Since taking office a year ago, Gov. Sean Parnell has made six judicial appointments. And they've all been white men, mostly middle aged, even though a number of qualified women candidates have been put forward by the Alaska Judicial Council.
That's a record that continues an ongoing decline in recent years in the number of women being appointed to all levels of Alaska judgeships.
Parnell had nothing to say about why he bypassed a number of qualified women and at least one minority candidate in favor of a more homogenous list. His press secretary, Sharon Leighow, offered to have us speak to Jason Hooley, the governor's director of boards and commissions. Leighow said Hooley helps review judicial applicants -- although board and commission appointments are unrelated to judicial appointments. While board and commission appointments and judicial appointments are both made by the governor, boards and commissions fall under the executive branch of state government and members serve at the pleasure of the governor, while judges are appointed to the judicial branch and are retained by election.
Leighow said in an e-mail on Monday the governor had been attending a memorial service for the airmen killed last week in the C-17 crash at Elmendorf Air Force Base and couldn't return a phone call. He didn't call Tuesday either, despite a renewed request, but no reason why he couldn't speak for himself was given.
Leighow did say via e-mail: "I am having trouble lining up an interview on judicial appointments. I would like to comment on the issue. The governor does not select appointees or discriminate against candidates based on their sex. Rather, appointments are made by examining experience, knowledge of the law, and the ability to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Alaska. There are female officials employed in the Office of the Governor, serving in the governor's cabinet, and serving on our many boards and commissions."
The Alaska Constitution dictates that when there's a vacancy on the bench, the governor shall appoint "one of two or more persons nominated by the judicial council," a constitutionally-established, seven-member group that vets applicants and forwards nominees to the governor. The Alaska Judicial Council evaluates candidates based on in-person interviews with the council, background and reference checks, writing samples, public comment, and the results of a poll of all active in-state members of the Alaska Bar Association.
Parnell has at least three more appointments to be made this year. One is due by mid-August, before the Aug. 24 primary, and critics are watching to see if he will keep up the white male trend.
This appointment, for a seat on the Anchorage District Court, must be made from a pool of two women and two men. Although all four are deemed equally qualified by the judicial council, one of the women -- 41-year-old Leslie Dickson, an assistant public advocate -- has received by far the highest scores in the Alaska Bar poll, although that's only one of the measures used to determine whether candidates are qualified.
But Parnell also has tended to pick judges with strong Christian leanings, and the other woman up for consideration, Pamela Scott Washington, 47, says in her biography that she is a women's leader at Faith Christian Community. An African-American, Washington also is a domestic violence prosecutor -- another social problem that Parnell has strongly embraced -- and has practiced almost exclusively in Anchorage District Court for the past six years.
The two male contenders are Daniel Cheyette, 39, an assistant attorney general with the Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, and Bruce Roberts, 54, an attorney with the Transportation Security Administration.
Beginning with his choice of 60-year-old Anchorage attorney Frank Pfiffner in October for the Anchorage Superior Court seat vacated by Judge Morgan Christen -- who then-Gov. Sarah Palin boosted to the state Supreme Court -- Parnell has stuck to a certain type of candidate: white, male, middle-aged, with conservative and religious credentials.
Pfiffner lists active membership in St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, the Worldwide Marriage Encounter of Alaska and the St. Thomas More Society of Alaska, which is dedicated to faith and community in the legal profession, on his judicial application. Parnell passed over one woman and three other men to appoint Pfiffner.
In December, Parnell named Anchorage Judge Craig Stowers, 54, to an opening on the Supreme Court. Stowers is president of the board of Christian Health Associates Inc. and has been a board member of other civic groups. No women were nominated by the judicial council for that position; six other men, including several other judges, were on the list for Parnell to choose from.
In January, Parnell selected Paul Olson, 60, for an open seat on the Anchorage District Court. At the time, he passed over Washington and Roberts, who are up again for a seat on the same court. On the same day, he chose 53-year-old David Zwink for the Palmer District Court. Other judicial council nominees for that seat were Olson, who got the Anchorage job instead, and Dickson, also up again this time for the Anchorage District Court.
Parnell's appointment of Paul Roetman to the Kotzebue Superior Court in July deviated slightly from the governor's pattern in that at age 41, Roetman is significantly younger than Parnell's other appointments. Roetman worked in Kotzebue as an assistant district attorney from 2005 to 2008. He was also a member of the First Baptist Church of Kotzebue, and on his judicial application said he taught weekly middle and high school Sunday school lessons, facilitated a weekly men's group and occasionally presented the "Sunday message." Roetman also is a graduate of Regent University, a Christian law school in Virginia founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.
Roetman was one of three candidates nominated by the judicial council; the other two were women.
A few days later, on July 12, Parnell named Anchorage attorney Andrew Guidi, 52, to the Anchorage Superior Court, passing over one woman and two other men. Guidi listed membership on the board of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal order, on his judicial application.
The appointment of six men in a row continues a trend that has seen the number of women judicial appointments drop since 2003, even though qualified women are consistently applying and the judicial council consistently nominates them for consideration by the governor.
A 2008 judicial council study reviewed nominations and appointments from 1984 through 2007 and found that the percentage of women judicial applicants was lower than the percentage of women lawyers overall, likely because women lawyers tended to be younger and didn't have the prerequisite years of experience for judgeships that male lawyers did.
Still, the judicial council consistently nominated women candidates at the same rate it nominated men candidates, and for a number of years, women were being appointed to the bench in solid numbers. For instance, the study found, from 1984 to 1988, 9 percent of nominees were female but 26 percent of appointees were female. From 1989 to 2002, 25 percent of nominees were female and 21 percent of appointees were female.
But from 2003 to 2007, years that bridged the Murkowski and Palin administrations, the numbers of female appointments began to fall in a statistically significant way. While the percentage of nominees remained consistent at about 27 percent, the percentage of women appointees fell to 16 percent.
Palin, who made 20 judicial appointments from 2007 until her resignation in 2009, chose four women, including elevating Christen to the Alaska Supreme Court.
Parnell, at 6-0 for the men, has at least three seats to fill in upcoming months -- the Anchorage District Court seat due by mid-August, a Juneau District Court seat by early October and an Anchorage Superior Court opening for which the application deadline just passed but doesn't yet have a date by which the appointment must be made.
Teri Carns, a senior staff associate for the Alaska Judicial Council, has worked for the agency since 1974. She says the council works hard to find the most qualified candidates through a process that includes questionnaires, background checks, bar ratings and interviews. The council is made up of three non-attorneys appointed by the governor and three attorneys chosen through an advisory election of lawyers in a particular judicial district.
Religious and personal beliefs are vetted by the council to the extent that the panel tries to determine if those beliefs present a conflict of interest or might prevent a candidate from applying the law in a fair manner. So a candidate can have strong beliefs and, if there's no evidence to the contrary, still be deemed qualified and passed on for the governor's consideration.
"That leaves open the question that candidates have a range of personal beliefs," Carns said. "And that doesn't prevent Gov. Parnell from selecting the one with the most conservative beliefs. Once we have sent him the list, it's up to him."
This article was updated to correct two factual errors. We initially reported that the years 2003 to 2007 bridged the Knowles, Murkowski and Palin administrations. Gov. Tony Knowles left office in December 2002. Also, Parnell passed over two women for the Kotzebue position given to Paul Roteman, not one woman and one man.
Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com.