Kenai Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce has filed for governor. He faxed in his letter of intent to the Alaska Public Offices Commission today.
He said he is sick and tired of waiting for the Alaska economy to come back around and just as he has run the Kenai Borough like a business, he’s ready to run the state of Alaska like a business, something he sees not being done now.
“Opportunities abound and we’re not taking advantage of those opportunities right now, he said. “I love this state. It’s my home, and I will do whatever it takes” so the state can have better outcomes.
Pierce was first elected to the borough mayor’s office in 2017, and was on the Assembly before that. A Republican, he ran on not raising the borough mill rate and will end his term in 2022 having done that and leaving money in the borough treasury.
He is challenging Gov. Mike Dunleavy, also a Republican, and a handful of other contenders, including former Gov. Bill Walker, and former State Rep. Les Gara. Rep. Chris Kurka filed in December to run.
Firing someone from the Executive Branch for a disrespectful “poke in the eye” letter of resignation is not enough, according to Federal Judge John Sedwick.
If Gov. Dunleavy’s chief of staff had only fired state elections attorney Libby Bakalar because of her vulgar and partisan blog, that would have been OK.
Alaskans have a right to expect their election lawyers will be fair and impartial, the judge wrote. And in her many extreme and vulgar blog and social media posts, Bakalar attacked not only President Trump, but insulted all who voted for him — the 54 percent of Alaskans who cast their ballot for Trump in 2016.
As the senior elections lawyer for the state, Bakalar could have been fired for using awful judgment that was likely to hurt the public trust in the Division of Elections, where she had a key role in advising Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. But Sedwick didn’t like the way that Chief of Staff Tuckerman Babcock fired Bakalar, and therefore has found her firing unlawful.
“That is to say, frequent and widespread partisan commentary by an elections attorney is reasonably likely to undermine the public’s trust in the integrity and credibility of elections,” Sedwick wrote.
“While Defendants now rely on the unprofessional content of Plaintiff’s blog, which contained irreverent and vulgar language, that concern was not mention by Babcock during his deposition. Indeed, he specifically refrained from suggesting he knew anything specific or particular about her blog or its contents. Rather, he maintained that he just generally was aware she had strong opinions and a blog,” the judge said.
“However, Defendants, who made the decision to fire Plaintiff without consultation, failed to show that they had any awareness of this particular concern, or that they acted in response to it rather than a dislike of her personal views.
“Without an adequate showing that Defendants actually were motivated by a reasonable concern for the potentially disruptive effects of Plaintiff’s publicly espoused political opinions, the court must conclude that her termination ran afoul of the First Amendment,” Sedwick wrote.
In other words, Babcock should have simply cited Bakalar’s many coarse political rants as cause for her dismissal.
The judge seems unsure if Bakalar was a policymaker, and therefore she might enjoy some immunity for her extreme views, even while she was the key advisor to Alaska’s election system.
“In Biggs, the Ninth Circuit held that a city attorney operated as a policymaker in city government, because, even though the attorney was a subordinate, she presented reports to the city’s governing council on legal issues, worked on high-profile issues, drafted regulations and ordinances, and spoke to the press on occasion.136 These responsibilities, notably similar to Plaintiff’s, were enough for the court to find that she occupied a position where political alignment was a valid job qualification. Based on Biggs, it was reasonable for Defendants to think that a high-level assistant attorney undertaking the responsibilities she outlined in her resignation letter could be fired for political reasons. While this court ultimately concluded that Plaintiff’s position was distinguishable given her role as counsel to the Division of Elections, no existing precedent or body of persuasive case law would have made this conclusion readily apparent. That is, there is no existing precedent that placed this issue beyond debate,” Sedwick wrote.
The decision may be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As it stands, it’s a partial win for Bakalar, who is now an attorney for the City of Bethel, and a partial loss, as she is not able to hold the governor or Babcock personally liable.
Part 2 of 4 on traditions of Old Believers in Alaska
Marriage among Alaskan and Siberian Old Believers does not have a unified procedure or typical pattern. As a rule, Old Believers, even those in Russia, do not practice venchaniye (i.e., wedding ceremonies under the Russian Orthodox Church traditions), nor do they acknowledge the legitimacy of civil marriage requirements of the state.
The semeyskiye of Trans-Baykal, for example, are divided into many different sects and some of them refuse to recognize Orthodox Church ceremonies. The semeyskiye of the Austrian faction of the popovtsy and Beglopopovtsy, however, confirm their marriages by following Russian Orthodox Church ceremonies, in which the brides are crowned. The semeyskiye-popovtsy, who recognize the authority of the priests of the Orthodox Church, sometimes intermarried with Russian political exiles sent permanently to Siberia by the tsarist government, or with members of the aboriginal population.
