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Opioid addiction: Murkowski, Warren scold Trump on inaction

Suzanne Downing
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11

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have written a scolding and public letter to President Trump for not having declared a national emergency pertaining to opioids in a timely way. After they wrote the letter, they each produced press releases announcing their actions.

The letter says, in part:

“We applaud your stated commitment to addressing opioid addiction and agree with you that the crisis is a “serious problem” deserving of increased federal resources. However, we are extremely concerned that 63 days after your statement, you have yet to take the necessary steps to declare a national emergency on opioids, nor have you made any proposals to significantly increase funding to combat the epidemic.”

It’s not clear what such an emergency declaration would do. It’s never been done before for a self-induced drug epidemic. National emergencies have always pertained to war, weather, and contagion.

A declaration might add money for the distribution of the overdose tonic naloxone. But users just go back to using and naloxone is not addiction treatment.

It might mean health professionals start tussling for disaster relief funds that ought to be going to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and helping the 3,000 California families who just lost their homes to wildfires.

Does Murkowski’s open hostility to the president advance Alaska’s interests?

Or has Murkowski squandered yet more of the good will she will need to get Trump’s wholehearted support for things like opening ANWR?

An ironic twist is that both Murkowski and Warren support Medicaid expansion, which has been linked to the increased use in opioids by Medicaid recipients, and has possibly contributed to the epidemic.

[Read: Opioid Addiction: Has Medicaid made it worse?]

Medicaid provides money for some treatment for addicts, but also provides unlimited government funds that actually increase a person’s access to opioids.

This is especially true for Medicaid expansion states like Alaska, where able-bodied adults without children are the ones receiving greater access to opioids through a Medicaid expansion system that has no effective boundaries on these addictive drugs.

Democrat to head Commerce Department

Suzanne Downing
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2

Gov. Bill Walker has tapped a well-known politico from the Kenai Peninsula to head the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development.

Walker’s choice, Mike Navarre, owns Arby’s franchises in Alaska, and he has a long history of advocating for a state income tax.

Navarre, who served in the House of Representatives from 1985-1996, is finishing his third and final term as mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough. He will take over Commerce at the departure of Chris Hladick, who has been appointed by President Trump to lead Region 10 of the Environmental Protection Agency.

[Read: Chris Hladick is Trump’s pick for EPA Region 10]

As “nonpartisan” Walker heads into an election year as a candidate who must appeal to both the Left and the center of the political spectrum to win a second term, Navarre becomes the second Democrat that Walker has appointed to his cabinet in the past two weeks.

When Walker moved Administration commissioner Sheldon Fisher to head up the Department of Revenue, the governor elevated Alaska Democrat Party stalwart Leslie Ridle to commissioner. Ridle was a longtime aide to Democrat Mark Begich.

Now, Commerce will be headed by another Democrat Party standard-bearer, who has carried the water for Walker on his various tax proposals.

In April, Navarre wrote in the Alaska Dispatch News:

“The cold-hard-cash fact is that unless economic development produces more barrels of oil, any new economic activity and its accompanying jobs and students and road wear and tear can be a loser for the state treasury. But we can fix that as part of an overall state fiscal plan. Probably not all in one year, but it is fixable.

“New jobs are great for people who get hired, for retail and service shops that get additional business, and for communities with property taxes and sales taxes to collect the revenues needed to pay the costs of more students, street maintenance, police and fire protection.

“But lacking any broad-based state tax, such as income or sales or property tax, the state gets the bills for its share of more students, more roads, more demand on public services, but little to no additional revenue to pay the bills. That’s particularly true as more businesses are establishing themselves outside the jurisdiction of the state corporate income tax code.

“With oil, the state collects production tax and a royalty share and property tax and corporate income tax. But what about nonoil development? A widget factory? An ore smelter? A server farm for cloud computing? A new big box store? All those examples of economic development would generate sizable tax receipts for cities and boroughs but likely zero revenues for the state to help cover significant public-services expenses for the business, its workers and families.”

