Legislature should heed Palin mandate

The voters of the Valley spoke Tuesday night and gave the Legislature's incumbents return trips to Juneau. We offer our congratulations to Sens. Gene Therriault and Charlie Huggins, and Reps. John Harris, Carl Gatto, Vic Kohring, Mark Neuman and Bill Stoltze.

Despite the continuity in the Valley delegation and the absence of a significant realignment in the Legislature's power structure, when our legislators return to the capital, they will settle in to a dramatically changed political landscape. They have the Valley's own Sarah Palin to thank for that.

Her sweeping victory in the race for governor underscored a loud and clear message from the voters of Alaska. Tired of increasingly nasty partisanship and the toll it has taken on the process, tired of more frequent and flagrant abuses of the public trust, Alaskans got behind Palin and her message of &#8220no more business as usual.”

In a post-election interview, as she has throughout the campaign, Palin talked about trust and transparency, and how she pledged to restore them to state government. In a business where few things are cheaper than talk, it is easy to cynically dismiss &#8220trust and transparency” as just another feel-good sound bite. Factor in the lack of both over the course of the last four years in both the executive and legislative branches, and such cynicism comes even more easily.

But unlike many who casually throw the words around without a thought to what they really mean, Palin has a record of living what she says. With an established record of taking on the ethical lapses of the governor, his attorney general and the state Republican Party boss, Palin gathered political momentum. Underfunded and strategically outgunned, she parlayed her message into a successful primary run, despite the shameful tactics employed against her by party operatives who should have embraced her.

In the lead-up to Tuesday's balloting, Palin continued to make trust and transparency a centerpiece of her unlikely and ultimately unstoppable campaign. While others could do no better than pay lip service to ethics reform while conducting the people's business behind closed doors in Juneau, Palin stood tall against this business-as-usual approach.

And the people of Alaska responded.

It is an understatement to say that Palin's victory represents a mandate for sweeping change. As such, the victory belongs equally to all Alaskans.

As we congratulate Palin and welcome the much-needed change she is calling for, we remind the Legislature, still peopled by some who have refused to embrace the change she represents, to recognize this mandate.

It will take a team effort to fully execute the changed approach to governing. Full cooperation and an unwaveringly bipartisan approach to problem-solving - Alaskans have called for it. Alaskans deserve no less.