Just days after Sarah Palin left the governor's office, in part because of a crush of what she called frivolous ethics complaints, Alaska's new attorney general is proposing sweeping changes in how such matters are handled.
Attorney General Dan Sullivan on Wednesday released a 19-page opinion about the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act and said reforms are needed to prevent bad-faith misuse of the process.
As evidence of a troubled ethics system, Sullivan singled out the leak two weeks ago of an ethics investigator's confidential report on Palin just as efforts were under way to resolve the matter. Such breaches could be stopped by changing the law so that people who bring complaints don't get interim reports from investigators, the way they do now, he said.
Sullivan also wants to change the rules so that the state can cover legal bills for public officials who are exonerated after an ethics investigation.
Perhaps the biggest, and most controversial, element of Sullivan's proposal targets people who abuse the ethics complaint system for political reasons.
Sullivan proposes putting the cost of "bad faith" complaints on the people who bring them and wants to ban abusers of the system from filing any more complaints. Perhaps the state Personnel Board could order reimbursement of costs from people who make false complaints, the opinion said.
The new opinion is written in broad terms. Changes to address abuses would need legislation, and details would be worked out in legislative hearings.
Two key lawmakers -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hollis French, D-Anchorage, and House counterpart Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks -- were immediately cool to much of what Sullivan is proposing.
"Obviously, you start with the premise that every American, every Alaskan, has the right to complain about their government. That's a bedrock principle," French said.
"If you file a complaint and it turns out not to be valid or it turns out you were mistaken on one of your premises or you didn't know all the facts, the idea of somehow reaching out and trying to penalize a citizen that does that -- very strongly opposed to that," French said.
Ramras, who often collided with Palin on issues, said he agreed that most of the complaints against her were frivolous. Yet, he said, there's no reason to be reactionary -- state ethics laws got a major overhaul just two years ago. Palin signed the bill.
With her political rock star status, Palin became a magnet for complaints, but new Gov. Sean Parnell has a more measured approach to government, Ramras said.
"I just see this as premature and a reaction to a sensational circumstance. I'd like to see the executive ethics rules work in ordinary times before we endeavor to make changes," said Ramras, who listened in over the phone on Sullivan's press conference. He said he's open to discussions but thinks the matter might be better left for the Legislature to take up in 2011.
"We'll see where things are in January but I don't think it will make it out of our committee," Ramras said.
Andree McLeod, an Anchorage activist who has had multiple ethics complaints against Palin dismissed, said the government shouldn't try to muzzle critics, no matter how many complaints they bring. Who is to judge what's in bad faith or frivolous?
"Implying a motive is totally inappropriate," McLeod said.
Illinois and Alabama have made it a crime to knowingly make a false ethics complaint, according to the attorney general's opinion. In Missouri, someone who makes "a complaint clearly lacking any basis in fact or law," is liable for damages to the person accused, the opinion said.
The attorney general also wants legislators to look into "habitual complaint filers who use the Ethics Act process to harass executive branch employees."
One lawmaker with a favorable view of the proposals is Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage and chairman of the State Affairs Committee. He says the state needs to crack down on abuses. "I was encouraged by this, the new attorney general trying to fix this," said Lynn, who attended Wednesday's press conference.
He's proposing legislation that would require complaints to be dismissed if the person making the accusation talks about it publicly during an investigation, the same way ethics complaints against lawmakers are handled.
"We're trying to make the rules for the executive branch the same they are for the legislative branch," Lynn said. An ethics accusation becomes a "hot media topic" before it's even proven, he said.
The attorney general is rejecting such an approach. The new opinion says there's no legal basis to penalize citizens just for talking about an ethics complaint. Accusers publicized many of the complaints against Palin.
"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," the opinion says.
On the legal bill issue, Sullivan noted the state already covers defense expenses for some public employees, such as state lawyers facing professional misconduct charges that arose out of their state work. He is proposing new rules that would allow the state to reimburse the costs of defending against ethics complaints, if the person is cleared and acted within the parameters of their job, the costs were reasonable and there was money to pay the legal bill. The state will hold public hearings on the matter, he said.
Palin or her top aides have faced roughly 20 known ethics complaints, most of which have been dismissed. Her legal debt has been estimated at about $600,000. She would only be allowed to seek reimbursement for future cases, if any, filed after the proposed regulation takes hold, Sullivan said.
Sullivan said he had started working on the ethics opinion almost as soon as he took office in June, then was asked by Parnell to look into how to prevent leaks of confidential information.
Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.
By LISA DEMER
ldemer@adn.com