Alaska Beacon

This November, voters will be asked whether or not to call a constitutional convention, which could pave the way for changing the Alaska state constitution. If Alaskans vote ‘yes,’ cost estimates to hold a convention range from a few million dollars to $20 million.

One Republican senator said a gathering to propose amendments and changes to the state constitution likely costs around $3 million, while another Republican senator puts the price tag closer to $17 million.

There are only two ways to change the constitution — either through the amendment process or by holding a constitutional convention.

The amendment process has resulted in 28 changes to the constitution. It involves two-thirds of each house of the Legislature voting to put a proposed amendment on a ballot and then a majority of the votes cast in favor of the proposition for the amendment to go through.

To hold a convention, either the Legislature can call one, which it can do at any time, or the majority of voters have to be in favor of it when the question is on the ballot. Any proposed amendments or changes coming from a convention would have to be ratified by the public.

Every 10 years, the state constitution requires the lieutenant governor to place the question “Shall there be a Constitutional Convention?” on a general election ballot. Voters will be asked the question during the upcoming general election in November. A “yes” vote supports holding a constitutional convention. A “no” vote opposes holding a convention.

If the majority votes no, the question will be asked again in another 10 years. If the majority votes yes, what comes next can be hard to predict because the constitution leaves room for variability.

For instance, the constitution says, “delegates to the convention shall be chosen,” but this can be done at the next regular statewide election or at a special election.

Then the constitution says: “Unless other provisions have been made by law, the call shall conform as nearly as possible to the act calling the Alaska Constitutional Convention of 1955, including, but not limited to, number of members, districts, election and certification of delegates, and submission and ratification of revisions and ordinances.”

The Legislature has the option to pass a law detailing how the delegates are picked and how the convention will go. One proposal to do that didn’t advance this year. The convention can also be run similar to how it was done in 1955.

To process some of these unknowns, the office of Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, issued a white paper in September 2021. He chairs the Senate Rules Committee.

“There were a lot of questions about a constitutional convention and what would happen and how it would work and, as Rules chair, we wanted to make sure that people had all the information that we had,” Stevens said. “So, we put that paper together really for other legislators and for anybody else that wants to see it. The idea was to let folks know what could happen if the public in November votes to have a constitutional convention.”

Many factors to determine cost

One aspect the paper considers is financial cost.

“It’s really, really impossible to say right now, but I would guess it’s going to be between $17 to $20 million to fund the convention,” Stevens said.

The paper’s estimate of $16.7 million is based on current costs for legislative operations, including for things like security, legal and research staff, and legislators’ compensation per day, known as per diem. It assumes a 75-day convention and includes costs for 60 days of support and preparation leading up to the convention and a 30-day wind-down period, totaling 165 days of costs. Stevens’ office consulted with the Legislative Affairs Agency to get actual costs associated with a legislative session.

The figure inputs other current unknowns, like how many delegates will be at a convention, which won’t be determined until after a potential yes vote. The figure accounts for a 60-delegate convention based on current legislative districting as opposed to the original 55-member convention, which was based on judicial districts and the districts used for property records at the time.

Stevens, a former history professor at the University of Alaska, is not aware of any other effort to come up with a financial cost estimate. He said the paper itself doesn’t take sides, though he does have a personal opinion on the issue.

“I’m not necessarily in favor of a constitutional convention, but if we have one, we’ve got to be prepared, and that’s the purpose of this paper. Be prepared,” he said.

Stevens is not a member of Defend Our Constitution, a group of Alaskans from various political backgrounds who oppose a convention. The group, which cites the overall “about $17 million” cost estimate from Stevens’ paper, calls the convention “expensive.”

“As Alaskans prepare to vote on holding a constitutional convention, an important element of that decision will be just how much such an event might cost. And while concrete numbers are somewhat elusive, a combination of historical data and past research indicates a convention will be incredibly expensive,” the group’s website says.

Convention supporter says cost is a nonissue

Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, said calling the cost of a convention expensive is “fear mongering.” He estimates the cost at closer to $3 million.

“That’s nothing. That’s not even a drop in the bucket for what the state spends on anything they want to spend and nobody is out there complaining about that. But when they oppose a constitutional convention, ‘Oh my gosh, the cost is going to be astronomical. We’re just going to break the bank.’ It’s fear mongering,” he said.

Shower is a vocal proponent of having a convention. He said the cost of a convention is a nonissue.

“It shouldn’t, frankly, even be a consideration based on how little it’s going to cost,” he said.

Shower said Stevens’ estimate is “too high.”

