JAMIE ALLARD GOES INTO THE RING, COMES OUT UNSCATHED
A nominee for the Alaska Human Rights Commission got to experience the now-common public character assassination by House State Affairs Committee Chairman Zack Fields.
Conservative women nominees who have had their reputations, religious beliefs, and personalities brutalized by Fields during confirmation hearings are now numerous enough to have their own club.
Fields set up a surprise hearing for Jamie Allard, who is also a candidate for Anchorage Assembly, but who is the governor’s choice for the Human Rights Commission.
With just 24 hours to prepare, Allard phoned in to the committee hearing, only to be called a racist by Fields because of a social media post she made that questioned some of the terms of tribal sovereignty as it pertains to law and order in rural Alaska.
Fields also accused Allard of being fired from the State Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
She said it wasn’t so.
He accused her of ordering lots of office furniture and forcing people to move offices at DMVA.
She said it was a printer she needed so that personnel documents could be printed confidentially, and the printer was repurposed from elsewhere in the department.
And finally, he accused her of having an abrasive personality.
But Allard was having none of it. “Are you calling me racist?” the U.S. Army veteran asked Fields at one point. Allard is Hispanic, and she was loaded for bear on that question.
He quickly backed down and said he didn’t “know her heart” but other people, whom he would not name, might think she is racist.
He also said that “other people” had told him she had been fired, and that others told him that she ordered several office remodels at DMVA. He believed them, not her, he said.
At once point, Rep. Sarah Vance had to intervene during what had become a battering, asking what Allard’s work at DMVA had to do with a volunteer position on a state commission. Allard had worked for the Dunleavy administration for about six months, before resigning to run for Anchorage Assembly.
When Fields needed a break from the inquisition, Rep. Andi Story jumped into the fray and asked Allard what kind of activities she has planned to reduce racism or sexism, and asked her whether she supports gay rights.
Allard responded that she would be working on topics pertaining to the commission and that she would follow the law.
Fields had finally had enough of Allard and recessed the committee, after it appeared she wasn’t going to lose her cool or allow him to take unfair shots at her reputation.
