House Bill 69: A national disgrace

Editor’s note: John Aronno penned this piece for Alaska Commons and has granted permission for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman to reprint it. However, due to the length of the piece, it will be printed in two parts. Part II will be printed in the next edition of the Frontiersman, or read it online at Alaska Commons, bit.ly/YGKzbG.

The most controversial bill in recent Alaska history — and beyond — might be this session’s House Bill 69, sponsored by Speaker Mike Chenault. This House legislation was advertised as a declaration of state sovereignty as it related to owning firearms in Alaska. But that was more of a side note to the actual threat the language of the bill presents.

HB69 includes provocative language stipulating that state authorities could, should the bill pass, arrest federal agents who attempted to enforce federal law regarding gun regulations. For instance, if Washington, D.C., passed a law tomorrow stating that high-capacity ammunition clips are illegal, Chenault’s bill would deem that law invalid. It would empower state troopers to arrest any FBI agent seeking to enforce the law. It would tell citizens that they had more power than the feds.

Chenault’s legislation was a proposed solution to non-existent gun reform being discussed in the nation’s capital. In other words, it nullified federal law.

Chenault’s HB69 passed out of the Republican-dominated House Judiciary Committee with ease and passed through the House last week by a vote of 31 to 5.

The crux of the bill is as simple as it is falsely advertised by its proponents: states can pick and choose which federal laws to abide by, and can assert authority over federal agents enforcing federal law.

We’ve been through this. It caused the creation of our Constitution in light of the obvious inefficiency of the Articles of Confederation.

Daniel Day-Lewis just won an Oscar for the next time our country faced the issue.

The people who Alaskans elected, who have been chosen to create policy that ensures a stable, viable, prosperous 49th estate, these people have made three fundamentally shortsighted and flawed determinations in advancing Chenault’s nullification law.

The first mistake is the misguided presumption that this bill is, in any way, constitutional. The second mistake is the legislators’ choice to propagate the false premise that HB69 is about the Second Amendment; that this proposal in any way protects our right to bear arms in a way that the actual Second Amendment fails to. The third mistake hinges on this bizarre notion that arresting federal agents is the proper way to publicly disagree with poor decisions made at the federal level.

The Constitutions

There’s this thing known as the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution, Article 6, Section 2:

“The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

Our founders loved federalism and arbitrary capitalization. And I salute them. They were clear: federal law trumps state law. The courts decide when Congress has acted in a way that violates the Constitution.

Alaska State Constitution, Article 12, Section 4 details “Disqualifications for Disloyalty” for elected officials:

“No person who advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold any public office of trust or profit under this constitution.”

A general attribute of a failed state is an erosion of the authority to make collective decisions — to uphold the law. When one state in a United States claims that they can assert dominance over the whole for the laws it follows, and bands together with other states who feel the same — to a degree where they claim they can arrest federal agents, what do you call that?

North Pole Republican Tammie Wilson objected to criticism of HB69 by way of defending it’s beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-unconstitutionality: “So one attorney has said it might be [unconstitutional]. We don’t know that for sure that this is unconstitutional.”

Shouldn’t the Legislature be confident that it is pursuing legislation “in pursuance thereof” the Constitution, and not a dark-horse gamble that might possibly slip by judicial review by the skin of its teeth (which it wouldn’t)?

Enough is enough

It’s tough to be an elected politician. You want to be seen as a champion of the people’s will. And you have to prove your case to those people if you wish to retain your seat. So, you figure out what your district cares about and try to become that lightning rod of unwavering support for whatever that issue is, even if it’s a nonexistent issue or if you’re making a stink about something you don’t need to be. You find something that tends to keep people from showing up to protest the very idea of you. That’s the theater that our politics have become.

In Alaska, gun rights are hugely important. We hunt. We often live in secluded areas – Alaska tops the national census data at 1.2 persons per square mile. Protection in Alaska is something very different than an urban apartment complex in Oakland. Gun rights are different here, and laws need to reflect that. National laws need, also, to respect that.

But there’s a disconnect between the reality of respecting gun ownership and the defense of a bill in the state Legislature that takes hostile action toward the nation we’re the 49th star of.

This was a fact pointed out by freshman Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage: “Mr. Speaker, we decided in 1955 to submit a state constitution. We joined the team. Our star’s on the flag. I see it there. We didn’t have to do that. We demanded it. We implored our 48 ... brothers and sisters, let us join this great team. And I care greatly about my state. But I’m very proud to be an American. Very proud. And if the courts say that an administration law is constitutional, it is. I think this is secessionist talk. That’s what I think it is.”

That is tough to argue, because what Mike Chenault is talking about is, at its unrelenting core, secessionist talk.

But Rep. Peggy Wilson, R-Wrangell, was, nonetheless, there to make a haunting declaration that we “are joining a team. We’re joining a team with 11 other states that are saying enough is enough.”

Sorry, I’m just trying to get past the “this isn’t condoning a new Civil War” sentiment in light of the whole “we’re joining a team of 11 states seeking to preempt the federal government’s authority” argument.

I feel like this is charted territory.

The reality is that there is a group of politicians that, at best, want to secure re-election by honing in on a topic that gets their base aflutter — satisfies that aflutteredness dishonestly by posing as paper heroes saving a constitutional protection in no need of rescue.

Some actors reach this conclusion, as it would appear, innocently. Rep. Benjamin Nageak, for instance, is a Democrat in the Bush Caucus who was admittedly very conflicted. His support of the bill was not a tacit endorsement of arresting federal agents in an offensive movement against the federal government, but as a reaction based in fear of losing guns used to hunt for subsistence. He drank the HB69 proponents’ Kool-Aid.

I don’t think he understands the bill he just voted on.

Other actors are using this to promulgate a wildly incorrect paranoia, one that believes MoveOn.org special ops will be knocking on their doors and confiscating their firearms tomorrow if not for the actions of the Alaska State Legislature — so long as they pass this entirely unrelated bill that is an act of aggression against the United States.

For instance, Palmer Republican Rep. Shelley Hughes said, “I’ve heard from many, many constituents and Alaskans from across the state that this is something that they would indeed like addressed. And when I listened to all the details, I’m sitting here thinking about something that’s more of a principle.”

She is acting as though they are reaffirming a Constitutional right, which they are not reaffirming. The Second Amendment is not a question, it’s a Constitutional right. This is not a principle, it’s a bill — a really bad bill.

I doubt that her constituents believe Alaska has a federal agent problem that needs to be addressed by arresting American citizens.

We’re hunting bogeymen.

John Aronno is the managing editor at Alaska Commons, recipient of the 2010 Alaska Press Association’s Suzan Nightengale Award for Best Columnist in a small paper for his work with UAA’s the Northern Light. He is an occasional contributor to the Anchorage Press, the Alaska Dispatch, the Mudflats and Bent Alaska, and writes regularly for Alaska Commons. He resides with his wife, Heather Aronno, in Anchorage and is currently in his backyard playing fetch with his dogs.