In March, Navarre also testified in front of a committee of the Alaska House of Representative in favor of an income tax. Navarre will serve as acting commissioner until he is confirmed by the Legislature.

Launched: Campaign to kill income tax

Suzanne Downing
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11

Jeremy Price says it’s time Gov. Bill Walker focuses on shrinking the scope of government, not on taxing an ever-shrinking number of employed Alaskans with a “payroll tax.”

Price’s organization, Americans for Prosperity – Alaska has launched a multi-media campaign to oppose the new Walker payroll tax.

Walker describes the tax as a “capped hybrid income tax,” Price said. It is the fourth time the governor has called lawmakers to Juneau to approve new revenue, including a fuel tax and an “education head tax.”

“Gov. Walker and the House continue to insist on more taxes while Alaska is in a recession and leads the nation in unemployment,” Price said.

“Alaska small businesses are the backbone of our communities and we must do all that we can to protect and aid their growth. Increasing their tax burden would cause more financial stress they can’t afford.”

The campaign that Americans for Prosperity launched features small business owners from around the state describing how taxes would hurt their business. The campaign will use every medium to reach Alaskans, including TV ads, radio ads, digital ads, and mailers. Digital ads will start this week and continue through the beginning of special session, Oct. 23.

View the TV/digital ad here.

Alaska has the highest unemployment rate in the United States. The state budget is $4.5 billion. The average 322,000 people who are employed in the state would shoulder the burden of the Walker Payroll Tax.

Judge rules Democratic Party can run ‘nonpartisans’ in their primary

Suzanne Downing
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4
Judge rules Democratic Party can run ‘nonpartisans’ in their primary

(THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY)

In a 33-page ruling, an Alaska Superior Court judge has ruled that the Alaska Democratic Party may run candidates in its primary who are not officially aligned with any political party.

In practical terms, this means a non-Democrat could win against a registered Democrat in the Democrats’ primary,  and then go on to represent the Democrats in the general election.

For example, if Gov. Bill Walker decides to run in the Democrats’ primary, he might beat Mark Begich, whom many have thought is considering a run. If he won in the Democrats’ primary, he’d have to appear on the General Election ballot as a Democrat, according to the court ruling.

Judge Philip Pallenberg wrote:

“The court’s conclusion that AS 15.25.030(a)(l6) is unconstitutional means that the Democratic Party must be permitted to implement its 2016 rule permitting undeclared or non-partisan candidates to participate as candidates in the Party’s primary election.”

Tuckerman Babcock, chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, said, “I’m delighted to see the court rule in favor of maximum freedom, and the freedom for who votes in their primary and who can run in their primary.”

“This takes away the charade that Rep. Dan Ortiz or Jason Grenn are independents,” he said. “How many times can Democrats pull one over on their voters and force their own candidates out of the race, as they did in 2016?”

The judge acknowledged that allowing nonpartisans and undeclareds to run in the Democrats’ primary would give it a distinct advantage:

“The Party’s decision to have an open primary is apparently motivated by a desire to attract the support of non-affiliated voters for its candidates. More than half of Alaska’s registered voters have selected ‘Non-Partisan’ or ‘Undeclared’ as their political affiliation. This leaves Alaska with one of the country’s highest percentages of unaffiliated voters. Thus there is a significant political advantage gained by a party that can attract non-affiliated voters.”

In 2016, the Alaska Democratic Party opened its primary to non-affiliated candidates and asked the state to consider the constitutionality of the state statute that allows only registered members of a party to run as candidates in that party’s primary.

When the State declined to address the constitutionality of the statute, the Democrats filed suit, but Superior Court Judge Louis Menendez dismissed the case because it was not ripe for decision. The Democrats had not yet formally adopted a rule opening its primary to non-affiliated candidates.  A good example of a candidate who may have taken advantage of that approach is Margaret Stock, who was running as a nonpartisan candidate, but who wanted to run in the Democrats’ primary in her 2016 race to unseat Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

The Democrats have since adopted the rule, and the judge’s decision makes it legal, unless the governor decides to challenge the ruling to a higher court.

