People In The Sun
Lance Of Arabia Is Turkey in Arabia? Doesn’t matter, all furan places are fungible. So word is Eastside House Rep. Lance Pruitt is off in far away Turkey this week. His office says he is part of an inter-cultural delegation associated with the Turkic-American Alliance. Don’t freak out budget hawks, his travel is being paid for by the National Council of State Legislatures, not us, so we get to be happy for Lance to have the opportunity to do whatever the hell any of that means.
Gab Smacked Gabrielle LeDoux 
is legendary for her dogged pursuit of campaign donations so how long after I posted some info about campaign fundraisers last week do
you think it took her to ”aggressively request” I post a flyer for her fundraiser with Charisse Millett? Bet among yourselves, but the answer is easier to measure in seconds than hours. 
Just so no one thinks of me as ungentlemanly, here is her fundraiser flyer.
For everyone else’s edification, I am not going to be in the habit of posting every fundraiser flyer I recieve. There are just too, too many for me to care. If you have a political event and would like me to mention it, email me at [email protected] AND TELL ME WHY IT’S INTERESTING. If, and only if, there is something interesting about it will I post it.
Ever A Better Fit? 
Was there ever a better fit of event title and political persona than Congressman-For-All-Alaska Don Young attending the big Wolf Trap Ball in DC? The Congressman was joined by Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Congresswoman Barbarra Comstock and ambassadors from Colombia, Ireland, Greece, Monaco, Brazil and Singapore. It was a big deal. I have to wonder if Don showed the hob-knobby DC crowd how to actually trap a wolf, because he could. Na, probably would have ruined the dessert course.
Irish Pot-ery Friend of the Midnight Sun, and member of every public board on pot in Alaska, Bruce Schulte tells me we can reasonably expect to have some 100% legal weed shops up and running in Anchorage by August 1st of next year. He also says there are plenty of bar owners who are seriously looking at getting into the business. It kind of makes sense as bar owners already know how to work within a heavily regulated vice industry. Why would I ask Bruce about all of this? Because I hear one such bar owner who is openly talking about making such a move is former Mayor Dan Sullivan. It wouldn’t seem to fit with his buttoned down image, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.
Midnight Sun on the Air!!!!
Master of Morning Radio Rick Rydell (AM 650 KENI) has asked us to come on every week and share what we know with his audience. So listen for our inside scoop every Friday morning at 7:35.
Sun Drenched Events
Fiscal Policy Forum It seems everyone who was anyone was at the Fiscal and Economic Policy Forum at UAA last Saturday. Some who I noticed (before I stopped keeping track) were: Lynn Gattis, John Coghil, Brad Keithley, Kevin Meyer, Bill Popp, Jason Brune, Michael Chambers, Harriet Drummond, Berta Gardner, Suzanne Downing, Vic Fisher, Vince Beltrami, Ben Mohr, David Boyle, Don Smith, Sharon Cissna, Shelly Hughes. Andy Josephson, Liz Vazquez. Jim Posey, Kara Moriarty, Marleana Hall, and Rebecca Logan. The discussions were good and the game of having folks pretending to be the state legislature trying to balance the budget and then asking the audience if they would re-election them was entertaining. So what did we learn? Only that people who attend such things like to boo those who protect the PFD and cheer those who implement income taxes. Insert here your preferred joke about university campuses bearing no relationship to the real world.
Creme de la Dem The who’s who of Democrats gathered at Les Gara’s pad on the Park Strip last night to raise money for electing state house candidates. Attendees included Andy Josephson, Les Gara, Chris Tuck, Pete Peterson, Matt Claman, Malcolm Roberts, Ron Holmstrom, and Harriet Drummond. The crowd of about 60 people even heard Mark Begich call in and say a few words. I’m told they raised right at $20,000.
Hangin With Adam All of us that attended Adam Trombly’s campaign kickoff on Wednesday night had a great time. OK, full disclosure, it was such a great night I couldn’t actually go inside to the thing. Instead, I headed over to the Turnagain Community Council picnic where I found Mia Costello and Matt Claman ha
nging with constituents. I hear, though, that turnout for Adam’s event was decent and attendees included Dan Coffey, Cheryl Frasca, Bill Starr, The Hellenthals, John O’day, Larry Baker, Tom McGrath, Joe Riggs, and July Eledge. What is weird is that Charisse Millett and Gabrielle LeDoux scheduled their fundraiser for the same night, at the same time. You’d think someone at GOP hq would have done something about that.