Old Believers from Bukhtarmin Fortress in the Altay Mountains (Kamenshchiki) have had prayer halls (molelny dom), but they confirmed their marriages in the Orthodox Church of the Bukhtarmin Fortress. Only bespopovtsy and Temnovertsy (Dark-believers) concords ignore priests, and they confirm marriages not under the church, but in the prayer halls within a secret society.
Prior to a marriage, startsy (elders) check and calculate the blood relationship of the youth or marriageable prospects. Numerous rules that prohibit marriage are written in the old books. These regulations are predominantly related to kinship relationships, requiring a four-generation gap (po vosmomu kolenu) between bride and groom, and subsequently reducing the eligible pool even more than the common pan-cultural restrictions, that say a spouse must be approximately the same age (or the man older), the same tolk (religious affiliation), and that both partners have never been married before. Marriage is forbidden if the elder discovers discrepancies or flaws in blood relationships between two prospects.
Old Believers in Alaska are of the patrilineal descent and recognize patrilocal residence. Patrilineal descent affiliates an individual with kin of both sexes related to him or her through men only. In patrilineal systems, as with the Old Believers in Alaska, the children in each generation belong to the kin group of their father; the father, in turn, belongs to the group of his father, and so on.
Although a man’s sons and daughters are all members of the same descent group, affiliation with that group is transmitted only by the sons to their children. Therefore, daughters must leave home when they marry. As Kondratiy Fefelov of Nikolaevsk said, “The son stays and the daughter leaves, so that the married couple lives with or near the husbands’s parents. The parents refuse the warm nest to their daughter (roditeli otkazyvayut tyoploye gnyozdyshko ikh docheri).”
Alexander Dolitsky (center) talks with Kondratiy Fefelov (right), the priest of popovtsy, and his wife Irina (left) about the structure of Old Believer kinship and kinship terminology. Nikolaevsk, April 2001.
The Orthodox Church permits divorce and remarriage. Certainly, Orthodoxy regards the marriage bond as in principle lifelong and indissoluble, and it condemns the breakdown of marriage as a sin and an evil. But while condemning the sin, the Church still desires to help the sinners and to allow them a second chance.
Old Believers condemn and discourage divorces, but on very rare occasions, when married couples face irreconcilable differences, such as frequent domestic conflicts or chronic and large consumption of alcohol, mostly by male members of the household, the priest of the popovtsy or nastoyatel (layman) of the bespopovtsy will grant a divorce. Nevertheless, as the priest of popovtsy, Kondratiy Fefelov, emphasized during one of our meetings in April of 2001, “…there must be a good reason for a couple to petition for a divorce before the church. The church will not grant a divorce only because couples fall out of love with each other; this is not a good reason for breakdown of a family.”
Wedding Customs and Ceremonies
Weddings are traditional peasant village affairs. Prior to the actual wedding, typical Russian peasant ceremonies such as the engagement negotiations are carried out by the parents of the bride (nevesta) and groom (zhenikh). The final agreement is toasted with presents and a drink. Other ceremonies include devichniki, the time of increased sewing by the bride and her girlfriends, and the evening parties during which the groom and his friends come to call.
There is also the light-hearted “buying of the bride,” in which the groom comes to take her to her new family, and the touching farewell (proshchaniye) of the bride to her parents. The wedding party, with a “chain” of handkerchiefs, proceeds to the prayer hall of bespopovtsy or to the church of popovtsy. The venchaniye, or crowning ceremony, takes place after the regular Sunday service, and the wedding (svadba) is celebrated for three consecutive days at the home of the groom’s father. The bride’s dowry trunk (sunduk) is delivered by her kinsmen and “sold” to the wedding party.
Later, after a meal (pir or obed) the young couple stands for the bowing ceremony (poklony), which is the opportunity for kin to give them wise advice and numerous presents. On the last day of the wedding, the young couple must “buy” the presents from the best man (svidetel) and the matrons of honor with kisses, bows and witticisms. At this point, the bride’s mother-in-law (tyoshcha) is also auctioned off.
