For all intents and purposes, the constitutional ban on gay marriage in Alaska and other Western states was struck down on Tuesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court overturned bans in Nevada and Idaho specifically, saying that such bans violate gay couples’ equal protection rights. Alaska is part of the 9th Circuit, so presumably that ruling stands in this state as well.

The State of Alaska is likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it’s improbable that the high court will overturn the 9th Circuit’s decision, just as it didn’t overturn another circuit’s ruling on Monday.

The state voted in 1998 to amend its constitution to include the gay marriage ban. A case challenging that ban is scheduled to be heard in federal court in Anchorage on Friday.

I’ve got calls into the Department of Law, the governor’s office and the ACLU. I’ll update when I get more information.

Updated: A spokesperson for the Department of Law said that the department is still reviewing the decision and as of today, the state still plans to challenge the case on Friday. Gov. Sean Parnell declined to comment pending DOL’s review. Josh Decker, executive director of the ACLU of Alaska, said that the court “squarely and conclusively rejected” Idaho’s and Nevada’s marriage bans. He also said that there is “no daylight” between what Idaho and Nevada were arguing in defending their bans, and what Alaska has argued defending its ban. And because the 9th Circuit controls Alaska, the state should declare Alaska’s ban unconstitutional. To not do so would be to “continue to waste taxpayer dollars,” Decker said.

If the state continues to insist on defending the ban, it’ll be very interesting to see what U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess does with this on Friday afternoon. There a possibility that he could rule from the bench, which would be a lot of dramatic fun.

• Citizens all across the state will be heading to the polls today to vote on local candidates and issues. Here’s a summary from the Juneau Empire of what voters will be voting on in Juneau. KTOO has a wealth of info on Southeast. Here’s one from Fairbanks. Here’s a primer from the Home News of the mayoral races in Homer. Here’s a nice piece with local color from the Arctic Sounder about the elections in Kotzebue. Here’s one from the Frontiersman on the races in the Valley. And on this site, I profile three mayoral races across the state, and for no good reason, try to predict the winners.

• Dillingham, Alaska is the proud recipient of being named by the Washington Post as the town that could determine the fate of the U.S. Senate in November, which is kind of ironic because I wrote that Wasilla is the town that could determine the fate of the U.S. Senate. Someone else will no doubt soon write that it’s Fairbanks. Apparently we all keep forgetting that the majority of voters live right here in Anchorage. But that doesn’t work quite as well as a narrative device.

• APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez has a great overview of the Alaska National Guard scandal and Gov. Sean Parnell’s reaction to it.

• Unlike the Anchorage Assembly, the Anchorage School Board chose to stay out of the Ballot Measure 2 issue by simply reaffirming the ASD’s commitment to promoting drug-free schools in a resolution that passed 7-0 last night.

Continue reading →

On Tuesday October 7, voters will be going to the polls in many parts of the state to vote in local elections from Ketchikan to Barrow. In some locales, voters will be voting for municipal and borough officials. In some areas there are more uncontested races than contested ones. There’s also ballot propositions, some advisory and others the real deal, and citizen initiatives too.

But probably the biggest races are the mayoral races, and the biggest of those that I feel comfortable writing about are in the City of Wasilla, North Slope Borough and the Kenai Borough. Here’s a rundown of the three.  Continue reading →

The race for the women vote is on. Watch the latest ad, which is pretty good, from American Crossroads attacking Mark Begich here:

And listen to the latest Planned Parenthood Votes $25,000 Pandora ad-buy supporting Mark Begich, which is also pretty good, here:

Monday’s Supreme Court decision was a huge win for gay rights across the country. Here’s a chart, courtesy of Fivethirtyeight.com, that shows the immediate affect of the decision:

On Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear any of the seven cases pending before them regarding same-sex marriage, allowing lower court rulings that overturned statewide bans to stand. The Supreme Court took the action without a guiding opinion, which surprised legal scholars who thought that the Supreme Court would weight in one way or another. However, notwithstanding the court’s silence, the consequences for the country, and for Alaska, are huge. Most immediately, it means that same-sex couples in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming will be able to marry immediately or in the near future. In all of these cases, the federal court of appeals for their respective circuits struck down bans—like Alaska’s constitutional ban–that have prohibited them to marry.

Alaska belongs to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Continue reading →

The Walker/Mallott “Unity” ticket have received the endorsement of the state’s largest law enforcement and public safety unions, including the following:

• Public Safety Employees Association
• Alaska Correctional Officers Association
• Alaska Professional Fire Fighters Association
• Anchorage Police Department Employees Association
• Alaska State Employees Association
• Alaska Public Employees Association/Alaska Federation of Teachers

• Bloomberg has a graphic slideshow that distills the U.S. population down to the handful of Americans that will be deciding the fate of Congress in November. Bloomberg also has a great chart detailing the number of political ads on TV stations across the country. KTUU is number 1, with 9.672 ads, and Juneau’s KATH is in third place, with 8.409 ads. What are they doing with all the money? Who knows? They report and they decide.

