ANCHORAGE -- An Alaska Superior Court judge has ordered the state to modify its proposed rules about how state workers' gay partners will qualify for employment benefits.
State Attorney General David Marquez said Tuesday the Department of Law will ask the Alaska Supreme Court to review the lower court's decision, which Marquez said overstepped its bounds.
"While the court may have its own view of how it would have approached this issue, the statutory and regulatory framework for state employee benefits is an inherent function of the legislative and executive branches of state government," Marquez said in a prepared statement released late Tuesday.
Last week, Gov. Frank Murkowski announced a special legislative session for lawmakers to deal with the issue, which dates back to 1999, when the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state and Municipality of Anchorage for their failure to provide benefits to their gay employees' partners.
A year ago, the Supreme Court ruled that denying gay couples the same public employee benefits as married couples is unconstitutional and ordered the state to begin providing the benefits by Jan. 1, 2007.
The legal battles continued through this winter as the ACLU challenged the state's proposed rules about how people would qualify for the benefits. The group said the state's proposed guidelines were too onerous and asked Superior Court Judge Stephanie Joannides to order the state to adopt simpler guidelines.
Monday, the judge ordered the state to change some of its proposed qualification guidelines and to add benefits, including the right of a state worker to take personal leave upon medical disability or death of his or her gay partner.
-- Anchorage Daily News