Paul J. Wigowsky, a Russian-speaking school teacher with many years of experience in teaching Old Believer students in Hubbard, Oregon, has written an extensive, well-researched and reliable description of Old Believer faith, history, and traditional lifestyles:
“After the regular service has ended, everyone leaves except for the bride, groom, the members of their “chain,” the parents of the bride and groom, the nastoyatyel, and three or four other male witnesses. None of the younger and unmarried people are supposed to see the wedding ceremony itself, and the first wedding an Old Believer sees is usually their own. The bride and groom are asked once again three times if they are marrying of their free will, and if they answer ‘YES,’ then the ceremony begins in earnest. After an initial prayer said in unison, the bride and groom exchange rings, naming each other husband and wife. They are then blessed by their parents, who present them with the icons which have been chosen from among the supplies of both families, to be given to the newlyweds for their own household. While the blessings are being administered, the couple kneels before the parents of both families.
“After this, the bride is taken to the back of the church where her marriage-cap (shashmura) and scarves are laid out on a dresser. She removes her krassota (the crown), which she has been wearing all through the ceremony, and the bridesmaids then plait her hair into two braids, tie them up over her head, and place the shashmura over it and two scarves over that. The bride is now given the appearance of a married woman, since unmarried women and girls wear their hair in a single braid down the back. She is never to show her hair to any man other than her husband, according to traditional decree.
“She then proceeds to the groom, and bows before him to the floor, and kisses him. This is to indicate, symbolically, that she is now his and that she will be loyal and submissive toward him for the rest of her days. The “chain” then forms again, while the nastoyatyel reads the portions of the sacred texts which describe the duties of wife and husband toward each other and toward their future children. The bride then says a prayer and asks her parents their forgiveness for leaving them to become a member, in essence, of the groom’s family. After a closing group prayer, the ceremony is finished and the people go to the groom’s house for breakfast.”
Because weddings are meant to be elaborate, plentiful and lavish, they cannot be held on any of the fast days or during the Lenten periods. This tends to make the wedding a seasonal event, normally scheduled just before the 7-week Easter Lent. The groom’s family prepares a variety of foods and makes sure that they have plenty ofhome-made alcoholic drink — braga.
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in 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. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
Alaska Family Council’s keynote speaker for its annual fundraising dinner is Dennis Prager.
Prager is a best-selling author, columnist, and one of America’s most listened-to radio talk show hosts. He also appears regularly on networks such as Fox and CNN.
A highly sought-after public speaker, Prager lectures all over the world, including Europe, Asia, Israel, and Australia. His books include Think a Second Time,Happiness is a Serious Problem, and his most recent, The Rational Bible.
Prager writes a syndicated column that is published in newspapers and online. His writings have appeared in major national and international publications, including Commentary and the Wall Street Journal. In 2011, he co-founded Prager University. Learn more about him at dennisprager.com.
The event is May 21, 6-8:30 pm at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage.
Tickets have been selling briskly and the $1,500 table sponsorships have sold out. The individual tickets may be gone soon, said Jim Minnery, president of Alaska Family Council.
“We’ve never seen anything like this, this early. Our base hasn’t even stepped up yet. People are buying tables who have never before been involved in our organization,” Minnery said. More information about how to get tickets is at this link.
In Alaska, lawyers decide who gets to be a judge. They control the Judicial Council and they use that control to prevent any judicial conservative from being considered for appointment by the governor. There are no dissenting voices on the Alaska Supreme Court. The lawyers won’t allow it.
There’s a simple fix: Repeal the clause of the Constitution which gives the Alaska Bar Association the right to name three members of the Judicial Council. This would give the governor the right to name all six public members of the Council, subject to legislative confirmation.
Such a constitutional amendment will never be proposed by the Alaska Legislature, since it requires a two-thirds vote. The lawyers have enough allies in the legislature to prevent that from ever happening. But delegates to a constitutional convention can propose an amendment by majority vote, and would likely do so if voters give them a chance.
In Alaska, parents don’t control the education of their children. The teacher’s union and the education establishment have a monopoly on public funding. Private and religious schools can’t receive any state support, because the Alaska Constitution forbids it. The Legislature won’t propose an amendment to remove this prohibition. Delegates to a convention could do it, with a simple majority vote.
The United States Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow state legislatures to write laws on abortion. But it won’t affect Alaska. In Alaska, the Alaska Supreme Court has taken complete control over the issue of abortion, and the people have no say.
A simple amendment to our Constitution could change that, but there are enough pro-choice state legislators to prevent that from happening. It would take a two-thirds majority, and the votes aren’t there. At a convention a majority could prevail, and give the voters a chance to decide the issue.
If the people call for a constitutional convention this November, it will probably be because they want to protect and perpetuate the Permanent Fund Dividend. Opponents of the Convention will use scare tactics, saying the delegates, and the people, can’t be trusted. Millions of dollars will be spent trying to convince Alaskans that they can’t be trusted.