• Almost all crisis communications experts agree that handling a crisis relies on having a plan, transparency, and avoiding contrary statements and confusion. Apparently, Gov. Sean Parnell didn’t get the memo. In fact, if there’s a worse way to handle the National Guard scandal, I can’t think of it. The latest: Michelle Theriault Boots reports that two top Alaska National Guard officers were fired and then re-hired one day later at Parnell’s urging. There may be good reason for doing so. (It appears that he might have wanted to avoid a conflict of interest). Maybe not. His administration appears hell-bent on keeping it all a secret. One thing is clear: All of it appears unplanned, nontransparent, and is certainly confusing.

• One way Gov. Sean Parnell could have gotten in front of the National Guard scandal was to turn it all over to a special prosecutor. He didn’t take that initiative and now others are taking it for him, including Bill Walker in the News-Miner, Jim Babb in the ADN, and Lynn Willis, who served with the Guard for 22 years, on this site.

Continue reading →

A few days ago, I wrote a piece about Senate District K in Anchorage, the most contested Senate District in the state. So I thought I should write about the least contested district. Not one of the three legislators—the Senate seat and two House seats–in Senate District S is being challenged.

Senate District S covers a large swath of land in Western Alaska, including the population centers of Bethel, Dillingham and Dutch Harbor. The races may not be competitive, but the issues are enormous and contentious: fisheries, Arctic development and the Pebble Mine, to name just a few.

The incumbent, Democrat Sen. Lyman Hoffman, is one of the two longest serving legislators in Juneau. He was first elected to the legislature in 1986, and has proven his mettle time and again. He’s a power house in or out of the majority. Continue reading →

Here’s an comment from a reader on the story about the amount of money the Senate Majority PAC is putting into races versus the amount that the Koch brothers are putting in. The gist of the comment: Koch-brothers money is bad because the Kochs are bad, and money supporting Democrats is good. It’s an interesting, representative summary of the left’s view on the issue. (But because group-think on either side makes me nervous, click here for a more nuanced look at the Kochs.)

I remember when Kerry was running against Bush, maybe you all have forgotten. Back then there was an awful lot of valid criticism that Bush/Cheney were propped up by the military industrial complex. This line of attack started to gain some traction and the retort was: BUT KERRY IS PROPPED UP BY TONS OF MONEY FROM THE HEINZ CORPORATION!!!

Let me remind you all of the difference between apples and oranges.

The best thing you can come up with when you talk about the difference between Begich’s line of funding and Sullivan’s, is that Begich is being supported by “anti-gun activists” this line coming right out of the NRA playbook. I’m not going to waste more than a breath trying to explain to you how no one is coming for your guns, or that we have a desperately serious problem with gun violence in this country that is making us the societal laughingstock of the world. Begich’s cash flow includes people who want us to rationally think about the implications of our gun laws. There’s an apple for you.

How about an orange? The Koch brothers are a different class of creature. They are not a group of like-minded activists, Continue reading →

From a press release from Sen. Mark Begich’s office about Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro’s Monday visit to Anchorage:

U.S. Senator Mark Begich will host a visit from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro in Anchorage on Monday for a series of community events.  Sen. Begich and Secretary Castro will visit a local development project in Mountain View and will meet with community leaders to discuss efforts to end homelessness. Secretary Castro will make a major announcement during Monday’s press conference.

Any guesses about what the “major announcement” will be?

Just as they did with the Morning Joe clip this morning, the Republicans have been sending out the video below with glee, the words of which, coming straight from President Obama’s mouth during a speech he gave on the economy at Northwestern University on Thursday, will likely very soon come back out of the television screen, with a very serious someone telling you to vote for GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan. Here’s what Obama said: “I am not on the ballot this fall.  Michelle’s pretty happy about that.  But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot.  Every single one of them.”

Here’s the video clip, taken from the larger speech, that’s being sent around:

Who knows how much impact this will have on the Senate race here and in other red states where Obama’s approval ratings are in the tank. One thing’s for sure, the president did Sen. Mark Begich no favors at a time when he needs things to be going his way.

Why did Obama say it? Continue reading →

Here’s a comment from reader Lynn Willis on the National Guard situation in Alaska:

What happened to the soldiers and the overall breakdown of discipline and loss of effectiveness to any degree within the organization, followed by what happened to the concerned Officers and NCOs who advocated for correction, is cause for deep concern by Alaskans.

Why were two political appointees, one a State Commissioner, allowed to wear the uniform of an Army Lt. General and the other, a Civilian Deputy Commissioner, given rein to do such damage to the organization over such a long period of time? Why did the Legislature with a standing Military and Veterans Affairs Committee and whose party holds the Governorship refuse to exercise any oversight? Continue reading →