Thank you to those legislators who have finally decided on compromise that meets some of the wishes of the Alaska public. Unfortunately compromise did not arrive before incredible expense to both the state and its residents. Thank you to Rep. Kreiss-Tomkins for having had the good grace to apologize to us recently for the behavior of our lawmakers. Sadly, his public apology was the only one, and was likely penned without the support of many of those responsible for the mess. Kreiss-Tomkins was able to remember that he works for us, the citizens of the state, and that his primary obligation is to us and not to private business interests and personal ideologies. We all need to ask some hard questions about why more of our elected officials were unable to remember that.
Our first question should be: Why did so few of our legislators focus on budget concerns during the regular session? Why were we paying them extra to do their work in a very expensive building outside of their established schedule and workplace?
Oil prices did not drop last week or last month, they started to fall last year, so everyone knew there was going to be a problem. Unfortunately some of our esteemed lawmakers were too busy working on illegal demands to the federal government to turn over land (HB 115) and legislation to allow parents to opt their children out of standardized tests and sexual health education (SB 89), both of which would create huge financial burdens on the state. Why were they doing this with a budget crisis looming? Apparently because personal ideology takes precedence over good sense, and they did not feel pushed to deal with reality. If you or I spent our time on the job promoting crazy expensive ideas instead of addressing the work we were supposed to be doing we would be fired. If we failed to complete a contract on time we would be fined, or at the very least would have to work for free to get it done. Perhaps we need to consider these responses for those legislators who could not stay on task.
Next question: Who were they working for? When HB 115 was in the news, I informally polled a small group for their views on this proposed law. Out of 30 people only one supported it, and only four knew anything about it ... so who were our legislators representing? Absolutely no one with whom I discussed SB 89 thought that the loss of $97 million in federal funding for our schools would be a good idea, especially not when we were already on notice about pending state cuts to education funding and teacher layoffs. While sensible people recognized that a crisis was approaching and were looking at innovative ways to do more with less and find alternative funding sources, some legislators were ignoring their assigned work and doing something else.
As an educator, when I have a student who ignores the parameters of the assignment and willfully does something completely different I hold that student accountable with an F grade. We need to make sure that all legislators who were wasting our time during the regular session are held accountable with an F on their professional transcripts.
Third question: How do we increase accountability and make sure that those in public service are actually serving the public and not someone else? While an F grade might embarrass, it may not increase accountability. If some of our legislators don't really care what we think because they don't see us as the people they need to be accountable to, flunking them will have little effect. If a majority of our lawmakers are in office as a result of private industry support, then that is who we can expect them to represent.
There is a reason to keep private industry out of public governance, and we ignore that reason at our peril. One of the tasks of good government is to regulate industry for the benefit of all; that task cannot be done effectively if government has been infiltrated by those it is supposed to regulate. Private industry really doesn't care very much about education and health care or home-heating costs; that is not its job. Private industries do not care if our agencies are funded, and if we think that providing jobs is a primary goal in their business plans, we need to think again. Labor is just one of the costs of doing business, and industry will reduce that cost any way that it can.
If we want proper accountability, we will need to remove the corrupting influence of corporate monies from our elections so that we get a wider selection of successful candidates into office and include people who actually work on issues important to all of us. We currently have nowhere enough of those thanks to gerrymandering and corporate funding of candidates. We will need to pay attention to what elected officials are doing and demand that they do it properly, at the right time and in the right location. We will need to act like grown-ups and accept that taxes are a part of modern life and will help us get a handle on increasing economic sustainability and reducing corruption. If we all contributed to the cost of government we would have a much stronger voice in how it performed.
We elected our governor and we need to demand that our lawmakers start paying him proper respect instead of thumbing their noses at his requests. We need to let them know that our votes mean something to us, that we got the right man and that we expect them to honor that. Asking them to proceed like responsible adults is surely not too much to ask.
Jenny Bell-Jones teaches indigenous law at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She holds a master's degree in rural development. This commentary represents her opinion alone and not that of her employer.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.