CLEAR AS MUD

What is unclear is how nonpartisan candidates will get on the Democratic Party primary ballot. Or even how the names will appear.

Judge Pallenberg declined to accept the proposed ballot design of the Democrats. He said the Division of Elections would need to make it clear to voters if persons running on the Democrats ballot were not actually Democrats.

Pallenberg noted that the Democrats’ suggested ballot would serve to trick voters via bait-and-switch tactics.

“Counsel for the Party went on to suggest that, at the general election, each candidate would again be listed by their own party affiliation (or ‘non-partisan’ or ‘undeclared’) without any indication of the party nominating that candidate. If a non-affiliated candidate won the Democratic primary, under this ballot design, a general election voter would not be able to tell from the ballot whether that candidate was the candidate of the Democratic Party, or some other party with a similar rule, or alternatively whether that candidate had qualified for the ballot by petition,” he wrote.

“If the law actually required this ballot design, I would find that such a ballot design created a significant potential to mislead or confuse voters. The State has a legitimate interest in preventing a party from engaging in such a bait and switch.”

Pallenberg continued, “I thus conclude that, if the law permits the Democratic Party to nominate as its candidate a nonaffiliated candidate, AS 15.15.030 requires that the general election ballot must inform voters that such a candidate is the nominee of the Democratic Party.”

He also wrote about the burden on the director of the Division of Elections to “prepare all official ballots to facilitate fairness, simplicity, and clarity in the voting procedure, to reflect most accurately the intent of the voter.”

“Similarly, the court believes the law permits – and likely obligates – the director to make clear to primary election voters which nomination is being sought by a nonaffiliated voter who runs in a party primary. Sufficient care on the director’s behalf will ensure that voters in both the primary and general elections are fully informed about exactly who it is they are voting for.”

The director, of course, is an appointed position by the lieutenant governor, whose hybrid “nonpartisan”-Democrat ticket of Walker-Mallott most benefits from voter confusion.

The current Director of the Division of Election who will be in charge of designed these new ballots is Josie Behnke, who was famously indifferent to the integrity of the election process in the 2016 election in House District 40, where voters were allowed to vote twice — once on the Democrat ballot and once on the Republican ballot — something that is clearly illegal.

Trump: Alaska’s Tara Sweeney to head up BIA

Suzanne Downing
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Trump: Alaska’s Tara Sweeney to head up BIA

President Donald Trump has announced his intent to name Alaskan Tara Sweeney as the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a division of the Department of Interior.

Sweeney is the executive vice president of external affairs for Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), the largest locally owned and operated business in Alaska, owned by approximately 13,000 Iñupiat Eskimo members and 12,000 employees worldwide.

She grew up in rural Alaska and has spent a lifetime advocating for responsible Indian energy policy, rural connectivity, Arctic growth, and Native American self-determination, according to her bio.

Sweeney served as chair of the Arctic Economic Council from 2015-2017. In 2013, Ms. Sweeney served as the co-chair of the Alaska Federation of Natives, and 2003, Ms. Sweeney served as special assistant for rural affairs and education in Governor Frank Murkowski’s administration. Honored in 2008 as a “Top Forty Under 40″ business leader, Sweeney was also inducted into the Anchorage ATHENA Society in 2017. She is a graduate of Cornell University.

Sweeney is tribal member of the Native Village of Barrow and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope. She and her family live in Anchorage.

Sen. Dan Sullivan is known to have worked hard for Sweeney’s appointment; she was co-chair of Sullivan’s campaign in 2014. Sweeney’s husband, Kevin, is a long-time political figure who most recently served on the staff of Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Citizens use 45-caliber justice while they wait for SB 54

Suzanne Downing
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2
Citizens use 45-caliber justice while they wait for SB 54

Last week, when two alleged car thieves were trying to snatch a vehicle in North Pole, a resident of Faultline Avenue took aim and fired.

