The man who filed a letter of intent to run against Sen. Cathy Giessel, District N, has resigned from his State of Alaska job as a metrologist (measurement scientist) so he can focus 100 percent of his efforts on his campaign.
Roger Holland said that he would have continued, but he already has District N meetings to attend and “this will open things up for me, and allow me to work on things that would languish on the campaign.”
Holland said he did not need to resign from his state job because he had only filed a letter of intent to run — that is different than filing an actual declaration of candidacy, something prohibited by the State Personnel Act. He would have had to resign by June 1, however.
But Holland’s early fundraising has been successful since he announced his intent on Tuesday to be a Republican candidate and challenge the current Senate president.
District N is the Anchorage hillside and covers House Districts 27 and 28. Holland said he would be attending his District 28 Republican convention and meeting on Feb. 8, from 8 am to 3 pm at Rabbit Creek Church.
ELECTION SET-UP, ANDBUDGET BATTLE LINES BECOME MORE CLEAR
The surprise joint session of the state House and Senate today failed to override the governor’s budget vetoes pertaining to $5 million for the ferry system and $70 million in school bond debt reimbursement and funds for rural schools.
The vote was 37 to override to 20 against overriding, and came after three hours of floor speeches, mostly from those in favor of the override. However, the attempt to override needed 45 votes to succeed.
The votes on the veto overrides from today’s joint session.
Although it appears a momentary victory for budget hawks, who pointed out that the state is facing a $1.5 billion gap in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2021 budget, the vote was also a stark demonstration to the Dunleavy Administration of where the battle lines will be drawn on the next budget.
The three members who were absent would have brought the override “nay” votes to 23, but today’s vote shows the vast majority of the Legislature was in favor of breaking the deal crafted by Sen. Bert Stedman with Gov. Mike Dunleavy last year, when it came to funding the ferries at $43 million, and are not likely to seek real state savings.
Senators and representatives gave reporters plenty of opportunities for sound bites, and the futility of it was pointed out by Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux of Anchorage, who said she was pretty good at counting and she didn’t see the votes present, which made her wonder why a matter was brought to the floor, when it was not ripe for passage.
In some ways, it may be the culmination of a year of House and Senate leaders failing to communicate with the Governor’s Office.
The day’s theater performance foreshadows budget battles ahead: In order to access the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the Legislature will need three quarters from both bodies to agree — 45 votes in all. That will be a key sticking point for completing the Legislature’s work in the statutory 90 days, and will put pressure on some legislators who are facing reelection.
Senate President Cathy Giessel conferred for 15 minutes with Sen. Tom Begich, Sen. Gary Stevens, and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon during an at-ease today. She also attempted to convince Sen. Peter Micciche, top right, to vote to override the vetoes.
In fact, today’s joint session may have been about setting people up to be put on record, in advance of using this vote against some legislators in the coming November election — legislators from ferry port districts who are facing reelection.
That theory was supported when two members of the Democrat-led House Majority — one a Republican and the other a Democrat — were heard talking in the hallways about using today’s vote to “take people out.”
The numbers guru to replace former Legislative Finance Director David Teal is Pat Pitney, the former budget office director for Gov. Bill Walker. Teal retired in December.
Pitney was the Office of Management and Budget director for Walker’s entire term in office, and came to the Walker Administration from the administration of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She will now lead the Division of Legislative Finance.
Pitney, along with Walker Administration Tax Division Director Ken Alper, and Administrative Services Director Rob Carpenter were finalists for the job.
The three were interviewed by the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee this week. That committee is chaired by Democrat Rep. Chris Tuck and its members include six Republicans and six Democrats.
Pitney has an MBA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and an engineering degree from Murray State University. She is a Gold Medal Olympian in air rifle in the 1984 Summer Olympics.
An emergency joint session of the Legislature was called for Friday at 10:30 am to attempt to override two of the governor’s vetoes from last year.
The chief of staff to the governor said it came as a surprise. Ben Stevens said the Administration didn’t learn of the joint session, nor what the topic was, until 5:30 pm on Thursday.
Stevens told the Alaska Miners Association in Juneau this morning that legislative leaders from the House and Senate never reached out to him or the Administration to find out what is in the governor’s supplemental budget.
As it turns out, one of the two items that Senate President Cathy Giessel and Speaker Bryce Edgmon want to override from last year’s budget vetoes is included in the supplemental budget, which is due to the Legislature in two weeks.
The matter concerns ferry funding. Last year, the Legislature cut $43 million from the ferry system under an agreement made between Senator Bert Stedman of Sitka and the Dunleavy Administration. The Legislature then worked $5 million back into the ferry budget, but it was vetoed by the governor in August.
However, in the months ensuing, the Administration has looked at how to help remote coastal communities that depend on the ferries and have no roads. Thus, the governor’s supplemental budget assigns $12.5 million more for the ferry system.
