Senate District H/Jay Cross

Closed-door policies of majority bad for public process

Hubris. In its modern usage, &#8220hubris” denotes overconfident pride and arrogance. Alaska citizens are now seeing the result of hubris in our legislators.

As the scandal surrounding the &#8220Corrupt Bastards Club” unfolds, we have to ask ourselves what they were thinking. The Alaska voter has been shut out of the law-making process by the closed-door policies of the Republican caucus. These same people have tried time after time to destroy the Alaska Public Offices Commission and reduce any oversight of their activities.

Transparency in the process of doing the public business is important to the democratic process. Democracy dies behind closed doors.

We have seen the Legislature in action during the session when the majority ignored the minority's efforts to have a dialogue about many issues of importance to Alaskans. Especially I remember Hollis French trying to get any sort of discussion going on the Petroleum Production Tax.

On TV, you saw Senate President Ben Stevens and the majority sit there in stony silence, as Sen. French did his best for the people of Alaska. Now we get a glimpse of what was happening. The fix was in.

No matter what happened, the decision had been made behind closed doors. Alaska voters should wonder how many of the bills that passed were decided this way.

Why were lobbyists allowed into the discussions? There were reports of oil company lobbyists on the floor of the House as the oil tax bill was being debated.

We see the attempts by Sens. Ralph Seekins, R-Fairbanks, and Charlie Huggins, R-Mat-Su, to introduce so-called &#8220ethics legislation” which was so outrageous as to be laughable. A hefty fine and jail time for anyone reporting a legislator for possible ethics violations was their idea of how to fix ethics problems. Obviously some people are more worried about public scrutiny of their actions than actually having meaningful ethics laws.

Now I understand that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but even the appearance of corruption hurts the public process. I hear there are about seven lobbyists, in Juneau during the legislative session, that make more than all the legislators combined. Money and greed are part of the human experience. I understand how much money it now takes to run for office, but now it is time for the voters to look at where that money comes from.

Sen. Huggins, a Frank Murkowski appointee, has been given a lot of VECO money. He also has major donations from Sen. Ben Stevens and Sen. John Cowdery, two legislators involved in the current FBI probe.

As this investigation proceeds, it is every voter's responsibility to look at every candidate's APOC report. Every legislator and candidate for office should have no objection to having these public records scrutinized in detail.

At this critical time, with so much at stake for the people of Alaska, the last thing we needed was for a scandal to take place. Major decisions have been made that are now suspect. These decisions will have to be scrutinized.

The gas line project has to be considered in light of what has happened. We will have new leadership in the governor's office, and it is time for transparency to be returned to the Legislature.

Do the voters want to return to business as usual? I think not.

Now the question is where do we go from here? One of the answers is in the initiative to go back to restricting the amount of money that can be donated for political campaigns.

Legislative leaders have to ensure that lobbyists cannot subvert the process. Lobbyists have no place on the legislative floor unless they are testifying.

I have seen accounts of legislators having to run a gauntlet between their offices through hordes of lobbyists. I cannot believe that if the legislators were bothered by this they couldn't do something about it. The Alaska Public Offices Commission should be fully funded and given the authority to levy meaningful fines for violations.

It is easy to sit back and criticize, but when you run for public office you live in the public eye. The voter has to put their trust in their elected officials.

All legislators pay the price for anyone's bad actions. This should encourage them to police themselves, and if they don't, they don't deserve to be there.

Big Lake resident Jay Cross is an independent candidate for the Senate District H seat held by Charlie Huggins.