One of the alleged thieves didn’t make it far with a hole in his leg.

Connor O’Neill of Fairbanks was found by Alaska State Troopers in the hallway of an apartment building and was arrested. Troopers say he has an outstanding warrant in Texas, where Texans have their own version of SB 91.

Maybe the thieves are just not real bright: Don’t they know that everyone in North Pole is armed?

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Rep. Chuck Kopp and Sen. Natasha Von Imhof are inviting their constituents to learn about their rights as a citizen to protect your life and property on Oct. 20, 8:30 pm at Klatt Elementary School’s multipurpose room. The address is 11900 Puma Street, Anchorage.

Staff from the Alaska Department of Law will make a brief presentation and answer questions. This event is a joint meeting of the Bayshore-Klatt and the Old Seward Oceanview Community Councils.

For additional information, please call Kopp’s office at 907-269-0200.

COSTCO DETECTS A TREND, AND RESPONDS

Alaskans know they can get their dipnets at Costco in the summer, their vacuum-pack food storage systems and canning jars a bit later in the season, and their Christmas decorations starting in September. Now, Costco is stocking a new item that can be put under that Christmas tree: LoJacks. Those are the steering wheel locking devices and they are going like hotcakes from Anchorage Costcos.

TAKING ON CRIME

Concern over crime has taken over every dinner party and water cooler conversation in most communities in Alaska.

The smart money says that criminal justice reform will take over Gov. Walker’s fourth special session, which he called for Oct. 23 to try to pass yet another version of his income tax — this one features a new name for it — a payroll tax.

Later, Walker tacked on criminal justice reform — SB 54. It restores penalties for the lesser crimes that criminals are now getting away with under SB 91.

That means the special session might actually accomplish something, in contrast to most of the previous eight special sessions Walker has called since taking office.

Alaska’s crime wave would already be trending downward if only the House Democrat-run Majority had passed SB 54 last session. The Democrats referred the bill to three committees and never held a hearing on it.

SHOULD SB 91 GET THE KNIFE?

The public is not wrong about crime being out of control, but may be wrong about SB 91, the criminal justice reform bill.

Under Gov. Bill Walker crime has skyrocketed. But legislators are hired to be circumspect about lawmaking, not overreact like a herd of lemmings. They might want to consider that SB 91 has some good in it along with the bad, and that throwing it out entirely could do more harm than the present very troubling situation.

In the meantime, Walker’s income tax is dead on arrival.

Valley Assembly race may go to recount, but Fairbanks Assembly seat settled

Suzanne Downing
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2

On Oct. 3, Mat-Su Valley businessman Mokie Tew had a 20-vote lead against incumbent and Democrat Party-backed Dan Mayfield for the District 5 (Big Lake) seat on the Borough Assembly.

But by Tuesday, with all the absentee votes in, Mayfield pulled ahead by 18 votes, with 695 votes to Tew’s 677.

Tew has until Oct. 17 to ask for a recount, and if not, the election will be certified that night and the Democrats’ candidate will prevail. The percentage difference between the two is 2.6 percent of the vote.

Paid for by Alaska Democratic Party, this mailer supported Dan Mayfield, who won back his Mat-Su Assembly seat by 18 votes.

Some 300 miles to the north, Aaron Lojewski, a business owner and conservative, has won his race for the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly Seat H, over math professor Leah Berman Williams, who was backed by the Alaska Democrats and unions – powerful special interests in a district that she was sure to win, but didn’t.

Williams did the math and decided not to pay for a recount; she conceded the North Star Borough Seat H race to Lojewski.

Now North Star Borough Mayor Karl W. Kassel, a Democrat and some on the Assembly want to change the rules for recounts, to make the them more lenient.

As the rules stand now, either the loser or 10 concerned citizens must petition for a recount within 24 hours of the election results being announced. They have to give a justification for the recount, and tell the borough what precincts they believe should be looked at again. And then they have to pay for the recount, and in Williams’ case, she said the borough could not give her a hard figure about what the cost would be.

