Dunleavy runs up the state's tab; redistricting board dodges race-based complaint

Good evening, Alaska!

In this edition: Gov. Mike Dunleavy leaves Alaska on the hook for nearly $500,000 to settle lawsuit over loyalty pledge firings; The Alaska Redistricting trial plods along with a significant, albeit not entirely surprising ruling on the East Anchorage plaintiffs’ attempt to expand their complaint; and an on-the-nose comic.

Legislative day: 16

Redistricting trial day: 9

Spice level: 🌶️

From the blog: ReBrook: Behind the Veil – The Real David Eastman

Covid-19 in the capitol: The anticipated vote on Eastman’s committee status was postponed along with much of the day’s action in the House following a massive covid-19 exposure in the Legislature.

Good news: The Senate unanimously passed legislation requiring the return of the state’s online checkbook, requiring it to be more useful

Leave it on their tab

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s violation of the First Amendment rights of two former Alaska Psychiatric Institute doctors is set to cost the state nearly a half-million dollars.

The ACLU of Alaska announced the settlement today, which will award Dr. Anthony Blanford $220,000 and Dr. John Bellville $275,000 for damages, lost wages and attorney’s fees. Both had refused to sign onto Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s political agenda as part of the governor’s now-infamous loyalty pledge firings issued when he took office. The payment requires action by the Legislature.

A federal judge ruled in October that the governor’s demands that several hundred non-union state employees sign onto his political agenda if they wanted to continue working for the state following his election constituted a violation of their First Amendment rights. The case was particularly critical of the actions of Dunleavy and former Chief of Staff Tuckerman Babcock because neither Blanford nor Bellville were directly involved in political policymaking.

In a separate lawsuit, a judge ruled that the administration was wrong to fire former state attorney Libby Bakalar—who had been critical of Trump and other conservatives outside of her work—but said such a firing would have been permissible if the Dunleavy administration had proved her personal political leanings interfered with her work as an attorney, which is a policymaking position. The court has yet to rule on what compensation Bakalar is due.

The judge in the Blanford and Bellville case had ruled both Dunleavy and Babcock could be held personally liable for their actions, but they had appealed that element of the ruling. This settlement leaves the state on the hook for the bill, requiring the legislature appropriate money through its regular budget process.

The settlement in the case brought by Blanford and Bellville includes a promise from the administration will not use non-policymaking employees’ political leanings against them:

“Defendants agree that the state of Alaska may only take an employee’s political views or affiliations into account in making any employment-related decision when the state determines through reasonable and bona fide efforts that the employee is properly categorized as a ‘policymaker’ under existing case law, or it is a position for which political view or affiliations are an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the job, or when otherwise permitted by law.”

In prepared statements released through the ACLU of Alaska, Bellville said he hoped the case would set a clear precedent for future employees and future administrations.

“In this country we’re not supposed to have to sacrifice our freedom of thought in order to keep our jobs. I hope the Governor of Alaska stops doing this to the people he is supposed to be governing,” Bellville said. “We elected him with the expectation that he would protect our freedom of speech rights, not force us to give them up under the threat of losing our livelihood. … I hope this clarifies and strengthens the rights of those who work in government and who are not political appointees. No incursion on our basic constitutional rights should go unchallenged.”

Also, worth listening: Libby Bakalar reflected on her long-running First Amendment case against the Dunleavy administration with KTOO’s Rashah McChesney.

Motion denied

Before I get into the day’s progress in the redistricting trial, Judge Thomas Matthews finally issued a ruling on the East Anchorage plaintiffs’ attempt to amend their complaint to cover race-based discrimination (find the order here). The claim was based on the allegation the board had manipulated racial data in its analysis of the East Anchorage house districts in order to dodge potential issues with the federal Voting Rights Act. While amending a complaint once the trial is underway is only done in the most extreme of cases, the East Anchorage plaintiffs argued that the board intentionally concealed this information from the board and that emails purportedly revealing this ruse weren’t released until after the trial began.

The board argued that it was all overblown, chalking up the differences in data to how minority population is determined (whether you could white Hispanics as a minority or non-minority population), and that the data was available to anyone who had the capability of crunching the raw U.S. Census data on their own.