Who can be trusted?
Should we trust the lawyers to pick our judges? Should we trust the teacher’s union to control the education of our children? Should we trust the Alaska Supreme Court to decide abortion policy? Should we trust the Legislature with the Permanent Fund dividend?
Or should we, instead, trust ourselves?
Fritz Pettyjohn served in the Alaska legislature in the 1980’s, and has practiced law in Alaska since 1974.
One would think that after voters nixed a 2019 proposal to give $4.5 million to the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council to subsidize a new cultural arts center (New JACC), the Juneau Assembly would be chastened enough to rethink and revise the whole concept.
Well, they re-thought it. By combining it with necessary upgrades and modifications to Juneau’s Centennial Hall convention center, the cost of the joint development (now dubbed the Capital Civic Center) has ballooned to an estimated $77 million – almost double what the original combined projects were slated to cost.
To be fair, city officials admit they don’t know what it will really cost. So, after much hand-wringing, the Assembly approved a $2 million expenditure for a partial design that presumably would determine a firm project cost.
It’s hard to understand.
Somehow the city has been hood-winked into taking responsibility for the New JACC project when it’s been obvious for some time that the plan, as envisioned, is too grandiose to be financially viable. Proponents cobbled together a skimpy pro-forma reflecting a break-even operation but it had more than a few questionable assumptions.
JACC boosters initially insisted the facility would be privately funded. But after years of fundraising, they failed to raise more than 20% of the proposed cost. Their pleas for more money from the city never garnered enough votes from the Assembly or the voters.
Now, they apparently have engineered a dramatic turnaround. With the city proposing to own the project and be financially responsible for its operation, the JACC sponsoring organization, the “Partnership,” will no longer need to fundraise and any revenue shortfalls would be covered by Juneau taxpayers.
Given the additional financial risk assumed by the city, why isn’t the Partnership paying for at least half of the $2 million the city committed to the Capital Civic Center?
This may be a terrific deal for the arts in Juneau but it’s not clear that’s true for Juneau’s taxpayers.
The combined project has been touted as a necessary amenity but it was sold on the premise that it would be more efficient than two large standalone projects. However, it doesn’t appear that any effort has been made to downsize either one – just merely smash them together.
In the process, the two projects are being treated as one but, in reality, the need for each is different. It is well-established that Centennial Hall needs updating. Little has been done on the facility (aside from the $4.5 million in improvements currently underway) and it’s sadly in need of modernization. Voters have been willing to go along with those expenditures, until now. But conflating the need for a renovated Centennial Hall with the proposed need for a brand-new arts and cultural center is, at best, not being honest with tax-paying voters who clearly expressed their unwillingness to financially support the New JACC.
City officials and supporters have hinted that large grants and, possibly, Federal monies are available to fill the funding gap that is widening daily as inflation and supply chain issues dramatically escalate building costs. If so, that would help make the project more palatable to all concerned.
But the project cost is only half the calculation.
Why wasn’t an analysis of revenues and expenses undertaken before committing millions to design? The operating costs of this facility will be many times what the combined operating costs were for the two existing buildings and, without that information, financial feasibility remains a question mark.
Remember, Centennial Hall required an annual $600,000 subsidy before Covid hit. While Juneau (and Alaska, in general) enjoys a mystique and cachet that many other destinations do not, independent travelers will incur high transportation costs and limited lodging options when visiting Juneau. Rosy revenue projections for conventions or cultural events that are based on large numbers of visitors from outside Juneau should be viewed with healthy skepticism.
The only way to gain wide-spread public support is through a financial vetting of the project that reflects no increased subsidies or taxes to pay for it and doesn’t require sacrificing plowed streets in the winter.
Juneau doesn’t need another snow job.
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
The NCAA quietly updated its policy for transgender athletes on Wednesday. For college competition, it will use the same model as the U.S. and International Olympic Committees, which have a sport-by-sport policy.
Effective immediately, transgenders who compete as women in women’s college-level sport competitions will be governed by the national governing body of that specific sport. If there is no international federation policy, the IOC policy will be applied.
So far, women who are transitioning their appearance to appear and live as men are not an issue because they typically don’t try to compete in mens categories. But after University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas set records in swimming, athletes, parents, coaches, and the public began questioning the NCAA policy.
As of the new policy on Wednesday, biological men who are modifying their appearance to present as women will be required to meet a testosterone standard a month prior to the sport’s championship roster selections.
