A last-ditch effort to stop the election of President-elect Donald Trump is underway in the U.S. District Court of Anchorage, with a lawsuit filed on Dec. 12 against all three of Alaska’s electors who will cast their votes in Juneau on Dec. 19.
Janice Park, a Hillary Clinton voter in Anchorage, filed the lawsuit against former Gov. Sean Parnell of Palmer, Carolyn Leman of Anchorage, and Jacqueline Tupou of Juneau.
The lawsuit claims that because Hillary Clinton won 2.84 million more votes than Donald Trump nationwide, Alaska’s electors would be denying Park her Fifth Amendment right of equal protection if the electors do not cast their vote for Clinton.
In Alaska, Trump won over Clinton 53 to 38 percent.
The basis for the lawsuit is complicated: Park claims that unless the court stops the electoral vote from proceeding, the electors “will effectively cause a single vote for Clinton to be valued less than a single vote for Trump. Calculating roughly based on the total votes available to PARK at the time of this complaint, the value of each Clinton vote will be only about .97 of each Trump vote. If Clinton’s margin expands as projected, that value will decrease to about .95.”
Park has asked for an expedited hearing, which Judge Timothy Burgess granted her. The matter will be heard Thursday at 4 p.m. in Anchorage. The State Department of Law will field the charges, as it is required to do by statute.
Before the election, Clinton supporters and the media blasted President-elect Trump because he would not go on record saying he would unequivocally agree with whatever the election results were. On Oct. 19, the New York Times wrote in a news story:
“In a remarkable statement that seemed to cast doubt on American democracy, Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that he might not accept the results of next month’s election if he felt it was rigged against him — a stand that Hillary Clinton blasted as “horrifying” at their final and caustic debate on Wednesday.
“Mr. Trump, under enormous pressure to halt Mrs. Clinton’s steady rise in opinion polls, came across as repeatedly frustrated as he tried to rally conservative voters with hard-line stands on illegal immigration and abortion rights. But he kept finding himself drawn onto perilous political territory by Mrs. Clinton and the debate’s moderator, Chris Wallace.”
No such outrage has been articulated by those on the Left regarding this lawsuit, which ignores the entire purpose and role of the Electoral College. The College was designed by the Founders of the country to be a buffer and to fairly distribute power to all states, regardless of size. It is written in the Constitution.
The creation of the Electoral College came at the end of the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders settled on a two-part, state-based election process that forces presidential candidates to reach out to all states, not just the most populous ones, in order to build a broad base of support.
The electors will gather in all state capitols on Dec. 19 to cast their votes.
It is believed that Trump has 305 of the total 538 electoral votes available. (One Texas Republican elector has said he will not honor the electoral rules requiring him cast his vote for Trump). Two hundred and seventy electoral votes are needed to win the White House.
Electors are generally required by law to vote according to how their states voted during the November General Election. Most states have a winner-takes-all-electors law that governs the process. Pressure on electors has been unprecedented, with reports of hundreds and even thousands of emails arriving each day for some of them, pressuring them to change their votes, and even threatening them.
The six states with the most electoral votes are: California (55), Texas (38), New York (29), Florida (29), Illinois (20) and Pennsylvania (20). They control 191 electoral votes, but in the popular vote, California actually gave Clinton atleast 3.1 million, which would have been enough to swing the general election for her. If the Electoral College balancing process were not in place, states like New York and California would own the presidency.
Finally, without the Electoral College, Alaska’s 318,608 votes cast in the presidential race would have very little impact on the outcome nationally and candidates and presidents would pay no attention to the state or its concerns.
But with the Electoral College, Alaska’s three electors represent 10 percent of the 35-vote margin that Trump has today.
Percentages like that make Alaska a lot more important in the grand scheme of presidential politics.
The public is invited to the Electoral College ceremony in Juneau on Monday:
President-elect Donald Trump may be nominating a Secretary of the Interior shortly: Congressman Ryan Zinke of Montana. The official announcement has not yet been made, but the handwringing in Alaska has begun.
Zinke is on record opposing the transfer of federal land to the states. That’s a position that President-elect Donald Trump also shares, something that raised concerns during his campaign for president.
In June, Zinke voted against a bill offered by Alaska Congressman Don Young. HR 3650, would have permitted up to two millions of acres of the 17-million acre Tongass National Fores land to be transferred to state ownership.
