said. “I ask all of our citizens and members to be patient while this process unfolds. Wait for all the facts before passing judgment on two dedicated public servants. We trust in the criminal justice system, especially when the system fairly and objectively applies the rule of law. Once the full picture is ?rev?ealed? once ?we lea?rn of ?he officers’??? t?rue intentions, I am convinced that justice will prevail, and the officers will be exonerated of all charges.”
Allen had used his cellphone to record his interaction with Pettus earlier that evening when Pettus had stopped him for riding a bike without lights or reflectors. But earlier that day, Allen had also recorded another Anchorage officer dragging a K-9 out of police headquarters by its leash, a piece of video footage that went viral.
REVENGE, PUBLICITY IN A CLOSE RACEFOR HOUSE DISTRICT 10
Jesse Sumner, a candidate for House District 10-Mat-Su, is getting a taste of dirty politics. The supporters of Rep. David Eastman started a campaign to recall him from the Mat-Su Borough Assembly. Sumner is arguably the most conservative member of the Assembly.
Filed today with the Borough Clerk, the application for a recall petition was sponsored by John Nelson, who is running for Congress against Congressman Don Young. Justin Giles is also a sponsor.
Eastman is mentioned in the recall application. The claim is that Sumner has said Eastman took the most per-diem of any House member during the Special Session in Wasilla in 2019. The group says Eastman took no per diem during that special session.
“Knowingly publishing false information designed to damage a candidate’s reputation for honesty or integrity constitutes campaign misconduct, a class B misdemeanor…”
The claims also say that Sumner has a criminal record relating to events on a Halloween night in California in 2004. Sumer was 19 at the time. He was in college and didn’t have his California drivers license, because he wanted to keep his Alaska driver’s license. Other than that, Sumner has speeding tickets and a DUI, both of which he has disclosed.
Sumner was last elected to the Assembly in 2018 for a three-year term. Formerly, he worked on the campaign of David Eastman. He was endorsed by Region 2 Council of the Alaska Republican Party, District 7-12, in 2018 for Assembly.
Senator Shelley Hughes told a group at the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce that the Senate President Cathy Giessel has said so many falsehoods, that Hughes can no longer be associated with her leadership. Hughes is leaving the majority.
Hughes said she has not left the Majority caucus so much as the presiding officer left her. She made the announcement toward the end of the meeting on Tuesday.
“The Senate majority has walked away from me. The presiding officer is making false claims,” Hughes told Must Read Alaska.
“I’m a candidate, and I am true to my principles. Hearing claims by Sen. Giessel — I’m just not in agreement with them,” she said.
She cited that Giessel has claimed she worked with the governor to restrain spending when, in fact, she tried to force lawmakers to Juneau last summer to expand spending. The governor had called a special session in Wasilla, but Giessel and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon refused to attend it.
Hughes also said that Giessel has taken credit for the repeal of Senate Bill 91, the soft-on-crime bill, and that she claims to fight for a full Permanent Fund dividend, when she has not done so as Senate president.
Giessel’s term as Senate president is likely to end in January, when a new organization will emerge after the November elections.
“I don’t want to alienate myself from others, and I want to maintain good working relationships,” Hughes said.
The Senate Majority is made up of 13 Republicans and one Democrat, but the more conservative Republicans have been punished by Giessel for voting their conscience on items such as the Permanent Fund dividend and the operating budget.
Her press release tonight explains further:
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 – This evening at a Chamber of Commerce event in Wasilla, Alaska, Senator Hughes announced that she is officially leaving the Alaska Senator Majority Caucus.
“When I and my Senate Majority colleagues came together nearly two years ago to organize and set our priorities for the 31st Alaska State Legislature, I was full of optimism. We sat together as a team at a location in Wasilla and set what we believed at the time were attainable goals for Alaskans. Those goals included repealing Senate Bill 91, reducing Alaska’s operating budget spending, and settling the PFD issue.”
“While there is still opportunity for the legislature to come together and work the two remaining issues, it appears only one of those priorities will have been accomplished in this legislature: the full repeal of SB 91. I am so very proud to have led the Senate’s team and effort in that work. I, my Judiciary Committee colleagues, Senator Costello and my staff worked exhaustively with the Governor’s team to present a bill that fixed the SB 91 mistake. I was very proud of the final product which was not watered down in the negotiations I chaired, but instead was a strong repeal bill.”
“I am, however, perplexed on how the presiding officer in the Senate, Senator Giessel, can now take credit for that work, when she kicked the very team who did the work to the curb. She now is also making false claims about working with the Governor and reducing the budget after she insisted that I, and others, come to Juneau last summer for a veto override session. On top of that Senator Giessel is making claims that she supported a full dividend before she was against it. Her votes and comments over the past two years have indicated her true preference to direct PFD dollars to government spending and special interests, rather than private sector spending by the people.”
“In good conscience, as a candidate accountable to the people, I can no longer stand by and say nothing when I hear such false statements from a person in a position of leadership. To be true to my principles I must walk away from a leader who has abandoned the core values around which the caucus was originally formed.”
“Having felt the accumulative weight of all the decisions the Senate President has made in the last seven months, I find it obvious that it is not I who left the Senate Majority, it is the Senate President who has left me. I am acknowledging that fact today and I will no longer be associated with her through membership in the Alaska Senate Majority.”
Both Giessel and Hughes are running for reelection but Giessel is considered to be in a tight race with newcomer Roger Holland of South Anchorage. Both are Republicans.