The ruling could affect whether Thomas can continue to compete. Until age 19, Thomas had been competing in the boys and mens swimming competitions. Thomas, who has the burly physique of a man, then switched over to compete as a woman. Thomas would have to have a testosterone level below 10 mol/L for 12 consecutive months prior to a competition and remain below that threshold throughout a period leading up the competition in a female category in any USA Swimming event.
The NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships take place in March.
The NCAA Board of Governors made the decision at its conference, now underway in Indianapolis. The organization did not post the new policy on its front page, but buried it in under its “About” tab, located at the bottom of the page. The full statement is as follows:
“The NCAA Board of Governors on Wednesday voted in support of a sport-by-sport approach to transgender participation that preserves opportunity for transgender student-athletes while balancing fairness, inclusion and safety for all who compete. The new policy, effective immediately, aligns transgender student-athlete participation for college sports with recent policy changes (PDF) from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and International Olympic Committee.
“Like the Olympics, the updated NCAA policy calls for transgender participation for each sport to be determined by the policy for the national governing body of that sport, subject to ongoing review and recommendation by the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports to the Board of Governors. If there is no NGB policy for a sport, that sport’s international federation policy would be followed. If there is no international federation policy, previously established IOC policy criteria would be followed.
“The Board of Governors urged the divisions to provide flexibility to allow for additional eligibility if a transgender student-athlete loses eligibility based on the policy change provided they meet the newly adopted standards.
“The policy is effective starting with the 2022 winter championships. Transgender student-athletes will need to document sport-specific testosterone levels beginning four weeks before their sport’s championship selections. Starting with the 2022-23 academic year, transgender student-athletes will need documented levels at the beginning of their season and a second documentation six months after the first. They will also need documented testosterone levels four weeks before championship selections. Full implementation would begin with the 2023-24 academic year.
“We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports,” said John DeGioia, chair of the board and Georgetown president. “It is important that NCAA member schools, conferences and college athletes compete in an inclusive, fair, safe and respectful environment and can move forward with a clear understanding of the new policy.”
“Approximately 80% of U.S. Olympians are either current or former college athletes,” said Mark Emmert, NCAA president. “This policy alignment provides consistency and further strengthens the relationship between college sports and the U.S. Olympics.”
“Additionally, the NCAA’s Office of Inclusion and the Sport Science Institute released the Gender Identity and Student-Athlete Participation Summit Final Report (PDF). The report assists ongoing membership efforts to support inclusion, fairness, and the mental and physical health of transgender and non-binary student-athletes in collegiate sport.”
The Alaska Supreme Court has upheld the election package known as Ballot Measure 2, which involves nonpartisan primaries and ranked-choice general election ballots, and a combined Governor-Lieutenant Governor ticket for the primary. Voters narrowly approved the massive voting changes pushed by dark money from Outside the state in 2020.
The court said it would later explain in full its decision to uphold a September ruling from the lower court.
The ruling casts aside the Alaska Constitution, which specifies how the governor and lieutenant governor shall be elected.
The Alaska Constitution says, “The governor shall be chosen by the qualified voters of the State at a general election. The candidate receiving the greatest number of votes shall be governor.”
The Constitution specifies the “greatest number of votes,” not a ranked-choice scenario for choosing the state’s executive officer.
Supreme Court in rapid time validated the dark money campaign by Scott Kendall, which may provide the Alaska Legislature with more motivation to act on election integrity bill offered by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and read across on Tuesday as House Bill 286.
The ballot measure was opposed by both Republican and Democratic parties in Alaska, which maintain they have a right to keep control over how they operate their party primaries.
The former Rules Committee chair for the Alaska House of Representatives has thrown his name in for House District 10, which is the old House District 24 in Anchorage. Craig Johnson filed for office on Wednesday.
Johnson, a Republican, represented District 24 for 10 years, from 2007 to 2017. He tried for Senate in 2016 but could not prevail over Natasha von Imhof, who became senator. Upon his retirement from the House, Chuck Kopp ran and won that seat. Kopp was replaced by Rep. Tom McKay, but now district lines have been redrawn and there is no incumbent for the District 10 seat.
Running for the Democrats in that seat is Sue Levi, a perpetual Democrat candidate.
Johnson’s professional experience includes working as a legislative aide from 1997-1999 and 2004-2006. He was the general manager of the Alaska Journal of Commerce and Alaska Military Weekly, and was vice president/general manager of KYMG radio.
He said he originally ran for office to help Alaska be a better state for the next generation and that those are his same goals today. Since leaving office, he has focused on his health, including getting knee surgery and exercising. Johnson is a conservative and would return to office as a veteran of the Legislature.