That would have allowed more reasonable and responsible management of the many uses that the Tongass is supposed to provide — timber, recreation, hunting, and fishing, for example.
Every other Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee voted for the State National Forest Management Act of 2015. Zinke was the only Republican who opposed it.
But he didn’t stop there. At the Republican Nominating Convention this summer, Zinke also resigned as a delegate when the transfer of federal lands to state control was placed in the Republican platform by Alaska delegate Judy Eledge. It became part of the platform, and Zinke was having nothing to do with it and made some brash statements as he left the convention.
The platform item reads: “Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states. We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power of influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”
Zinke may have his reasons for his positions. The people he represents in Montana are concerned that federal land could be sold off to extremely wealthy people who would then prevent public access to those lands. In Montana, they have the problem of billionaires buying out millionaires’ land and then transferring it into land trusts, where it gets locked away. His constituency likes their federal landlord.
But Zinke clearly did not respond to the actual legislation nor the concerns expressed by the party platform.
Alaskans are going to want to know a lot more about how Zinke thinks when it comes to federal lands. The 49th State is owned 60 percent by the federal government, and our economy suffers from a colonial bureaucracy that has all but killed the timber industry in Southeast Alaska, mining in Western Alaska, and offshore oil development in the Arctic.
Young’s bill would have addressed the Tongass directly and helped Southeast Alaska from losing jobs and families.
Young, serving in the U.S. House, will not be part of the official advice and consent process for the nomination, although no doubt he will be one of the key influencers. That approval role belongs to the Senate.
Alaskans can send their concerns about Zinke to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Natural Resources Committee, or Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Those who favor transfer of federal land in Alaska will want our delegation to ask Zinke the tough questions and get commitments out of him prior to confirmation. They’ll also want to be sure the Alaska delegation gets a familiarization tour on Zinke’s schedule right away. He’ll need to understand the state over which he is about to become a landlord.
To be clear, forestry does not come under the purview of the Department of Interior, as it is under the Secretary of Agriculture.
But Zinke’s actions relating to federal control of western lands needs to be examined. And he’ll have a lot of explaining to do for some of the statements he is on record making:
“I’m starting to wonder how many times I have to tell these guys in leadership I’m not going to allow Montana’s public lands to be sold or given away,” Rep. Zinke said, after his vote against Young’s bill. “Two million acres is a lot, even in Montana.”
In Alaska, two million acres is a fraction. Alaskans will want to know just how squishy Zinke is when it comes to resource development. Because our lives and our state depend on it.
Dickens’ Dream by Robert William Buss, portraying Charles Dickens at his desk at Gads Hill Place, surrounded by many of his characters.
“Politics are much discussed, so are banks, so is cotton. Quiet people avoid the question of the Presidency … the great constitutional feature of this institution being, that directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the next one begins.” — Charles Dickens, American Notes, 1842.
Admired by his contemporaries and a hugely celebrated writer of his day, Charles Dickens is now remembered as one of the greatest English novelists of all time.
Less well-known was his commentary regarding America after traveling here on a public reading and speaking tour. Following that trip, Dickens wrote American Notes for General Circulation — a travelogue detailing his visit to North America from January to June, 1842. Later, Dickens’ American journey inspired his novel Martin Chuzzlewit.
He met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and President John Tyler in Washington, D.C.
Having arrived in Boston, he visited Lowell, New York, and Philadelphia, and travelled as far south as Richmond, as far west as St. Louis and as far north as Quebec.
The American city he liked best was Boston: “The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably.”
He also singled out Americans generally: “… People are affectionate, generous, openhearted, hospitable, enthusiastic, good humored, polite to women, frank and cordial to all strangers.”
Despite his admiration for our cities and our people, Dickens was not so enamored with other aspects. Dickens was horrified by slavery, appalled by the common use of spitting tobacco and indignant about his treatment by the press. He was a fierce critic of our political system and what he perceived to be a lack of freedom of opinion.
In a letter to William Macready, a noted British Shakespearean actor, Dickens lamented: “I see a press more mean and paltry and silly and disgraceful than any country ever knew — if that be its standard, here it is. I speak of Bancroft and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he is ‘a black sheep — a democrat.’ I speak of Bryant and am entreated to be more careful — for the same reason. … I speak of Miss Martineau, and all parties — slave upholders and abolitionists; Whigs, Tyler Whigs, and Democrats — shower down upon her a perfect cataract of abuse. But what has she done? Surely she praised America enough. Yes, but she told us of some of our faults, and Americans can’t bear to be told of their faults.”
