JUNEAU -- These used to be some of the most powerful politicians in Alaska. Now they are shunned, relegated to a band of back-benchers that, as one noted, is so small that it could fit in a bathroom stall.

"Now we're the untouchables," said Eagle River state Sen. Fred Dyson.

They're otherwise known as the state Senate minority. It is a group of four Republicans, only three of whom are in the state Capitol nowadays, who have found themselves in political Siberia.

They get together for meetings in North Pole Sen. Gene Therriault's office -- a far smaller office than when Therriault was the Senate president just a few years ago. "We could meet in a telephone booth," said Dyson.

It's a far and unusual fall for a group of Republican state senators to make in what is one the reddest of the nation's red states. This is the first time in memory -- maybe ever -- that there's been Senate minority members in a group this small.

They are dwarfed by a 16-member majority coalition -- 10 Democrats and six Republicans. So each minority member only received a single standing committee assignment. They have no seat on the budget-writing finance committee or on eight other committees in the state Senate.

"I've been getting to the gym a lot," Dyson joked.

They cannot prevent the majority from doing whatever it wants. But they point out each of them still has a vote on the Senate floor, the ability to raise their issues, to start a public debate. They can also try that time-honored strategy of minorities -- letting a majority member take credit for their idea so it has a chance.

"I don't think any of us have a defeatist attitude. We are still representing our constituencies to effect the shaping of public policy. We don't intend to go away. Or spend two years sulking," said Therriault, the minority leader.

MAJOR POLITICAL SHIFT

Republicans aren't used to finding themselves out in the cold in a state where the Democrats haven't held a majority in the state Senate since 1978.

A big shift in state politics began after the 2006 election when Therriault, who had been the Senate president of an all-Republican majority, battled with Republican Lyda Green of Wasilla to keep the top job.

Green won the fight for power by turning to Democrats to build a coalition that outnumbered Therriault's group and pushed it out of the majority. Green has since left the Senate. But, after the 2008 election, the Senate was evenly split between the two parties, and Kodiak Republican Sen. Gary Stevens again turned to the Democrats for a coalition. This time, the majority is even a little bigger.

Having such a large and ideologically mixed majority takes hot-button issues off the table. The state Senate isn't likely to move on abortion bills this session, for example, or on universal health care.

"When you have 10 Democrats and (six) Republicans in a caucus in the Senate, you are probably never going to deal with those extreme issues, the far left and the far right," said Stevens, who is now the Senate president.

Senate minority member Dyson is a big proponent of restricting abortion. The minority also paints itself as an anti-spending alternative to the majority -- especially Anchorage Republican Sen. Con Bunde, whose office door and office desk both have signs declaring that "Whatever You Allow, You Encourage."

RUFFLED FEATHERS Only one of the minority members, Kenai Republican Sen. Tom Wagoner (currently receiving medical treatment in California), was approached with a chance to join the majority. The rest were specifically excluded.

The reason depends on whom you talk to. But it's clear old battles and personality clashes don't easily die in Juneau.

"As I was trying to organize 11 members to form a caucus -- and eventually we were able to go on to 16 -- I kept coming up with groups of folks who did not want to deal with other folks," said Stevens.

Stevens said it came down to personalities and relationships, and there were both Republican and Democratic majority members who didn't want them on board. He said he can't reveal confidences and say who and why.

It's clear there have been strains. Bunde angered rural lawmakers three years ago with a proposed head tax on employed rural residents -- part of his focus on the fact many in rural Alaska don't pay for schools while property owners in Alaska's biggest cities do.

Dyson's ruffled feathers with graphic arguments pushing lawmakers to deal with abortion bills, a touchy spot for some Republican senators who may agree but can't demand the bills or risk fracturing their coalition with Democrats and pro-choice Republicans.

The Senate minority members have also emerged as defenders of Gov. Sarah Palin -- who's been at odds with many majority members from both political parties. Wagoner and Dyson sued in an unsuccessful attempt to stop their colleagues' "Troopergate" investigation of the governor, and Therriault was vocal in his criticism of the investigation.

Bunde, who seems to enjoy a role of curmudgeon, said the minority members heard they were excluded for asking too many hard questions, not being team players who'd just go along. He suggested the minority's call to strip then-Sen. John Cowdery of his leadership position while under corruption investigation might have also played a role.

Dyson said there could also be bad feelings among some Republicans in the majority over bitter fights Therriault waged with previous Senate President Ben Stevens.

Dyson alluded to his own previous role helping the FBI in its investigation of corruption among state legislators. He said he received threatening calls and e-mails.

"The tenor of probably 60 percent of them was that my role in Alaska politics was over and that whoever 'they' were, were going to get me," he said. "Certainly since that time my official capacity here within the Legislature has diminished. Now I am not saying, nor do I have any evidence, that any of the present members of the Alaska state Senate are actively and knowingly carrying out that threat. But it was certainly there."

Stevens said he bristles when hearing the minority set itself up as more anti-corruption.

"I take a little offense at some of the things I've heard said, I've heard them say at various news conferences that 'we are absolutely opposed to corruption.' And the implication is that those of us who aren't in the minority with them are in favor of corruption. And that is simply fallacious," Stevens said.

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

Juneau Democratic Sen. Kim Elton said he doesn't know exactly why the group ended up in the minority, but he doesn't work with them on some issues "because they are diametrically opposed to my philosophical position on what I think the state ought to be doing."

"I am not going to work with Senator Dyson on some of his 'family values' agenda,' " Elton said. "Not going to do it. It's not because I don't like him or am trying to get even with him. It's because I don't agree with him."

Elton knows about being in the minority, having spent a dozen years there when Democrats were in the wilderness. He experienced the same things current minority members complain of -- proposals ignored unless they are repackaged under the name of a majority member. "And it happened under the leadership of those who are now in the minority," Elton said.

Dyson conceded he went along with shunning the proposals of the Democrats "and I'm embarrassed about that."

He said he's now making it a long-term, personal project to change how the Legislature works. To push approving ideas based on their merits -- not on majorities. He said he heard the Legislature was more like that long ago.

"What happened in, I don't know, the last 15 years or something, is the Alaska Legislature has moved more and more towards the fact that the majority caucus rules," Dyson said.

"And the guys in the minority can't do hardly anything except to try to bitch and embarrass the majority and make them look bad," he said.