And since August, a $250,000 study of how to restructure the ferry system has been conducted, and was recently released.
As for the school bond debt reimbursement, Stevens said that an annual audit of the various school funds for districts around the state shows that there are more than $500 million sitting in those funds that could be used by districts to pay back their bonds.
Some areas of the state have already increased their local mill rate to accommodate the loss of the state reimbursement funds for the bonds that local voters have approved in past years. The state has picked up those payments for years, but the Dunleavy Administration put a hard stop on the program, due to a lack of state funds.
Gretchen Wehmhoff, pictured above, and Melinda Munsonof Chugiak were selected by Larry Persily to be the new publishers of the Skagway News. At least one is a familiar face in Southcentral Alaska politics.
Persily is essentially giving the newspaper away after advertising that he would offer it to the “right person.” In this case persons. He was looking for someone who could keep the newspaper alive during this time of dwindling community newspapers. Persily is selling it to the two women for $20.
Wehmhoff and Munson are teachers, but Wehmhoff ran for office as a Democrat in a decidedly Republican District 12.
She ran in 2014 against Rep. Cathy Tilton, and again in 2016. She also ran for Anchorage Assembly in 2017, 2018, and filed a letter of intent to run in 2019.
In 2018, Anchorage Assembly chose Wehmhoff, a liberal, to fill conservative Amy Demboski’s seat, which Demboski vacated when she took a job with the governor.
Wehmhoff is currently registered as a nonpartisan, while Munson is a Democrat. Wehmhoff teaches journalism, while Munson has a journalism degree.
And perhaps not surprisingly, both of the new publishers of the Skagway News have signed the “Recall Dunleavy” petition. They take up the reins at the Skagway News on March 3.
A special joint session of the House and Senate has been called for Friday at 10:30 am by Senate President Cathy Giessel and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, who have worked closely together to defeat Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget decisions since he took office.
The purpose of the session is ostensibly to consider overriding budget vetoes of Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Those items are school bond debt reimbursement and a $5 million appropriation to the ferry system, two items that Dunleavy vetoed last year. There could be other items tacked onto the list once the override items are introduced.
The news started circulating throughout the Capitol late in the afternoon on Thursday. By then, three legislators had already left town for the weekend — Reps. Ben Carpenter and Mel Gillis, and Sen. David Wilson. Those will be no votes on Friday.
It takes 45 of the body to override a veto. It appears doubtful that the joint session will have the 3/4 votes needed to override the governor’s vetoes, but there appears to be a secondary purpose, which relates to difficulties in the Republican Majority in the Senate. As with many things in politics, there is more to the story.
Senate President Cathy Giessel has a side conversation with Senator Tom Begich today, leading up to the decision to call a joint session to override Dunleavy vetoes.
Earlier today, a move to force all members of the Republican Majority to sign a pledge that would bind them on budget votes was ditched at the last minute.
Add to that, Giessel already faced an embarrassing defeat earlier this week when her Senate reorganization was only accomplished with help of all the Democrats in the Senate, and less than half of the Republicans.
If the more fiscally conservative members are indeed kicked out of the Senate Majority, it will mean a shift in committee memberships, as well as a reduction to their office staff. Updated: A source in the Senate said the vote will not, in fact, be a decision point for who can stay in the caucus.
Senators Mike Shower, Shelley Hughes, and Lora Reinbold are particularly at risk, since they represent conservative districts and were punished by Sen. Giessel earlier this week when she stripped them of most of their committee posts.
Judge Eric Aarseth is scraping egg off of his face this week. Trying to repair damage to his reputation of impartiality, he has called for another court hearing that involves one of his Jan. 10 decisions on whether the Recall Dunleavy petition can move forward to the signature-gathering stage.
Those oral arguments he says will be made on Jan. 29 in Anchorage.
BACKGROUND– A SERIES OF JUDICIAL MISSTEPS
The case involves a quest to unseat Gov. Mike Dunleavy via recall election. The State of Alaska and Stand Tall for Mike say there are no legitimate grounds for recall.
When the original oral arguments were made Jan. 10, observers noted that Aarseth had scheduled two hours for the court hearing. But when he arrived in court, the judge suddenly cut it to one hour — one half hour for each side.
That change left the Recall Dunleavy defense team scrambling without time to coordinate and cut their two presentations down by half. By the time Stand Tall for Mike’s attorney Brewster Jamieson stood to give his presentation, the judge quickly cut him off and told him to conclude.
As he began that hearing on Jan. 10, Aarseth announced he would have a decision at the end of it. This was an unmistakable signal he’d already determined the outcome.
And he had. After a 10-minute break after the hour of arguments, Aarseth returned with a 15-minute explanation of why the Recall Dunleavy petition was legal, and he then announced he would not be granting a “stay” on the petitions, while the matter was appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court by the Stand Tall for Mike group, defending the governor.