Yes, but she told us of some of our faults, and Americans can’t bear to be told of their faults.
Much has changed in the last 174 years since Dickens wrote this. Yet, but for some of the names, outdated party labels and stilted language, he could easily have been writing about the 2016 presidential election.
Indeed, “freedom of opinion” today remains stifled by a political correctness so ingrained in various elements of our society and the media that many politicians’ answers to questions of the day are reduced to inconsequential blather.
Which brings me to Donald Trump. It’s not a stretch to posit that much of Trump’s attraction to voters in no small part relates to his complete disregard for political correctness. His unfiltered tweets and offhand comments may not in themselves articulate complete policy positions but they nonetheless effectively circumvent the biased press and reflect what many people are thinking. Some say he is being divisive but isn’t he often saying what many others are reluctant to say? And once said, whether you agree with it or not, isn’t it healthy to debate it?
The media also played an important role in Donald Trump’s victory — in the primary races as well as the general election. By providing free nonstop (generally uncritical) press coverage during the primaries, the media helped Trump win the Republican nomination, perhaps assuming he would be the weakest candidate against Hillary Clinton.
Later, media coverage became extremely critical in the hopes that by exposing his foibles, voters would reject him in the general election. Eventually, it became clear many in the media misjudged the mood of the electorate and their unrelenting campaign against Trump worked in his favor.
Yet, the media seems to have ignored this lesson as their attacks continue to energize the left’s obsession with the popular vote and their perception of Trump’s illegitimacy, encouraging further division and distrust. Irrelevant vote recounts are underway. Electoral College voters are receiving death threats. Coddled students and malconten
ts, many of whom either did not vote or chose to vote for fringe candidates, are offered counseling, are excused from attending class but encouraged to demonstrate in the streets. To what end?
Win Gruening
It’s time to move on. The election is over. The enormity of the political upset notwithstanding, this political season isn’t more divisive or much different
from the one Dickens described in 1842. Our republic survived then, even flourished, and Americans can believe it will again.
Win Gruening was born and raised in Juneau. He retired as senior vice president of Key Bank and is active in community affairs and is involved with several local, state, and national organizations.
WALKER RECOVERING: Gov. Bill Walker underwent surgery for four hours on Monday to remove cancerous tissue from his prostate.
According to the news release from his office, no further treatment is expected.
“I would like to thank the talented medical team who made this surgery a success, and the countless Alaskans who have sent their well wishes over the past month. The outpouring of support my family and I have received since announcing my cancer diagnosis has been incredibly humbling. This is an important reminder for all Alaskans to schedule regular checkups with their doctor so early detection of health issues can provide more treatment options. I look forward to returning to work very soon.”
The governor announced his cancer diagnosis on Nov. 4 during a press conference that included his entire family and said his surgery would take place out of state, where he presumably is recovering today.
STATE TAX PROPOSAL AHEAD: Word from inside the Governor’s Office is that the budget that must be submitted to the Legislature by this Thursday will include two tax proposals for Alaskans. One will be an income tax. One will be a sales tax.
The sales tax is a red herring. The governor is hoping the business community will raise a stink about the sales tax and cave on the income tax instead.
Earlier this year, the Rasmuson Foundation offered the suggestion that the income tax proposal, which would have raised just $200 million for state workers, needed to be increased. Look for a proposal from the governor this week that will at least double that amount, taking a serious bite out of Alaska workers’ paychecks to pay for State services.
What is the business community likely to say? “Cut government first before you look at revenue measures,” is the likely response. There’s more work to be done in cuts. Business leaders are not likely to take the bait and support an income tax without significant budget cuts.
MORE CHANGES IN GOVERNOR’S OFFICE: Word is circulating in political circles that the governor’s new Chief of Staff Scott Kendall is going to make some staff changes. We don’t know what they are yet, but some questions are in order:
Where is Commissioner of Revenue Randall Hoffbeck? He has not been seen much lately, even as the budget deadline grows closer. Instead, Tax Division Director Ken Alper is making the rounds on the governor’s budget proposal.
