An internal flap over spending for travel by legislators and staff is now boiling over into the campaign season.
On Saturday, the Alaska Dispatch News rep
orted that legislators and staff spent just over $91,000 traveling to a National Conference of State Legislatures annual summit last month. Among those traveling were Genevieve Wojtusik and Amy Saltzman, staff to Anchorage Senator Lesil McGuire.
In the ADN story McGuire claimed she never authorized the travel, but rather Senate President Kevin Meyer had. However, McGuire’s primary opponent Jeff Landfield is claiming that isn’t true. He says the authorization came from within McGuire’s office itself. His understanding is that Wojtusik, who he says has spending authority for Administrative Regulation Review Committee (ARRC) budget, authorized the trip for herself and Saltzman.
A document posted by the ADN indicates that cost totaled over $6500 for the two to attend the conference. That document also indicates the expenditure came from the ARRC and not a source Meyer controls.
When asked, Landfield said he doesn’t know if McGuire knew the authorization came from her own staff when she claimed it came from Meyer, but he isn’t giving her any slack if she didn’t, saying “if she did not know, then what the hell is she doing. (It is) inmates running the asylum.”
Landfield went on to say “Senator McGuire is either checked out or unwilling to take responsibility for her staff’s actions. This behavior is in line with much of her career in the legislature. Things like this, and taking per diem during the special session in Anchorage, demonstrate she is totally out of touch with regular Alaskans.”
The offices of Senator Meyer and Senator McGuire did not immediately have a comment on this story.
;
***This story will be updated if we receive comment from those mentioned.***
Liesel McGwire has a lot to atone for. She is a troubled woman. Why did she threaten to sue the Juneau newspaper if they published anything about her telephone call to the Juneau police to report a domestic violence problem with then-boyfriend Tom Anderson? What about the times she was S*** F**** drunk while on Alaska Airlines flight? How many times as this youngish woman been married? Why did she go to Greece with Bob Lynn to attend the Special Olympics there (to support Alaska athletes) yet was not in interested in supporting these same Alaska athletes when they recently competed in Los Angeles? Can you get the answers to these questions Jeff?
Someone might also want look into the claims made by Sen. McGuire’s staffers through the Senate majority office that they extended their trip and stayed extra days in the swank Seattle hotel because they were attending a meeting of the Women’s Legislative Network after the main conference was finished.
That does not appear to be factual, as the published agenda for the Women’s Legislative Network meetings appears to clearly indicate that there were no network meetings after the main conference wrapped up. None at all.
http://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislators/womens-legislative-network/women-s-legislative-network-2015-legislative-summit-agenda.aspx
http://www.ncsl.org/meetings-training/2015-legislative-summit-online-resources.aspx
Just the facts, please.
“A fiduciary duty is a legal duty to act solely in another party’s interests. Parties owing this duty are called fiduciaries. The individuals to whom they owe a duty are called principals”
Senator McGuire owes her constituents and other Alaskans (the principals) an explanation as to why she should be exempted from this duty and thus allowed to delegate her fiduciary duty to the Senate President or to her staff without consequences to herself.
Ditto Lynn and ratfishtim — and Midnight Sun is a great find. Thanks, Casey!