“I’m going to say we got 55 delegates times 200 bucks a day times 30 per month, right? That’s $330,000. And I’m going to go big and say it takes three months, which it’s not. That’s $990,000,” Shower said. “I’ll take that number right there and I’ll triple it. Triple that cost just to say, you know, renting a space and other kinds of things, that’s about $3 million.”

With so many unknowns and variables, Shower said “there’s no way to know” the cost and it’s all guessing.

“People that are opposed to it are probably going to do the standard tactic of trying to make it sound more expensive. Those who support it are probably going to come in and say it’s less expensive. I’m not doing either because I honestly don’t know. I hate when we do this stuff and we use our own political lens to flavor something we support or oppose and make it expensive, cheap, etc.” Shower said.

Loren Leman, a Republican former lieutenant governor and former legislator, also thinks the $17 million estimate is high. He supports having a convention.

“I would have estimated it in the single digit millions,” Leman said.

He doesn’t think a convention would involve all the same support the Legislature does, “but the reality is we still would need to have research capability and support. It will cost money.”

Leman said there are ways to reduce costs, “streamline it and still get the job done.” If a convention were to have a projected cost upwards of $17 million, Leman would support changing the scope and a lesser expenditure, “but one that still gives adequate time and opportunity to do the job.”

“I would say let’s not do a convention like that. Let’s deliver it a different way. Let’s deliver it more — maybe I’ll say— the Alaskan way. We can get together — doesn’t have to be an ornate hall, I mean, not that we even have such a thing in Alaska,” he said.

While people have different projections of how much a convention might cost, they seem to agree on the interpretation of this part of the constitution: “The appropriation provisions of the call shall be self-executing and shall constitute a first claim on the state treasury.”

“They can’t not fund it,” said Shower. “There’s no legislative arm-twisting to say we’re just not going to fund this because we don’t like it; they can’t do that.”

Stevens said, if voters vote ‘yes’ to holding a convention, it would take precedence over any other budget item.

“First claim on the state treasury means that it takes precedence over education issues or Marine Highway, over everything else,” he said. “The first claim on the treasury would be a constitutional convention.”

Alaska cable company GCI has no immediate plans to drop the right-wing TV channel One America News, a spokesperson said Wednesday.

Verizon, the last remaining major carrier to carry the channel, plans to stop airing the channel on Saturday. That action follows a similar one in April by DirectTV. Their decisions leave the channel, once a reliable advocate for the administration of former President Donald Trump, without a nationwide audience and without the funding provided by fees paid by those carriers.

Scott Robson, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence, told The New York Times that the channel will soon be accessible only to customers of smaller cable networks such as GCI’s parent company, GCI Liberty.

Josh Edge, a spokesperson for GCI, confirmed that OAN will remain accessible on GCI for the time being.

“GCI’s current contract to deliver OAN content was signed in 2019. When the contract concludes, GCI will review the viewership numbers and determine whether or not to negotiate for a new contract. This is the regular business practice GCI uses for all contracts to deliver pay TV programming. For reference, GCI manages more than 50 programming contracts for nearly 300 channels,” Edge said.

He declined to say when GCI’s contract for OAN will expire.

“The terms of the OAN contract, like all content contracts, are confidential,” he said.

Started in 2013 as an alternative to channels like Fox News, OAN gained viewership during the administration of former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly praised its coverage.

It has been a reliable platform for conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, vaccinations and the 2020 election. The network now faces several defamation lawsuits relating to that coverage.

GCI, formerly a standalone company, was purchased in 2020 and is now part of Liberty Broadband, a national company based in Colorado.

GCI does not publish the number of its cable TV subscribers but as of March 31 listed 153,600 cable internet subscribers.

In its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it noted that its revenue from residential TV service declined by a third from the prior quarter and that more declines are expected “as customers potentially choose alternative services.”

There is only one species of abalone native to Alaska waters, and a new project is underway to try to find ways to boost its depleted numbers.

An Alaska Abalone Recovery Working Group is brainstorming ideas for strengthening the state’s vulnerable population of pinto abalones, also known as Northern abalones or, to the Indigenous peoples of the region, Gunxaa and Gúlaa. The working group includes representatives from state and federal agencies, tribal governments and others, including support from Alaska Sea Grant, a program based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks that provides marine education, research and technology.

That has started with surveys of people in Southeast Alaska where pinto abalones are part of Indigenous tradition.

The reception so far has been enthusiastic, said Ashely Bolwerk, the Alaska Sea Grant fellow leading the community engagement aspect of the project.