Hoffbeck has let it be known he’s ready to return to mission work, but is Alper being groomed to take his spot? Come to think of it, where has Office of Management and Budget Director Pat Pitney been?
OCEANS OF SPECULATION: Beth Kerttula, former Juneau representative who left to work on ocean issues and ended up in the Obama Administration, is back in Juneau and clever politicos are speculating that Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, will soon announce his retirement and make way for a gubernatorial appointment.
As a capable political leader and a close associate of Bruce Botelho (former attorney general and governor’s advisor), it’s no surprise her name will continue to circulate for an influential position somewhere in government.
Stay tuned, as you have not seen the last of Beth Kerttula.
Hays Research performed a telephone survey across Alaska last week with some unusual questions.
The survey explanation to the respondent was posed this way: Community United for Safety and Protection is investigating if Alaskans support Amnesty International’s policy position to not arrest people for prostitution, which would stop the State from spending money, as there are already laws on the books to address rape, robbery, theft, coercion, extortion, assault, battery, sex trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.
The surveyor continued: The following questions relate to this position and how it may affect the State’s budget.
Here are four related issues currently being dealt with in Alaska. Which is most important?
Arresting minors for prostitution.
Arresting consenting adults for prostitution.
Investigating cases of murder or missing sex workers.
Processing Alaska’s backlog of rape kits.
Are you aware under current Alaska law police officers are permitted to have sexual contact or intercourse with women before arresting them for prostitution? Y / N
Do you think it should against the law for police officers to have sexual contact or intercourse with individuals they are investigating? Y / N
Should the State stop spending resources arresting consenting adults for prostitution? Y / N
Sex trafficking is commonly understood to mean forcing people into prostitution, but in reality it has many legal definitions. Here’s a list of situations. Let me know if you think they should be charged with sex trafficking:
Should someone who forces a child into prostitution be charged with sex trafficking? Y / N
Should an abusive partner of a sex worker who pressures them to serve more clients than they want to serve be charged with sex trafficking?
Should landlords or roommates of adult sex workers, even if they are not aware of prostitution occurring on the premises, be charged with sex trafficking?
Should adult sex workers who carpool back and forth between Fairbanks and Anchorage be charged with sex trafficking one another?
Should outreach workers who provide adult sex workers with condoms be charged with sex trafficking?
They are sex workers and former sex workers who are lobbying to decriminalize aspects of prostitution. Last year they sent one lobbyist to Juneau and this year they plan to send three.
Last year, the lobbyist for the group left material on the tables during a State Chamber of Commerce reception, which…wait for it…got a rise out of some attendees. The materials were quickly gathered up by the organizer of the event and tossed, as CUSP is not a member of the State Chamber.
Be that as it may, at least one part of Alaska’s economy is growing.
It could have been the William Walker Highway. And it still can be.
In early 2015, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker halted the one project that could be built during his time in office: The Juneau Access Project: Preferred Alternative, 2B.
His move to kill Juneau Access was an Alaska-sized mistake by a rookie governor who got snookered by hard-left elitists.
But it’s not too late for him to leave a legacy.
Gov. Walker was never going to get to build a dam at Susitna-Watana. The money is just not there, and the project would have to work its way through the environmental lawsuits, which would have dragged on for years.
He wasn’t going to get a crossing over the Knik Arm — again, it’s 10 years, was not yet a federal priority, and was multi-lawsuits away. His left-leaning political base would never have tolerated it.
But a 50-mile road to Juneau? He can get that built. It’s doable.
The environmental impact statement was nearly done when he took office. The project was about as shovel-ready as a project could get when he simply shut it down.
The $574 million road would be funded primarily by federal dollars. State funds have already been appropriated.
Juneau Access would provide employment for more than 500 Alaskans during its construction. And this is a time when Alaskans sorely need the jobs.
The road to Juneau would wind its way north up Lynn Canal, around Berner’s Bay and end at a new ferry terminal at Katzehin.
From there, a 27-minute shuttle ferry crossing to Haines and a ferry to Skagway would run several times a day, the way ferries do between Port Townsend and the San Juan Islands. The two Alaska-class ferries for the Juneau Access Project are under construction in Ketchikan.
Later, Walker somewhat sheepishly put the project back on the stove because, as he learned, it’s a federally backed highway and he’d have to pay the feds tens of millions of dollars if he stopped the environmental impact study midway.
