The governor’s veto of the Alaska State Council on the Arts erased Keren Lowell’s job overnight. She put her newfound free time into the recall, but state employees loyal Dunleavy were watching.
Just because the governor has the veto power, the ACLU argues that it doesn’t make everything he vetoes constitutional.
The ACLU is threatening a lawsuit against the police department for the “decades long indifference to the safety of Alaska Native women in Nome.”
The ACLU of Alaska argues that Chief of Staff Tuckerman Babcock gave the game away with his public comments, turning a lawful resignation request into an unconstitutional pledge of allegiance.
The rule limited invocations after a first come, first served policy resulted in an invocation that ended with “Hail Satan.”
Note: Apologies for not including any women on the trip in this post. We’re working on a story featuring some of the women that are…
The challenge was brought by the ACLU of Alaska and Dunleavy for Alaska, an independent expenditure group backing Mike Dunleavy.
With Casey Reynolds out this week and Congress and the Alaska State Legislature mired in equally sluggish progress on their agendas, Forrest Dunbar is joined by guest host Judy Jessen to discuss the BCRA, oil industry tax policy in HB 111, and they even delve into Trump’s deepening scandal involving his campaign’s (and family’s) collusion with Russia. Then pollster Ivan Moore stops by to unveil results of his latest polling on Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan, Don Young, Bill Walker, and, in a surprise, tells us who Alaskans would vote for in a head-to-head match-up between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
It has been an odd week in Alaska politics. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg came to the Last Frontier, learned our savage ways, and decided to educate the world about them (only to get a few details wrong). Then, with our endless legislative special session now set to focus on oil industry tax policy (HB 111), the Republican State Senate Majority, including Sen. Pete Kelly and Sen. Cathy Giessel, seemingly held a press conference to rail against cushy cash subsidies state government gives to oil companies. Wait, it was Republicans complaining about what a sweet, sweet deal the resource industry gets in Alaska? Democrats in the House Majority responded by holding a press conference of their own to point out some fine print in the GOP theater that makes the Senate plan much more oil friendly than they let on. Casey Reynolds and Forrest Dunbar sort through all of those political shenanigans, talk some healthcare and weed policy, and even bring in Alaska Tax Division Director Ken Alper to explain the fine points of oil tax policy at play in the HB 111 fight.
As the state financial crisis brings Alaska within two weeks of a state government shutdown, Casey Reynolds and Forrest Dunbar get a blow-by-blow account of the legislature’s budget battle from the Alaska Dispatch News’ on-the-ground reporter, Nat Herz. Before getting to Nat, Casey and Forrest talk about the shooting at in Washington D.C, the resurrection of the AHCA in the U.S. Senate, and the Alaska GOP’s stunning failure to eject any of the three Homer city council members they were targeting for recall this week.