Fun in the Sun
Word’s Out If you haven’t heard the audio we posted of Lesil McGuire’s epic interview with former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell (the one where she throws pretty much everyone else in the legislature under the bus) you should check it out here. But beyond that, Sen. McGuire also went on to seemingly confirm what I have been hearing a lot of buzz about recently, namely that Shell has hit a big find in their Chukchi Sea play. The Senator said we should expect a big announcement from Shell in the next week or so.
Where’s Lisa There was some heat thrown at Senator Lisa Murkowski this week for missing a vote on abortion. Her people said she was traveling, but they wouldn’t say where she was traveling or what she was doing. My sources say she was in Texas on a fundraising swing through oil money in Dallas and Houston organized by Exxon Mobile big wig Rex Tillerson and others. We’ll check the FEC reports next month and let you know how much she raked in.
Facebook Randomness Then there is this…
Sun Burns
Mayoral Race Postscript Whenever you hear Amy Demboski talk of the 2015 mayoral race she starts off with how outspent she was, and the final numbers from APOC show she is right. Ethan Berkowitz raised $435,485.40 to Demboski’s $254,596.43. I don’t think anyone thinks that is why Berkowitz won, but it is none the less a true statement. Actually, it’s even truer than it seems. The pain frosting on the tough beat for Demboski is that her number includes $23,000 she had to kick in to cover fundraising shortfalls. Someone should really ask candidates running claiming to be fiscal conservatives if they ever over spent on their campaign, it would seem to be instructive of how they might act in office.
Fly Into The Sun
If you have morsels you’d like shared in this column please email me at [email protected].
Ah yes, given our fiscal situation now is when we need to send an Alaska State Representative to participate in “an inter-cultural delegation associated with Turkic-American Alliance”.
I do wonder who went with him and wasn’t Pruitt’s junket at least partially paid for by use through the six figure dues and conference registration fees Alaska pays to the National Council of State Legislatures?
The ISER conference was very informative. Perhaps ISER might donate, for use by our legislators, that simple scale device that allowed participants to physically add blocks of “expenditure” and “revenues” to opposite sides of the scale. Maybe with the use of such a graphic aid they could finally wrap their minds around our fiscal situation.
@disqus_l6zmvyrfM3:disqus I dont know that anyone went with him and my understanding is there was no additional cost to the State of Alaska for him going. I assume NCSL dues would have been the same whether he went or not. It is also the interim, so it isn’t like he is missing votes by going. His staff was pretty open with all of the information and not defensive at all, so I’m inclined to think there is little there to criticize.
Casey,
Of course they wouldn’t be “defensive” and would like this to appear as a beneficial and also ‘free trip”. So when will the trip report be made available since, regardless of the funding, he is traveling in an official capacity using his title as an Alaska Legislator is he not? Also, I am not so inclined to compartmentalize and segregate the source of funding as you appear to be.
NCSL dues should decrease if the organization stopped providing “free” junkets to legislators. One of the untold stories is how much dough is directly or indirectly paid for legislators- and some favored staff- to travel outside Alaska- and outside the U.S. for “inter-cultural” purposes.
k.
I think it is of utmost importance that Rep. Lance Pruitt took the time away from serving his Alaska constituents to travel to “far away Turkey.” Turkey is critical to our strategy relative to ISIS, and because the Alaska Legislature has a lot to do with U.S. foreign policy, it’s important for members to experience the country and its culture first hand. Don’t you agree?
Inter-cultural trip is government-speak for vacation/junket. And the fact that “his travel is being paid for by the
National Council of State Legislatures” is totally meaningless. It was actually prepaid by the State of Alaska, which pays $107,000 in dues to the NCSL- in part so that the NCSL- hardly a charitable organization- can give out “free” travel to members.
Honestly, I don’t see any way his going there, in the manner he is, in any way hurts my life, lives of my fellow citizens, or the State of Alaska. Obsess on this if you want, I choose to care about other things.
Casey,
Image is everything in politics and this image of an Alaska Legislator flying off to Turkey
stinks. I suppose you could claim the same lack of personal impact regarding the $90,000 Seattle junket fiasco. After all a billion dollars equals one thousand million dollars and we are short billions. Perhaps you would us know the specific conduct and/or dollar amount that might warrant “obsession”.
Regardng “Where’s Lisa”: Does this mean that Sen. Murkowski was holding fundraisers on the holiest Jewish holiday of all, as her staff had claimed she was absent due to Yom Kippur?
@ratfishtim:disqus Lisa’s staff didnt say she wasn’t in DC because she wanted to respect the holidays and not work, they said she chose those days to be gone because the Senate traditionally isn’t in session on those days around the holidays so she didn’t think she would miss any votes.
I watched Gruenberg track down that guy and force him to pick up the dog poo….. it was the best part of my week.