Thus, the EIS was completed, the preferred alternative was identified, and the project now awaits Walker’s decision.
THE WAIT OF A LIFETIME IS NEARLY OVER
This week it looks like the decision on Juneau Access may be at hand, after what has become two decades of waiting.
Governor Walker’s Legislative Director Darwin Peterson, is calling all three members of Juneau’s legislative delegation to the Third Floor of the Capitol on Wednesday. The meetings will be done separately, we are told. The governor will not be present.
When a governor gives good news, he does it in person, typically. When it’s bad news, he has a functionary do the work. The tea leaves on his decision are hard to read.
The Juneau delegation is split on the road: Rep. Cathy Munoz and Sen. Dennis Egan favor it; Rep. Sam Kito and incoming Rep. Justin Parish oppose it.
Juneau, as a community, is also somewhat split, with a majority favoring it. But this is more than about what Juneau wants. It’s about the state and what is best for the state.
We Alaskans need a road to our capital city, and Juneau needs a road out. The current mode of travel is for the elite only, as it can be afforded only by the well-heeled, not the working class.
The status quo limits access to our elected officials. The lack of a road creates inefficiencies that accentuate the pressure for a capital move.
Ferries, for example, only meet seven percent of the total travel demand for Lynn Canal, and are extremely costly to use. They’re breaking the bank of a State with precious little money to spare.
Right now, if a family of four wants to go from Juneau to Skagway for the weekend, it will cost over $600 round trip.
Yet that only pays for a fraction of the cost: For every $3 a ferry ride costs, the state pays $2 and the rider pays $1. That family going to Skagway is costing the state $1,200 roundtrip. Alaskans also subsidize visitor travel at that same rate.
The drive to Skagway on the road with short shuttle ferry would cost the same family $134 round trip.
Twenty years ago, the annual State subsidy was $28.8 million. Today it’s over $120 million per year. Alaskans are subsidizing the ferry system at nearly 70 percent, more than double the subsidy for the Washington State Ferries.
What else is at stake? Freight would be cheaper if Juneau had better access. Tourism access would be improved, and independent travelers would become a significant source of tax revenue for the capital city, as well as for Haines and Skagway, both already connected to the rest of the road system. Shipping fresh seafood would be far cheaper.
The Walker Administration has been lobbied by both sides — pro-road types on the one hand and the anti-road, eco-elitists on the other.
But within his Administration, it’s an anti-road club that wants to keep people out of Juneau. They’re likely to swing the decision.
The pro-road people in Juneau are nervous this week. And rightly so: This administration has yet to come down on the side of generating economic activity anywhere in the state.
WHERE IS UNION SUPPORT FOR ROAD CONSTRUCTION JOBS?
The unions back the Juneau Access Project. This highway would bring construction jobs by the hundreds. It’s a project of bonanza proportions.
During a time when Alaska jobs are at their lowest level since the catastrophic crash of the 1980s, and there are precious few construction jobs left in the economic pipeline, union representatives are one of the few influential classes that has the governor’s ear.
It’s been two years of quiet diplomacy for union leaders. They helped get Walker where he is today, and now they are wondering if he’s forgotten their support. They’ve talked to Walker numerous times, but is he listening? They don’t know.
Union representatives like Corey Baxter, Joey Merrick, Tom Brice, and Don Etheridge have met with the governor in his office and at the Governor’s Mansion on this very topic. They catch his ear wherever they can, whether at the ice rink or a local store.
Ken Koelsch, Juneau’s mayor since March, has done his part to convince Walker to approve the preferred alternative identified by the road study.
WILL THE GOVERNOR TRY ALTERNATIVE 4D?
Some say the governor may choose a different alternative — the one known as 4B, which would be known as the “Walker Culdesac.”
This five-mile version would be a way for him to use up some of the federal money, and it would extend the road as far as Berner’s Bay. But it would cost almost $1 billion. It’s the ridiculous alternative of splitting the baby in two.
This is not how Walker wants to be remembered in a year when we’re commerating the 75th anniversary of the Alcan Highway: Building the equivalent of a back alley.
If that is his choice, he should just shelve the entire project right now: It’s a nonstarter that has none of the benefits of the preferred alternative and will cost more money to maintain in the long run. It’s an insult to Alaskans.