“Everybody I talk to is really excited about abalone, so it makes it a really fun topic to focus on,” said Bolwerk, who lives in Sitka and is working on a fellowship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Pinto abalones are found as far south as Baja California and as far north as Southeast Alaska, but throughout the range, numbers have been sparse and uneven, according to NOAA Fisheries. That inconsistency extends to the Alaska populations. For example, the Sitka Sound population seems to be increasing, while abalones around Prince of Wales Island are hard to find, Bolwerk said.

In Lingít, Haida and Tsimshian traditions, pinto abalones are valued for their meat — and more. They were traditionally used for trade, and their shells are material integrated in artwork.

But scarcities have left some gaps in traditional practices and knowledge, Bolwerk said.

She was introduced to the subject as an offshoot of her research work as a graduate student working on a big project studying sea otter reintroduction off British Columbia. That led to work at Prince of Wales Island and a relationship with the tribal government in Hydaburg, where community members told her about the severe declines in their cherished resource.

“There are folks in Hydaburg who don’t harvest abalone anymore because they don’t see enough at their sites and are sort of self-managing,” she said. Some say they haven’t harvested in so long that they’re forgotten how to process the meat, she said. Additionally, “There’s a whole generation of kids who can recognize abalone shells in regalia and things like that but have no idea where the animal lives or what it looks like when it’s alive.”

Pinto abalones live for 15 to 20 years and reproduce slowly and in irregular patterns, making them inherently at risk for depletion, according to NOAA. The species is classified as endangered in British Columbia and Washington state, though NOAA Fisheries in 2014 rejected petitions to grant range-wide Endangered Species Act protections.

Overharvesting by people has gotten much of the blame for the recent declines across the range. Commercial harvests have been closed in various areas, including in Alaska in 1996, though some very small-scale subsistence and personal-use harvests continue in parts of Southeast.

People are not the only abalone eaters.  Sea otters have also gotten some of the blame for abalone declines. However, sea otters have an important place in the ecosystem, too, in eating creatures like sea urchins that could otherwise mow down kelp forests.

For the Alaska Abalone Recovery Working Group, the plan is for the survey element of the project to be completed in August, Bolwerk said. Results are expected to be presented to communities over the winter, she said. From there, the working group will consider potential rebuilding actions.

Possible responses include mariculture — either farming pinto abalones all the way to adulthood or a more limited project that would help restore wild populations, Bolwerk said.

Also possible are habitat improvements or changes to management of species that interact with pinto abalones. In British Columbia, for example, there is an effort to increase harvesting of sea urchins, which compete with abalones for kelp and seaweed, Bolwerk said.

Another idea is an educational campaign to raise the public profile of the multi-colored sea snails that crawl along the rocky seafloor. “Maybe some added emphasis on how important it is to local cultures and communities might help bring in more funding and create more awareness of the work that needs to be done,” Bolwerk said.

The Alaska Department of Law issued an opinion Monday saying public money can be spent for home-school students to attend one or two classes in a private school but can’t be used for most of a student’s private school tuition.

The 19-page opinion says that it’s sometimes legal to use public funds for private school classes through the state’s program that pays for students to attend a correspondence school, or home-school.

“But the more it looks like you’re just trying to send your kid to private school and get subsidized by the state, I think that’s when you start getting into unconstitutional territory,” said Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills, who wrote the opinion.

The opinion found that public money may be spent for individual materials and services from a private school as long as it supports a public correspondence education. But spending public money “to pay most or all, in particular, of a private school’s full-time tuition is very likely unconstitutional,” Mills said during a media briefing Monday afternoon.

According to the opinion: “Using allotment money for one or two classes to support a public correspondence school program is likely constitutional, whereas using public school allotment money to pay for most or all of a private school’s tuition would not be.”

School districts in Alaska can establish state-funded public correspondence schools for families who choose to home-school their children. Correspondence programs can offer what’s known as an allotment program, which reimburses families for educational-related needs of the student, like books, classes, school supplies, technology support, tutoring, music or activity lessons.

While Alaska statute allows families to purchase nonsectarian services and materials from a public, private, or religious organization with a correspondence student allotment provided, the Alaska Constitution says, “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

Striking a balance

Mills said the core analysis of the opinion provides guidance on a “balancing act.”

“The balancing act is determining whether any particular expenditure of public funds is really intended to supplant a public education or incentivize a private education over a public education with the backing of public dollars,” she said.

For example, “things like private tutoring, public or private college courses, extracurricular classes or sports, certain educational materials that meet the requirements of the allotment program, are all very likely constitutional, even if they may provide an incidental benefit to a private school,” Mills said.

In contrast, “using the student allotments to pay for the tuition of a student being educated full-time at a private institution would be highly unlikely to survive constitutional scrutiny,” according to the opinion.

