Upcoming elections may end coalition

Among the many blessings the founders of our Republic bestowed upon us is the incredibly good idea of having our national executive isolated from the legislative and judicial branches. In most parliamentary democracies, the head of the legislative branch is also the de facto head of the executive branch, so he (or she) gets to appropriate the money and then spend it. Under our system, by contrast, the executive gets to print money, and he is almost to the point where he doesn't have to bother with the messy appropriation process.

A concomitant blessing is that the president has to stand for election and re-election on a prescribed schedule. The several states of the Union all emulate this paradigm and so the quadrennial silly season system has been institutionalized like nowhere else on earth. Since the judicial branch has taken the cuffs off electioneering with its pronouncement that Super PAC campaigns are just a manifestation of free speech, we can soon look forward to a world of incessant fund-raising and attack ads occur from Inauguration Day to Election Day.

Of course the playful banter associated with the presidential competition is reflected in Alaska. Even though we do not have a gubernatorial race to contend with, we do get to pick and choose a new legislature this year. It actually will be very new due to decennial redistricting. Unlike the common case, the 2012 legislative election will be a nearly total remix of legislators and constituents, with only one of the sixty seats remaining unchanged.

That probably is a good thing in light of the fact that the last two legislatures have been stymied in their efforts by an organizational coalition in the Alaska State Senate that frustrated most forward motion. Although it is axiomatic that motion should never be confused with progress, certainly a lack of motion is not progressive either.

Perhaps the most egregious manifestation of that observation was in conjunction with the sunsetting of the Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program. We have had a CZM program in Alaska since the days of former Gov. Jay Hammond. It had its warts and pimples, but essentially it did provide input from impacted stakeholders on regional development activities. It was substantially improved during the Murkowski administration when it was converted from a barrier to development to a mere hurdle.

As is the case with all good laws, however, CZM came up for reauthorization, whereupon the Alaska State House blessed renewal and forwarded it to the State Senate for action. The Senate, however, in its inimitable "wisdom" elected to let the program die. That set the stage for the initiative process to be dusted off and saddled with a new CZM proposal. In due course Ballot Measure 2 made its way to the August primary. Ballot Measure 2 was broadly regarded by the electorate as significantly defective, and it was defeated. We are all a little diminished by this diorama of ineptitude.

Whether a new CZM will rise from the detritus cannot be foreseen. Whatever justification the State Senate conjured up to block renewal, the net result was a costly burden. Ballot initiatives are not cheap. Signatures must be gathered, ballots have to be printed and campaigns in support or in opposition have to be mounted. It is no secret that the Alaska Miners Association held high the "No on Two" banner, but at great cost. AMA "invested" US$150,000 in the campaign to defeat the proposed successor CZM program after previously investing significant resources during the legislative session trying to ensure the pre-existing, well-established and well-understood program did not expire.

Many would attribute the death of CZM to the so-called coalition in the state Senate. That coalition set itself athwart numerous pro-development proposals consistently to the detriment of the state's economic future. We can all be grateful that the happy coincidence of re-apportionment has shaken up the puzzle pieces at this moment in history. Coalitions are not necessarily bad in principle, but this most recent exercise in consensus politics was a disaster. We can only hope that the next Legislature will not confront us with the same idiotic frustration.

Miners especially have reason to be angry about the coalition, because so much of their association's precious assets were expended in the fight. AMA is a membership organization with numbers barely exceeding 1,000 miners, prospectors, service providers and casual supporters. Dividing US$150,000 by 1,000 members means that the dollars dedicated to resisting a defective initiative exceeded the annual dues of most members, and this occurred solely because the state Senate could not see fit to continue an existing program. No doubt, there were frustrations and considerations associated with the Senate's determination not to act, but the fallout is not inconsiderable.

Non-partisan coalitions may be unavoidable. Political differences are integral to our system. The best we can hope for is that there is not too much blood spilt on the floor when men and women of good faith come together to run our corner of the world. In perspective, although this may well be the silly season, and it may happen that our election cycles will one day evolve into one long unrelenting silly season, the government we inherited from those who have gone before, still seems preferable to all known alternatives … I think.