The decision Gov. Walker announces this week will tell the working people of Alaska everything they need to know about whether he is supportable as governor in 2018.
The business community, working Alaskans, and union leaders are united on this one. Will Walker go with them or with the disconnected no-road elitists?
It’s not too late for Gov. Walker to be the governor who, as he says, “likes to build things” — and then actually builds them.
VICTORY IS SWEET PARTY: About 50 happy folks gathered at the home of Cherie and Scott Curry of Anchorage to celebrate the Nov. 8 conservative victories and raise some funds to recharge the Alaska Republican Party. (Photo credit: Yolanda Clary, ARP photographer)
ANCHORAGE ASSEMBLY AND SCHOOL BOARD RACES: Craig Johnson may file for Bill Evans’ South Anchorage seat, John Brassell is running for Bill Starr’s vacant seat in Eagle River /Chugiak. Other names being floated for Assembly seats include Liz Vazquez, Adam Trombley, Terre Gales, Kevin Smestad, and Kevin Kastner. And everyone wants most-likely-to-succeed Marilyn Stewart to run for something. Anything. Just so we can see that smile.
Meanwhile, Dave Donley has announced he is running for one school board seat and Kay Schuster may run for the other one.
WHEN REPORTERS GET PHILANTHROPIC: Juneau Empire reporter James Brooks made a small contribution to the Juneau-Douglas City Museum — the first gram of marijuana purchased from the first marijuana store to open in the capital. That donation may be tax-deductible, James. Good luck explaining it to the IRS, however.
INTERIOR SECRETARY MIGHT BE A FRIENDLY: Cathy McMorris-Rodgers is the opposite of incumbent Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. McMorris-Rodgers favors drilling. She wants to lift the Obama ban on coal leases, and she’s fought federal overreach.
McMorris-Rodgers is from Eastern Washington. In the U.S. House she serves on the Natural Resources Committee and chairs the National Task Force on Improving the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA, as it is administered by the Obama administration, has far ranging and debilitating economic impacts throughout Alaska.
McMorris-Rodgers has benefited from Rep. Don Young’s support during her rise as a leader. The two are allies on the Natural Resources Committee. This looks promising for Alaska.
ExxonMobil, if measured as a country, would rank 30th in gross domestic product.
Rex Tillerson is in charge of all-things Exxon. That makes the Eagle Scout son of Patty Sue and Bobby Joe Tillerson of Wichita Falls, Texas operating a company on par with Chile or Pakistan, whose GDPs range between $240-265 billion.
To compare, Exxon’s revenue last year was $246 billion.
Tillerson, retiring from Exxon due to its mandatory retirement age of 65, is also President-elect Donald Trump’s probable Secretary of State. If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll become America’s 69th top diplomat.
Let the environmentalists’ chest beating begin.
“This is unfathomable. We can’t let Trump put the world’s biggest oil company in charge of our international climate policy,” said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, which has been active in such causes as stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline.”Exxon is still the leading funder of climate denial and is pursuing a business plan that will destroy our future.”
Not finished, she swung for the fences: “Tillerson deserves a federal investigation, not public office.” She also said Tillerson is a friend of Russia President Vladimir Putin, because that might be a bad thing, she inferred.
The talking points for the opposition have been set, complete with an #ExxonKnew hashtag. The Left will turn the confirmation hearings into an indictment of Exxon.
WHO DOES TILLERSON THINK HE IS?
Tillerson, who has never held elected office before, is no mild-mannered John Kerry. He’s not a “reset-button” Hillary Clinton.
As a CEO, Tillerson is a hired hand, albeit a well-heeled, jet-setting, pro-resource development hired hand who knows his way around the geopolitical dynamics of the most treacherous parts of the world — energy producing states.
Trump might have gone with a safer pick, such as Ambassador John Bolton or Gov. Mitt Romney. But Bolton and Romney were not the tone for Trump, who is out to freshen the blood in the swamp, if not drain it entirely.
Tillerson, on the other hand, has worked in the private sector in Yemen, a country so trigger-happy that, although it’s the poorest nation in the Middle East, it started a war with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan.
Among a lifetime of other accomplishments, Tillerson forged major deals with Russia, deals that neither BP nor Shell could manage.
