The crocuses had pushed through the strip of light-green grass next to the front steps of the Capitol and the smell of spring was in the Juneau air. A gloomy morning portending afternoon rain was giving way to broken clouds and sunshine as noon approached, and dozens of state workers hastily made their way from nearby offices to the Capitol entrance.
They were gathering, under public employee union leadership, for a lunch-hour demonstration. Their cause was as perennial as spring itself -- wage increases legislators promised them but had not delivered. A noon demo while lawmakers and the governor passed out of the Capitol would provide the workers with an opportunity to voice their demands to those holding the keys of the treasury.
A hundred or more employees and a few family members fanned out on the Capitol steps while union stewards briskly demanded they bunch up tightly like participants in a group photograph.
"Let's move it, let's get started," said the union official acting as demo leader. (This was some years ago. I don't remember who he was.)
Having assembled the crowd, the union leader, who had a big voice and didn't need a bullhorn, turned to his co-workers and began.
"OK, folks, it's great that you are here. Great. Let's tell 'em what we want and when we want it. Let's give it to 'em."
The crowd roared its approval.
"All right, all right," said the union leader, his voice moving from the merely loud to a bellow. "Right now -- WHAT DO WE WANT!"
The reply was instantaneous, deafening: "MONEY!"
The union leader had the look of a man who had suffered an electric shock. "Ah ..." He rubbed his face. "Ah ..." He rubbed again. Then, finding his composure, he said: "Ah, friends, is that the way we want to put it? Is it?" He stared desperately into the crowd for help. "Is it?"
A union hand in the back took the hint. "Fairness, fairness. Isn't it fairness we want?" he shouted.
Some members of the crowd began mumbling, "Yeah, fairness; sure, fairness." The union leader needed no further encouragement. Waving his hand sharply as if he were a conductor before a symphony orchestra, he barked, "WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"FAIRNESS!" thundered the crowd.
"And when do we want it?" he pleaded.
"NOW!" responded the crowd.
This is one of my favorite Juneau tales. It illustrates the problem people petitioning the Legislature encounter when voicing the truth in public. Far better to speak in evasions, euphemisms, noble platitudes and words nobody can argue with, like "fairness." Who's against fairness? (Or, for that matter, who is against right-sized government?)
Save the truth for behind closed doors -- and have it delivered by paid lobbyists, not citizens on their lunch hour. For lobbyists, proud of their insider knowledge and their money, citizens are objects of contempt. What do they know, the witless plebes, about how Juneau really works?
The latest example of how Juneau really works is the coalition of business and community leaders -- more accurately characterized as the people who think they run Alaska -- descending on Juneau incarnated as a group calling itself Alaska's Future. Describing this outfit in Alaska Dispatch News, reporter Nathaniel Herz said the members have "one request of lawmakers: Use the earnings from the Permanent Fund to address the state's budget crisis." Use the earnings because it is in Alaska's best interest.
The leader of the group is Ron Duncan, president of the telecom firm GCI.
In a handout Duncan prepared for the campaign, his second page is headlined "Why GCI Cares." Duncan notes GCI is Alaska's largest non-oil investor, has a capital budget currently larger than the state of Alaska's and 2,500 employees, 90 percent of whom are in Alaska.
Using Permanent Fund earnings to fill the budget deficit may be a good idea. But Duncan makes it clear that using the earnings of the Permanent Fund to avoid an economic crisis will further his interests. That's why GCI cares. Duncan is acting on behalf of himself. So are the Native corporations, unions and other organizations that have joined him. Alaska's Future looks to me like Alaska's Past -- where the wealthy and well connected dictate to the rest of us while invoking the public good.
When I was a kid, a world-weary old-timer from the gold rush told me after glancing at the newspaper freshly delivered to his cabin, "They're all in it together." If this old guy was around today, he would say the same thing about Duncan's coalition. Yep, they're all in it together -- for themselves.
Duncan and friends have hired lobbyist Ashley Reed as one of those who will make their case to Juneau. After more than two decades of serving his interests and those of his clients in the halls of the Capitol, voila, Ashley Reed is now reborn as a servant of the public interest.
Ashley Reed doesn't know what the term public interest means. He is a corporate fixer who makes a fat living bending, twisting and manipulating the law in his clients' interests. Last year, GCI paid him $50,000 to lobby for the company. Reed also spent 2015 lobbying for Wells Fargo, Enstar and Jack White Real Estate, among others.
The only public entity Ashley Reed pays attention to is the Alaska Public Offices Commission -- because the APOC has the power to fine him for ignoring its lobbying rules.
Dispatching Ashley Reed to Juneau on behalf of the public is like sending the devil to a christening.
Those state workers made a tactical mistake when answering the question, "What do we want?" Ron Duncan and Ashley Reed are not making that error -- they have wrapped themselves in virtue, the best interests of the state.
Beneath their pretense, they're after what the state workers wanted: MONEY! And when do they want it? NOW!
Michael Carey is an Alaska Dispatch News columnist; email him at mcarey@alaskadispatch.com
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