Caution: If, over the next month, you are ask to sign the anti-corruption petition in circulation, it’s no such thing.
Filled with razzle dazzle to get your signature, the petition names numerous kinds of conflicts that shouldn’t be, and then goes on to say legislators should not vote when conflicted, “unless otherwise required by the Uniform Rules.”
Problem is, the Uniform Rules do require otherwise. The proposed petition preserves the existing phrase already in Alaska Statute that reads; “Unless otherwise required by the Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature,” and the Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature say “a legislator may not be excused from the vote if any other member of the body objects.” Not one legislator has been excused from a vote due to conflicts since Alaska became a state. In effect, the petition does absolutely nothing to force the Legislature to clean up its act.
The biggest ethics problem in Alaska’s Legislature stems from corporations putting legislators on their payroll; sometimes as consultants, sometimes as employees.
Today we have two state Senators who are paid many times their legislative salary by ConocoPhillips. Although most of their year is consumed by their legislative duties and very little of their time is spent at ConocoPhillips, they both received big raises after pushing through a multibillion-dollar tax break for oil companies. Required financial reports of one admits receiving between $100,000 and $250,000, and the other admits receiving between $250,000 and $500,000.
Nothing new about this, legislators have been receiving payment from outside sources whose interests they were serving since Statehood. State Senate President Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, was on the payroll of Alaska’s largest oilfield service company VECO, receiving $4,000 per month as a “consultant.” Ben Stevens introduced and pushed through several Bills sought by VECO owner Bill Allen. At his trial for bribing legislators, VECO owner Bill Allen admitted under oath that VECO’s payments to Ben Stevens were bribes paid in exchange for the legislation he was pushing, not consulting fees.
Can you see any difference between VECO’s Payments and ConocoPhillips’ payments? I can’t.
Preserving the status quo on conflicts isn’t the only problem with the petition. The petition also provides for per diem to be cut off at the end of 120 legislative days if the budget has not been passed.
While bashing legislators may intrigue some would-be signers, any legislator holding out for a higher tax on oil who doesn’t happen to be on ConocoPhillips or someone else’s payroll will be starved into throwing in the towel while the Senators from ConocoPhillips collect $10,000 and $25,000 per month respectively, for a job they haven’t had time to perform since elected.
By reinforcing the phrase already in statute that reads; “Unless otherwise required by the Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature,” 100 percent of the petition’s reference to conflicts becomes meaningless. If passed, those defending the outrageous way Alaska’s Legislature handles conflicts, will argue that the voters saw it on the ballot and approved it.
If the proposed petition is passed, Alaska Statute 24.60.030(g) will read as follows:
(g) Unless otherwise required by the Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature, a legislator shall declare a conflict of interest before voting on a question before a committee of the legislature, and shall request to be excused from voting on a question before a house of the legislature, if the legislator or a member of the legislator’s immediate family has a financial interest in a business, investment, real property, lease, or other enterprise if the interest is substantial and the effect on that interest of the action to be voted on is greater than the effect on the general public of the State. However, notwithstanding (e)(3) of this section and the Limitations of this subsection a legislator may vote on an appropriation bill that meets the requirements of AS 37.07.020(a) or 37.07.100 (Executive Budget Act)
And AS 24.10.130(b) will read as follows:
(b) Legislators and officers and employees of the legislative branch of government may be entitled to a per diem allowance. However, if a bill that fully funds state operating expenditures, identical to or equivalent in scope and purpose to the bill described at AS 37.07.020(a)(2), has not been passed by the legislature within the first 121 consecutive days of a regular legislative session, a member of the legislature is not entitled to a per diem allowance after that 121-day period until the first day after such a bill is passed by the legislature or the first day of the next regular legislative session, whichever occurs earlier. In this subsection, “passed by the legislature” has the meaning given in AS 01.10.070.
Bottom line, Alaska has a corruption problem and this petition will only make it worse. If we Alaskans don’t find a way to fix this, our entire Legislature will eventually be on the payroll of multiple corporations, all of whom will be squeezing favors out of our Legislature at your expense.
Ray Metcalfe is a two-term Alaska state legislator, Alaska’s 2016 Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate, and a whistle-blower who consulted with the FBI for two years as they investigated, prosecuted, and convicted six Alaska Legislators for taking bribes. His tip also resulted in the indictment of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.