Alone among the majors, he did not allow Exxon to be bullied by Putin nor have its Russian investments diluted or confiscated, as happened with BP. His success in Russia has been a marvel to his competitors.
A guy like Tillerson, who rose through the ranks, has a particular white-knuckle gravitas that a guy like President-elect Donald Trump definitely “gets.” They both wear the same brand of cufflinks, if you will, although their backgrounds are as different as a New York night and a Texas day.
If leaders around the world don’t fear Tillerson, they at least respect him. They’ll return his call.
As for Tillerson’s view on global climate change, he’s been encouraging policymakers to focus on lifting people out of poverty before robbing them of their energy, without saying the two are mutually exclusive goals.
In response to last December’s Paris Climate Agreement, to which President Obama made the United States a signatory, Exxon calmly stated the obvious: “As policymakers develop mechanisms to meet the Paris goals, ExxonMobil encourages them to focus on reducing emissions at the lowest cost to society, keeping in mind that access to affordable and reliable energy is critical to economic growth and improved standards of living worldwide.” Hardly the words of an extremist.
TILLERSON AND PUTIN
Tillerson’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin will provide fodder for the bruising Senate hearings ahead.
How close is the relationship? Do they golf? Shoot skeet together? No, they just cut deals that have created massive energy projects in Arctic Russia, at a scale that makes Alaska’s Point Thomson look like a Lego set.
One thing is obvious: Tillerson and Putin’s mannerisms toward each other is more at-ease than the Obama-Putin relationship, which is a study in hostile body language. They just seem to click better.
In 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson Russia’s Order of Friendship, a bauble given to Russian and foreign nationals for their work in “strengthening peace, friendship, cooperation and understanding between nations, for fruitful work on the convergence and mutual enrichment of cultures of nations and peoples,” and some additional complimentary blah-blah-blah.
Jean Chrétien, former prime minister of Canada, was a previous recipient of the medal.
Lest we forget, there’s another well-known American diplomat who has close ties with Putin: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who earlier this year spoke with concern about the U.S.-Russia relationship:
I do not need to tell you that our relations today are much worse than they were a decade ago. Indeed, they are probably the worst they have been since before the end of the Cold War. Mutual trust has been dissipated on both sides. Confrontation has replaced cooperation. – Henry Kissinger
In a speech at the Gorchakov Foundation for Public Diplomacy in Moscow, Kissinger relayed that during the Cold War he viewed the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union as strictly adversarial, but times have changed.
Russia, he said, is an essential element of the global equilibrium, and should not be viewed primarily as a threat to the United States. Kissinger called for a more durable prospect:
“I have spent the greater part of the past seventy years engaged in one way or another in U.S.-Russian relations. I have been at decision centers when alert levels have been raised, and at joint celebrations of diplomatic achievement.
“I am here to argue for the possibility of a dialogue that seeks to merge our futures rather than elaborate our conflicts. This requires respect by both sides of the vital values and interest of the other. These goals cannot be completed in what remains of the current administration. But neither should their pursuits be postponed for American domestic politics. It will only come with a willingness in both Washington and Moscow, in the White House and the Kremlin, to move beyond the grievances and sense of victimization to confront the larger challenges that face both of our countries in the years ahead.
Exxon has lived those words, moving past the grievances and forging a big stake in Russian oil and gas plays.
EXXON AND ALASKA
Over the past two years, Exxon has weathered the crash in oil and gas prices better than most companies, due to its “vertically-integrated business model.” It hasn’t laid off workers. It still offers a pension to employees. It’s a smartly run energy business.
So smart that it’s the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s 16th largest holding. Alaskans, through APFC, own $74 million in Exxon Mobil shares.
But there are tensions. Contrast Tillerson’s ability to work with Putin, or Kissinger’s sage assessment of Russia, with Alaska’s Gov. Bill Walker’s rash approach to the world’s largest oil and gas investor.
Indeed, Walker has seethed against Exxon for much of his adult life. He has established a cottage industry in filing lawsuits against the company.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Walker has taken the hammer approach.
Tillerson, on the other hand, has been circumspect, famously saying last year that Alaska is “its own worst enemy” because of its shifting tax policies and mercurial leadership.
It was sage advice that Alaska lawmakers needed to hear.
