Alaska Politics Blog : State looked into charging for complaints

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Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

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Alaska political corruption

When the FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, it publicly launched an investigation that ultimately reached the highest levels of Alaska politics, and continues to this day.

State looked into charging for complaints

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: May 7, 2009 - 12:00 pm

From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage –

The state personnel board looked into whether it could charge Alaskans for filing “a frivolous or meritless” ethics complaint against the governor or members of her administration.

It turns out that it can’t.

Andree McLeod, who has filed multiple ethics complaints against Gov. Palin, last week came across the minutes of a personnel board meeting from Oct. 31, during which board member Al Tamagni asked a state attorney if it was possible to charge attorney fees for such complaints (it’s not clear how exactly the state would judge if something is “frivolous”).

Anyway, Assistant Attorney General Dave Jones looked into it and determined “the answer is no, the Personnel Board may not award fees against a person for filing a frivolous or meritless ethics complaint. A statutory change would be necessary.”