Crossing The Rubicon: Legislators Deny The People The Right To A 2018 Referendum

David Eastman.jpg

Contributed by Rep. David Eastman

In the days of the Roman Republic, the Rubicon River represented a legal boundary that no Roman military commander could lawfully send soldiers across. To take soldiers across the Rubicon and into Rome itself was a violation of Roman Law so severe that it required the immediate resignation of the offender from military service. That law stood unbroken until the time of Caesar. When Caesar arrived at the Rubicon, he was a governor. When he crossed it, he became a dictator and set in motion events that led to the beginning of the Roman Civil War.

Recently, state legislators in Alaska chose to march across their own Rubicon with respect to Alaska’s PFD. The implications of that decision are not yet apparent to the public, but the lives of every Alaskan will be impacted.

In Alaska, whenever the legislature passes a bad law, the people can request the opportunity, guaranteed in our state constitution, to vote to repeal that law in the next election. In 2014, the people chose to vote on whether or not to repeal SB21, the “More Alaska Production Act”. On Election Day, many Alaskans turned out to vote not because of any of the candidates running for office, but just so that they could vote on the referendum. I know - I helped run one of the voting locations that day.

Over the years, both legislators and governors in Alaska have sought to change the law dealing with the PFD in order to redirect PFD dollars to cash-strapped government accounts. But the threat of a referendum coupled with the prospect of losing the next election, has always given them pause.

Just like the Rubicon was a legal protection for Rome, the referendum has been a legal protection for Alaskans. In 2016, Governor Walker became the first governor to breech that protective barrier. Rather than fight to change the law, which would immediately have triggered the right of the people to hold a referendum on the changed law, he decided he would simply act as though the law had been changed and the amount of the PFD had been lowered. With the stroke of a pen, he decreed that instead of being $2,082, the 2016 PFD would instead be $1,022.

Because the law had not actually been changed, the people were denied the opportunity to vote on the changes on Election Day, and because he did not announce the change until after the candidate filing deadline, there wasn’t an opportunity for the public to find new candidates to run against the legislators who had failed to override the governor’s veto of the PFD.

Last year, with no immediate election to worry about, legislators didn’t wait for the governor to veto the PFD, they vetoed it themselves. With a single vote, they reduced it from $2,439 to $1,100. Again, since no law had actually been changed (the current law had simply been ignored), the people were denied the right to hold a referendum for the second year in a row. And since there was no state election held last year, the people were also not able to say anything about the legislature at the ballot box.

Last year, at the same time the legislature was voting to cut the PFD from $2,439 to $1,100, a majority of legislators voted to make fundamental, permanent changes to state law dealing with the PFD. They were warned however, that if they passed the bill into law last year, it would immediately be challenged by the people in a referendum. So both branches of the legislature passed the bill (SB26), but they did it in such a way that it did not immediately become law because the versions passed by the two bodies were different.

Fast-forward to now. The bill to permanently change state law dealing with how the PFD is handled sat silently in the drawer for more than 390 days. Meanwhile, legislators decided to cut this year’s PFD for the third year in a row, this time cutting it from $2,647 to $1,600. After more than 390 days in limbo, SB26 came out of hiding and was passed into law. Why now, you ask?

I’ll tell you why - because legislators know that any bills passed at this point are legally immune from a referendum vote. Despite the legislature’s recent willingness to violate it, many of our state laws still look back to the time when Alaska’s legislators actually were part-time legislators in more than name only. One such law, found in our state constitution, requires that the people be given a period of time to educate themselves on a bill before a referendum vote can be held on it. By prolonging the legislative session until this week (Day 115 or later), legislators have crossed that legal boundary and denied the right of the people to a referendum for the third year in a row.

Legislators and the governor have denied the right of the people to a referendum on the PFD in 2018, but one vote they cannot postpone is the 2018 primary election on Tuesday, August 21st. On that day, 50 out of 60 legislators will be up for election. That is the day that most Alaskans will have their first opportunity to cast a vote on the future of the Permanent Fund and the PFD. The deadline for candidates to file is June 1st. To be quite honest, we could use a few more good candidates. Please help spread the word.  

Rep. David Eastman has served in the Alaska State House representing the Mat-Su since 2017. He ran on a platform of fighting for genuine conservative reform, fiscally and socially, and remains committed to delivering on that promise.