Mills said the facts of each student’s situation matter in determining if the allotment is being used properly. For instance, answers to questions like: What are the specific classes that are being paid for? How do they meet statutory requirements? How is the learning plan set up? What does the public correspondence school teachers say about how this is meeting the public education requirements?

Mills added: “You know it when you see it, like if the heart of something is really trying to provide and meet those public educational requirements, that’s a different picture than someone who really just wants to send their kid to private school, or a district that’s  trying to provide access to private schools.”

Attorney general recusal

In mid-May, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor’s wife Jodi Taylor wrote publicly on the Alaska Policy Forum website about her plan to seek up to $8,000 in reimbursement from public funding for their two kids attending an Anchorage private school. It was published on some Alaska news sites and blogs. Attorney General Taylor recused himself on May 21 from all matters involving correspondence school allotments and delegated the review to Mills.

While the op-ed resulted in questions to the Department of Law, Mills said the department has assisted the Department of Education and Early Development on interpreting how to implement the correspondence allotment program throughout the years since its enactment in 2014.

“It kind of became clear over the course of these years and what happened earlier this summer that having a formal attorney general opinion that’s public, that could provide guidance to both the (Education) Department as well as the school districts, could be helpful,” Mills said.

To help formulate the opinion, Mills looked at minutes of the Alaska Constitutional Convention to see what the framers of the constitution said.

“At the heart of it, I really believe the framers were concerned with supplanting a public education with a private education. That’s what their worry was,” Mills said. “That is different than supporting or supplementing a public education with the use of some private school resources.”

Mils said the opinion is for the Department of Education and Early Department and school districts with correspondence schools programs to refer to as they implement their programs.

In response to the Law Department’s opinion, the Department of Education and Early Department spokesperson said the department “is reviewing the opinion from the Department of Law and will work with districts to ensure compliance with the law and that correspondence allotments are used to reimburse only allowable expenses.”

The state of Alaska has sued the U.S. Department of the Interior in an attempt to hold the federal government responsible for the identification of thousands of polluted sites on land given to Alaska Native corporations.

A complete inventory is a first step in the state’s ongoing efforts to hold the federal government responsible for cleaning the sites.

In many cases, the state argues, pollution left by the U.S. military and other federal agencies has prevented the development of land transferred from the federal government under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The state filed its lawsuit July 15 in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, with the state represented by a large private firm, Kelley Drye & Warren.

In its complaint, the state argues that three prior acts of Congress — in 1990, 1995 and 2014 — require the Department of the Interior to make a full accounting of contaminated sites in Alaska and to come up with plans for their cleanup.

The suit asks a judge to issue an order compelling the department to conduct surveys and draft plans for cleanup.

Though the suit does not explicitly ask for an order requiring the federal government to clean the sites, the survey process typically includes the identification of a “potentially responsible party” who could be liable for cleanup.

“The federal government has a moral and legal responsibility to address these contaminated sites, which have already languished for far too long,” said Jason Brune, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, in a 2021 letter to the secretaries of Defense, Interior and Agriculture.

In a separate letter, Brune asked Interior Secretary Debra Haaland to direct the cleanup of known contaminated sites.

The Interior Department responded later in 2021 with a letter saying in part that the “DOI has no statutory authority to compel or conduct the cleanup of lands that have been conveyed out of federal ownership, nor is it able to impose liability for contamination that is reported on those lands.”

After that exchange, the state threatened a lawsuit in December 2021 and followed through with its filing this month.

The federal government has yet to formally respond to the lawsuit, which could take years to resolve.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy will sign a bill giving state recognition to Alaska’s 229 federally recognized Native tribes, the Alaska Federation of Natives said Thursday.

In a July 28 ceremony, the governor will also sign bills creating child welfare and education agreements between the state and tribal governments, AFN said.

An official in the governor’s office confirmed that he will sign the tribal recognition bill but could not immediately confirm the status of the other two pieces of legislation.

“This is an historic moment for all Alaska Tribes,” said AFN President Julie Kitka in a prepared statement. “The acknowledgment of our 229 federally recognized tribes by the state of Alaska is a step toward building a stronger relationship with our state government.”

State recognition is not expected to affect tribes’ legal relations with the state, but supporters have said it is an important symbolic statement by the state, which has historically fought efforts by tribes to exert their sovereignty.

Last year, supporters of tribal recognition launched a ballot measure to put the issue in front of voters. The measure garnered enough signatures to put the measure on the November general-election ballot, but Alaska’s constitution contains a clause that allows a measure to be removed if the Legislature passes a “substantially similar” law.

In June, the Alaska Department of Law concluded that the tribal recognition bill meets that standard. Legislative attorneys previously published an analysis that reached the same conclusion.