Legislature puts lingering ethics issues on the shelf

It appears less about strong opposition to the proposed fixes than a feeling that the Legislature has more important things to do.

"I don't think it's a high priority," said House Speaker Mike Chenault, a Nikiski Republican.

Bipartisan proposals to penalize people who make public their ethics complaints against the governor, as was common under Palin, could stand a better chance. But that's still not considered an urgent issue by leaders of the Legislature.

Superior Court Judge Patrick McKay put the issue of state officials using private e-mail accounts squarely in the hands of legislators in a Jan. 22 ruling. He ruled against a lawsuit filed by Anchorage activist Andree McLeod over the practice of Palin and her staffers using private accounts like Yahoo for state business. McLeod argued that it violated public records laws and kept policy information out of reach of public inspection, and that officials ought to use their state e-mail accounts. The judge decided to punt to the Legislature.

"A great number of Alaskans may share McLeod's belief that the governor and top staff should not be communicating by unsecure, private accounts, but if such actions are not prohibited by state law, then closing this perceived 'loop-hole' is a matter for the consideration of the Legislature. It is not this Court's job to legislate a ban to a lawful practice," his ruling said.

Senate President Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, said he thinks state business ought to be conducted by state e-mail. But he doesn't see this as something the Senate will get to this year.

"I just get the feeling this year we're just jogging as fast as we can to get to the finish line of 90 days and I don't see us going out there searching for more problems to try and deal with," he said.

Anchorage Democratic Rep. Mike Doogan is trying to deal with it, but hasn't gotten a lot of traction so far. Doogan's House Bill 195 would say that a public official "when taking or withholding official action" can't do it through a private e-mail account. It has to be done through the state system and is considered a public record open to disclosure, under the bill.

Gov. Sean Parnell has said he doesn't allow state business on private accounts in his administration. But Doogan said the law needs to be changed regardless of what Parnell's policy is. "Suppose this guy isn't governor next year and a different governor's got a different take ... I've got no assurance at all that the next (governor) is going to do it or even that this one might not wake up tomorrow and say, 'Hey, I've changed my mind,' " he said.

Doogan's bill would also make it illegal for the state to charge more than $100 in duplication costs when people make public records requests. He argues it's unreasonable that state officials have told people it would cost tens of thousands of dollars or more to get copies of e-mails that are public records.

FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Doogan has another bill dealing with ethics complaints, another hot issue in the Palin era. His proposal would make people who file such complaints against the governor or another member of the executive branch keep them confidential until the state finds "probable cause" of a violation. If they don't, the complaint would be immediately dismissed.

It's already law that people who file ethics complaints against legislators have them dismissed if they publicize them. The change for the executive branch, also being proposed by Anchorage Republican Rep. Bob Lynn, comes after the repeated release of ethics complaints against Palin to the press.

The personnel board eventually tossed out most of the complaints, and the legislators argue many were nothing but political attacks.

Doogan said he's thinking about going further and rewriting his bill to include penalties, possibly fines, if it can be proven that someone keeps filing unfounded ethics complaints just as a "hobby."

"It might be better to change the law to say, look, if it's clear that you're just making trouble, we're going to make you pay for that in some real way," Doogan said.

McLeod, who has had a number of ethics complaints against Palin tossed out, argues they all have merit and said legislators are trying to weaken the only tool to address misconduct. "What fear dominates them that they must assault our rights in this manner? Fear of being found out?" she said.

Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan put out an opinion last summer that proposed putting the cost of "bad faith" complaints on the people who bring them and banning abusers of the system from filing any more complaints. But the Parnell administration never followed up with any legislation to do that. In the same opinion, Sullivan said people who leak information about their complaints shouldn't be punished.

"Because public dialogue about government actions is speech at the core of the First Amendment, we do not recommend imposing sanctions on a citizen for disclosing information about an ethics complaint he or she has filed," Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan is moving to make changes to state ethics regulations based on what happened under Palin. His changes, which don't require legislative approval, include allowing the state to pay the legal bills of public officials for defending against ethic complaints that are tossed out. Another change that Sullivan proposes would say it's not considered a gift to a traveling state official if a group or corporation pay for the travel and it's been pre-approved by the state.

McLeod is objecting -- saying that could put gifts out of reach of public disclosure -- and is trying with no success to get the Legislature to review Sullivan's changes.