Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Some legislators are accusing Gov. Sarah Palin of collecting and misusing thousands of e-mail addresses from state records to make a last-minute push for a bill to cut business license fees.

Palin aides confirm they compiled a list of nearly 23,000 e-mail addresses from the Department of Commerce and sent a "special message" from Palin saying House Bill 111 was stalled in the Senate. The e-mail included a list of all 20 senators and their phone numbers.

The governor's staff insisted Saturday that such mass mailings, whether electronic or by regular mail, have been done before by previous governors. Aides also say such e-mail information is public record available to anyone.

But some lawmakers accused Palin, a Republican, of taking advantage of state-held information that might not be readily available to send spam to push a political agenda.

"This is an inside job for politics. It's wrong," said Sen. Charlie Huggins, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla.

Fairbanks Republican Rep. Jay Ramras, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the mass e-mailing struck him as "totally political."

"This is called lobbying," he said.

BILL WOULD CUT FEE

Palin sent the e-mail message Thursday to business license holders. Lawmakers are scheduled to adjourn for the session today.

HB 111 would cut the $100 annual business license fee to $50.

Lawmakers raised the fee from $25 to $100 in 2003, and then-Gov. Frank Murkowski signed it into law. The state wasn't nearly as rich with oil revenue as it is today, and the increase was part of a broader push to bring in more money.

Getting HB 111 passed was a Palin priority. It cleared the House last year, and on Saturday the Senate voted it through.

"Dear Fellow Alaskan," Palin's e-mail began. She said the bill was "stalled" in the Senate Finance Committee.

The message went on to say "the fee increase has caused a hardship for those who are helping grow our economy, especially people who operate home-based and part-time businesses."

Mike Nizich, who has worked as an aide to several Alaska governors and is currently Palin's deputy chief of staff, said every governor has engaged in mass mailings, using e-mail once the technology was available.

He and other Palin aides produced copies of fliers from the administrations of Murkowski and former Gov. Tony Knowles that, in some cases, pushed specific bills and listed phone numbers for lawmakers.

"It's been going on for years," Nizich said. "To some people, they appreciate the information flow, and to others it's an irritant. They don't care what government's doing."

Nizich said the governor's office can ask a government department to provide a custom list of e-mail or street addresses.

Such information is public record, he said, and anyone can get such a list. Depending on the work for state employees to compile the list, however, a person who requests it might have to pay.

The governor's office, however, doesn't pay, Nizich said.

"It's an internal thing," he said.

PRIVACY QUESTIONS?

Ramras believes use of the e-mail addresses raises privacy questions, noting other bills pending before the Legislature this year dealt heavily with concerns about safeguarding private information the state holds.

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, co-chairs the Senate Finance Committee. He and other lawmakers have feuded with Palin at times this session over the state budget.

Stedman said he put HB 111 on the committee schedule for Saturday morning and moved the bill, but not because of the governor's e-mail.

Rather, he said he did it "as a show of good faith" to Palin, who had mentioned her interest in the bill in a meeting a couple of weeks ago.

HB 111 doesn't rank as one of the Legislature's more critical concerns this year, Stedman said. He added that he'd rather not see each new governor spend a lot of time undoing fee structures set under prior governors.

"If you can't afford a $100 business license, you can't afford to be in business," Stedman said.

Instead of a mass e-mailing, he said, "the more appropriate way of dealing with it" would have been to talk with the committee chairman.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call him in Juneau at 1-907-586-1531.

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