The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly has voted to override Mayor Mike Navarre’s veto of the Assembly’s new invocation policy resolution.
Alaska’s ACLU executive director Joshua Decker said he is disappointed in the Assembly’s action.
“As we wrote in our letter to the Assembly last week, we think this resolution is unconstitutional,” Decker said. “We had hoped that they would do the right thing and go back to the way things used to be in terms of letting anyone who wanted to give invocations to sign up first-come-first-serve. Unfortunately, they chose to double down on a policy that we think is unconstitutional.”
The veto and the subsequent override came at Tuesday evening’s regular Assembly meeting in Soldotna.
American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska sent an attorney who reiterated their concern during the public testimony period.
The policy was enacted by a resolution approved on Oct. 11, which restricts who is allowed to give the invocation, or prayer, that begins each Borough Assembly meeting.
Decker said the ACLU wrote to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly on Oct. 20, warning them their new invocation policy was unconstitutional.
“In our letter to the Borough Assembly we had asked them to let us know what they were going to do and to fix the unconstitutional policy by the end of November, by Monday, November 28,” Decker said. “They have one more Assembly meeting before the end of November and so we hope that they are going to carefully consider our concerns and do the right thing. If not, if going to court is what the constitution requires, then that’s what the constitution requires.”
The policy violates the constitutional rights of equal protection and religious freedom, he said.
ACLU officials told the assembly they had two options: either return to the old policy of allowing anyone to give the invocation or eliminate invocations completely.
The Assembly overrode the veto in a 6-3 vote.
Assembly members Cooper, Willy Dunne and Brandii Holmdahl were the “no” votes.
The next Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting is scheduled for November 25.
