Bill highlights self-serving motives

March 26, 2006

Valley Voices/Myrl Thompson

I was sitting in a House State Affairs Committee meeting last week waiting to hear a particular and somewhat innocuous elections bill dealing with campaign disclosure. Before that bill was up for hearing, another elections bill, House Bill 438, preceded it for a hearing. Curious, I found the sponsor packet and, after reading the material and the included bill, I simply could not believe my eyes.

Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, &#8220Using his experience from the past summer Š has introduced legislation to reform the initiative, referendum and recall process.” This, it turns out, was the understatement of the decade. What Ramras was doing in actuality was gutting the recall process, and overhauling the initiative and referendum process. His first-time experience with an initiative apparently had made him an expert on all that ails the system that has been in place since statehood.

Ramras does state that he has experience now working with &#8220circulators, the Division of Elections, and citizens of Alaska.” So who better to fix a problem that doesn't exist?

Ramras had lined up a pretty impressive arsenal of expert testifiers to further his ill-conceived cause. They included Whitney Brewster, who recently was appointed director of Division of Elections. In the audience and also available was Annette Kreitzer, the current chief of staff for Loren Leman. Ramras conferred with her a number of times during breaks.

Ramras also had a circulator of his recent petition present, and she did testify for Ramras' bill. She seemed very unaware of the contents of the bill, but spoke in favor of it anyway.

I asked to testify, but time was short. Rep. Paul Seaton, the chairman, said that he would hold the bill over to provide me ample time to testify. This extra time proved to be a godsend.

When State Affairs met again two days later, there were 65 pieces of written testimony against the bill and an additional five more live testifiers against it. Because of my experience as chairman of the only recall in state history to make the ballot stage - the one involving Sen. Scott Ogan - I was given adequate time.

A wide variety of people testified against Ramras' bill. There were lawyers, teachers, public officials, an Iraqi war vet, and professionals of all kinds, all condemning this bill as unneeded and uncalled for. There were Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisans, all in agreement that Ramras was trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

So it begs the question, what were Ramras and the lieutenant governor's office up to?

Most disturbing to me was Ramras' insistence on adding definitions to the four criteria for recall, despite a Superior Court ruling in Ogan vs. Division of Elections that the statutes are sufficient as they are written. Seeing the writing on the wall, though, Ramras has decided to make a committee substitute version because of all the opposition. If he really wanted to do the right thing, he would just trash this ill-conceived bill.

I suspect that there are higher powers at work here, other than just Ramras. One theory is that the new definitions would make it literally impossible to recall any legislator.

Not only would any further recall effort against Sen. Ben Stevens be impossible, but under the terms of the bill, it also would have been impossible for Scott Ogan to be recalled. This may have been the real reason for the changes all along. One thing is for sure - these changes are not for the benefit of the people of Alaska. They are for the preservation of sitting legislators.

To use Ramras' own words, excuse me &#8220but my crap meter is going off.” Instead of working on the many issues that urgently need addressing, Ramras is wasting his and our time pursuing this bad legislation.

Valley resident Myrl Thompson is a citizen lobbyist and former independent candidate for the state House. His Valley Voices guest opinion column appears here every four weeks.