People in the energy sector might agree with Tillerson’s assessment of Alaska. But Gov. Walker doubled down. On Oct. 14, Walker sent a nastygram to Jim Flood, ExxonMobil Development Company’s Arctic vice president, in which he argued against several points Exxon had made in a written AK-LNG project update earlier in the month.
Walker got to his point quickly:
“While some of your statements are accurate, it is necessary to point out areas in the letter that are inconsistent with your prior statements. You say you were ‘directed’ to progressing handover to a State-led Alaska LNG project. I would note that it was ExxonMobil that presented the proposal to transition the project to the State.”
The governor scolded:
“I have been highly complimentary of ExxonMobil while in the market. I would ask ExxonMobil to do the same about the Alaska Project. Please do not take steps to thwart Alaska’s ability to monetize our gas.”
These are skirmishes the governor has engaged in for years with Exxon, but it’s doubtful that Tillerson spends a lot of time thinking about Gov. Walker and his demands. As with many energy companies, Exxon has projects going on simultaneously around the world and, when things get unstable in one region, the company simply focuses elsewhere, as the company has now done to Alaska’s detriment.
It didn’t have to be that way. Gov. Frank Murkowski negotiated with Exxon for four years over the continental gasline option. Although frustrated, Murkowski never hurt the Exxon-Alaska relationship. It was a business deal. He never took a cheap shot. The two could have gone quail hunting together the next day, in fact. They could have smacked some balls at Augusta National.
Walker, on the other hand, seems to revel in the antagonism, making it personal and not realizing that if Putin can’t push around Tillerson and Exxon, then an Alaska governor can’t either.
Where does all this leave Alaskans and their relationship with one of the most important business partners and the largest oil and gas investor in the world?
Hoping Walker will hit the reset button with Exxon? Hoping that the governor stops chasing off investment? Hoping he has a change of heart and becomes pro-business?
Maybe simply hoping that the first Alaska governor to pick a fight with an incoming secretary of State does not create yet more troubles for a state that needs friends in powerful places.
Alaska Republican Party Vice Chair Rick Whitbeck explains procedures to Reps. Paul Seaton, Gabrielle LeDoux and Louise Stutes, who faced sanctions today during the State Central Committee meeting.
During its winter meeting in Anchorage today, Alaska Republican Party officers from around the state publicly rebuked three sitting legislators for having broken away from the House majority in order to form a majority with Democrats.
Gabrielle LeDoux of District 15-Anchorage, Paul Seaton of District 31-Homer, and Louise Stutes of District 32-Kodiak, defected from the Republican-led majority to accept powerful committee positions with a Democratic Party organization. LeDoux was able to capture the Rules chairmanship, controlling what gets to the House floor. Seaton is co-chair of House Finance while Stutes is majority whip.
Although Republicans had won the majority of seats in both houses of the Alaska Legislature, the defection of the three caused the Alaska House to be controlled by Democrats for the first time in 22 years.
“These legislators snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory,” said Party Chairman Tuckerman Babcock. “It’s as if they put on a team shirt for the opposing team. We have every right to try to replace the vacancies they’ve left on our team.”
The three were given an opportunity to defend their actions before a vote was taken.
Stutes said that when Chairman Babock asked her to return the $1,000 contribution that Alaska Republicans had made to her campaign, she was happy to give the money to the Salvation Army instead.
“My number one priority is to my constituents. My number two is to the state of Alaska. Three and four is to the party and the caucus. I’m going to be caucusing with whomever is going to be moving the state forward in a positive manner,” Stutes said, indicating that she feels the Democrats will do that.
Rep. LeDoux blamed the Republican majority for her defection and said she was only following in the tradition of Sen. Lyda Green, who led a bipartisan coalition several years prior.
“We have a hell of a fiscal problem brought to us by the majority I served with,” LeDoux said. “I make no apologies. I think what are are doing is best for the state. We are going to do that we’re going to do and you’re going to do what you’re going to do.”
And so the party did.
After a brief discussion, by a vote of 56 to 4 the central committee voted to enforce its rules against the three. They will receive no financial support from the party, any district committee or Republican club. Babcock said the party will certainly look to find challengers for the three during the next election cycle in two years.
LeDoux, Seaton, and Stutes make up what is left of the Musk Ox Coalition (MOC), which last year sided with Democrats on important fiscal issues.
It could have been the William Walker Highway. And it still can be.