Aaron Lojewski

The Fairbanks borough race saw the highest voter turnout since 1996. With commercial marijuana questions on both the borough and city ballots, every conservative candidate lost — except Lojewski.

Democrats were actively making calls to get out the vote, as evidence by this Facebook post by an enthusiastic Ester-area Democrat who said he made phone calls “for the Democrats, as usual”:

Lojewski, Angela Major, and Christopher Quist take their seats on the Assembly on Oct. 30.

Senators call for Walker-Mallott to ‘stand for constitution’

Suzanne Downing
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3
Senators call for Walker-Mallott to ‘stand for constitution’

Members of the Alaska Senate Majority urged Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott on Friday to appeal the recent court ruling that allows an anti-business initiative to proceed to the ballot next year. The initiative proposed by “Stand for Salmon” is unconstitutional, senators say.

“We stand behind the lieutenant governor’s original rejection of an initiative that proposes ballot box allocation,” said Sen. Cathy Giessel, who chairs the Senate Resources Committee. “A careful evaluation by state attorneys made it clear that this initiative is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court needs to hear the facts.”

Initiative 17FSH2, also known as the “Stand for Salmon Initiative,” applied to the lieutenant governor’s office to begin gathering signatures for a question that would appear on the ballot next year.

After review by the Department of Law, the lieutenant governor denied certification on Sept. 12. Mallott said that by prioritizing salmon habitat over all other potential uses of state land, it violates the Alaska constitution. That could include mining, oil, or even the building of a hospital, school, airport, or road. It could also require numerous municipalities to incur tens of millions of dollars in wastewater treatment upgrades at a time when funds are scarce.

The initiative’s sponsors appealed the lieutenant governor’s decision in court, and an initial ruling by an Anchorage judge has said that Mallott was wrong.

But the Senate Majority says he was right and there’s case law to back them up.

“Alaska’s constitution wisely leaves resource management to professional biologists, not the ballot box,” said Sen. Peter Micciche, Senate Majority Leader. “Allocating access through bumper sticker campaigns endangers every Alaskan’s right to work and right to fish. Just as the Cook Inlet setnet initiative was ruled unconstitutional, I encourage the Walker administration to appeal this decision immediately.”

The Walker Administration has not yet decided to appeal the case. But the governor has a conflict: The Stand for Salmon signature gathering and media campaign is being run by Ship Creek Group, the company founded by John-Henry Heckendorn, who is now Gov. Walker’s aide and in-house re-election campaign manager. His salary is paid by the state.

It gets deeper. The treasurer for the Stand for Salmon independent expenditure campaign is the same treasurer as for the Walker-Mallott reelection campaign: Paula DeLaiarro, one of the principals of the Ship Creek Group. This makes it awkward for the governor and lieutenant governor to take the initiative to court against their own paid advisers and fundraising allies.

Many in political circles have observed that Heckendorn is fully engaged with both the governor’s re-election campaign and with the political services company he founded.

The Governor’s Office and the Department of Law have remained silent since the judge’s ruling, which indicates to the business community that the Walker Administration may let the ruling stand and thus touch off a large, expensive political battle over resource allocation by ballot.

If Walker and Mallott allow the Stand for Salmon initiative to appear on the ballot without appealing to the Alaska Supreme Court, they will isolate themselves from much of Alaska’s business community, which they are courting in their re-election bid.

Quote of the Week: Grenn says Costello doing good work

Suzanne Downing
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2

“Dave, I will tell you first. I will not run against Senator Costello. I think she is doing good work!”

— Rep. Jason Grenn, telling radio talk show host Dave Stieren (KFQD) on Twitter that he doesn’t intend to leave the House and run against the popular Anchorage state senator for District K.

Grenn may have had second thoughts. He deleted his tweet soon thereafter, but we have it memorialized:

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