The roads lead back to Bill Walker & Company

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Governor Bill Walker unveils his vetoes.

THE ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET

It sometimes is easier to see the big picture when you connect all the dots.

Let’s start with Anchorage lawyer Robin Brena, one of three sponsors of the petition drive to wring another billion dollars or so from the oil industry à la former Gov. Sarah Palin’s Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share oil tax debacle.

When former Gov. Bill Walker – who spent much of his legal career battling the oil industry – decided to bless Alaska with his presence in Juneau, he sold his law business, Walker Richards, to the Brena, Bell & Clarkson law firm in Anchorage. Brenna then chaired the Walker-Byron Mallet transition committee on oil and gas issues.

As governor, Walker appointed Anchorage lawyer Scott Kendall as his chief of staff, a powerful post in state government.

Walker, a Republican-cum-independent-cum-undeclared-cum-independent again, won election and went on to become one of the least popular governors in the country. Shored up by unions, he ran for re-election, saw Byron Mallott, his lieutenant governor and ticket mate, flee the campaign for reasons even now unclear, and then folded his campaign.

When Gov. Mike Dunleavy was elected, Kevin Clarkson, of Brena, Bell & Clarkson, left that law firm to become Dunleavy’s attorney general. Walker, fresh out of office, filled Clarkson’s spot at the law firm.

Brenna now is a sponsor of the “An Act Relating to the Oil and Gas Production Tax, Tax Payments, and Tax Credits” initiative. He and his cohorts would have you believe the industry is not paying its way although it now pays for the lion’s share of state spending. They also would have you believe the industry would not even feel the pinch of losing a billion dollars.

It would, of course, and so would everybody else as it moved its investments elsewhere. The economy would take a hard shot. It happened during ACES. It would happen again.

And Walker’s Scott Kendall? He turns up as counsel for the misguided effort to recall Dunleavy on laughably flimsy grounds.

A lot of roads seem to lead to Walker & Co.

[Read more at the Anchorage Daily Planet]

12 COMMENTS

  1. In the most recent quarter Conoco paid $283,000,000 in taxes and royalties, they earned $306,000,000. So for all of their investment and risk they earned $23,000,000 more than the state did for being the taxing authority and little else. If the State of Alaska can bring in almost $100,000,000 per month from one company, shouldn’t we be trying to help them and not hurt them?

  2. I am not a supporter of the Walker Administration, but Corporations are not Tax Payers. Corporations are Tax Collectors. Any Taxes that are placed on Corporations are added to their price of goods and services they provide. That is an Indirect Tax on We The People. That is the most fair Tax of all taxes because we are not required to pay that tax if we do not purchase those goods and serves. Seymour Marvin Mills Jr. sui juris

  3. The swamp in our Political special interest group is deep, and we keep voting for the same rats every election unless we get rid of the special interest this will continue

  4. Bill Walker gamed us all. That we know. But his true level of destruction is still being evaluated. His former chief of staff, Jim Whitaker, got out of Alaska quickly and headed for AZ. Byron Mallott, well we all know the level of disgrace he brought to this state, and to women. Scott Kendall, the little worm, is now leading the Democrat charge to recall Dunleavy. Recall. Impeachment. These are the weapons the Democrats use when they can’t win elections. Disgusting bunch of sorry hypocrites.

    • Paul, think of what skeletons lay hidden from the past Walker Administration. Democrats like to float bogus charges against their political rivals in order to divert attention away from their own past misdeeds. Straight out of the Democrat playbook.

  5. The Democrat Party in Alaska and wherever is a criminal enterprise. Organized crime in a way, and to an extent the Cosa Nostra could only dream of.

    • Not since he signed the recall petition. A young girl was soliciting signatures and old Mallott just couldn’t resist his impulses. And the idiot signed, using his real name.

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