Don’t bother asking for a stay, he said, as he was ordering the petitions to be issued by Feb. 10.
Jamieson, arguing for Stand Tall for Mike, asked if he might ask for that stay anyway. Might he be permitted by the court to get that in writing, as this would allow the Stand Tall group to then appeal the “no stay” ruling to the Supreme Court as well as appealing the Aarseth ruling on the merits of the case? The judge begrudgingly agreed.
On Jan. 16, Aarseth had received the Stand Tall argument for a “stay” on the petition booklets, and he reversed his original ruling, and granted the stay, pending the decision by the Alaska Supreme Court.
Six days later, on Jan. 22, Aarseth reversed that ruling and said he had made an error.
The court system issued an explanation on Twitter on Jan. 22:
“On January 21, Judge Aarseth reviewed the Unopposed Motion for Expedited Consideration of Motion for Stay Pending Appeal and the Motion for Stay Pending Expedited Appeal filed by STWM while out of town on a urgent family issue.”
“He telephonically authorized granting the Motion for Expedited Consideration only. The Motion for Stay Pending Expedited Appeal was inadvertently granted as well.”
Now, the hapless judge has scheduled oral arguments on the decision about whether the petition booklets can be issued while the case is still under consideration.
That court date, Jan. 29, is only 12 days from the date Aarseth had said the Division of Elections must have the petition booklets printed and available for the Recall Dunleavy group.
Each error and reversal runs up the bills for the Stand Tall group — writing motions, writing reply briefs — all in pursuit of appearing in a Kabuki courtroom, where both sides and the judge already know what the outcome will be: Judge Aarseth is going to rule against the governor and for the Recall Dunleavy group. That you can take to the bank.
Update – The Senate Republican caucus appears to have backed away from the signed budget pledge referred to in this story.It will be updatedif other developments occur.
Republican senators are being asked to sign a pledge to support every budget item approved by Senate President Cathy Giessel and her leadership team, or lose their membership in the Majority Caucus.
Must Read Alaska has learned that the pledge has been signed by most senators and covers the operating, capital, supplemental, “reverse sweep” and Permanent Fund dividend appropriation. It means that halfway through the two-year session, the rules of the Majority caucus are different, and the leadership wants it in writing from all members.
The majority caucus meets at 2 pm and the remaining senators who have not signed the pledge will be confronted with their final decision about whether to be included with the rest of the Republicans.
The move follows a complete reorganization of the Senate on Tuesday, where the most conservative members were stripped of their committee chairmanships and committee memberships. Sen. Mike Shower, Senate Seat E, lost membership in five committees and three subcommittees, and lost two chairmanships. Sen. Lora Reinbold, Sen. Mia Costello, Sen. Peter Micciche, and Sen. Shelley Hughes were also put in the corner.
The move would mean the Senate would likely change to a bipartisan majority with Sen. Tom Begich, a Democrat, as one of its more influential members.
Losing membership in the Republican Majority would mean anyone who does not sign the pledge will lose staff and will likely be relegated to a small office.
What we first thought was a return to common sense in the misguided recall effort aimed at Gov. Mike Dunleavy turns out to only be a reaffirmation of earlier silliness.
For reasons only he knows, Superior Court Judge Eric Aarseth on Jan. 10 ordered the Division of Elections to issue signature booklets to the Recall Dunleavy group – even as its case against the state pends in court. The state had rejected the group’s recall petition as having insufficient grounds.
The order allowed the group to begin another round of signature-gathering to force a special election to replace Dunleavy.
Tuesday, the judge signed an order, at the request of the Stand Tall with Mike group, that halted that booklet distribution until the Alaska Supreme Court gets a chance to look at the case. From where we sit, that only makes eminent good sense. In the end, it could save the state money and time.
All that was out the window Wednesday when Aarseth said “the court inadvertently issued an order” on Tuesday that paused his ruling ordering the Alaska Division of Elections to distribute signature booklets to Recall Dunleavy. He vacated his Tuesday ruling. Turns out, the judge was out of town, and says he approved the wrong order by telephone.
Stand Tall with Mike gets another chance to argue its case for suspension of the booklet distribution, but who knows how that will turn out?
Aarseth’s ruling that the booklets must be distributed seems to us no less than a judicial thumb on the scale of justice. The Recall Dunleavy group saves precious time by Aarseth’s decision allowing it – despite its case being unresolved in the court system – to proceed as if everything is copacetic.
It would seem to us that holding up the booklets until the all judicial remedies are exhausted would only make good sense.
Whatever the eventual outcome, this bit of on-again, off-again judicial dither is enough to make Alaskans begin to wonder about their court system.
If the Recall Dunleavy group’s ridiculously low bar for recall, if the same level of mis-, mal- and non-feasance it applied to Dunleavy were applied to Aarseth’s handling of his booklet order, he might well find himself looking for a new job.
