From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage --

Republican challenger Ralph Samuels wants Gov. Sean Parnell to fire former state Sen. Gene Therriault, saying it’s not clear if Parnell ever got any legal advice on hiring legislators.

“Apparently the process of hiring legislators was handled in a slipshod manner, and the legality of doing so was not viewed seriously enough to even warrant a real legal opinion,” Samuels said in a statement emailed out this afternoon.

Samuels was referring to the Department of Law’s statement this week that there was nothing in writing to document its original advice Parnell that it was Ok to give a state job to former Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom. The department indicated it was verbal advice.

Dahlstrom resigned her job earlier this month after the Department of Law did what it said was a more thorough review. Attorney General Dan Sullivan said that second review found an “appreciable risk” a court would find the hire illegal.

The Alaska Constitution doesn’t allow legislators to take jobs created while they were in office.

Both Dahlstrom and Therriault resigned the Legislature to accept new positions with Parnell. Dahlstrom became a military affairs adviser, Therriault an energy adviser.

The Parnell administration maintained the hirings were legal because the jobs were not technically created until after the legislators resigned from office. Previous administrations hired state legislators in a similar way, the attorney general said.

After the Dahlstrom hire was criticized, Parnell wrote on his Facebook page that “before I took action and to do everything correctly, my staff sought the Department of Law’s advice on how to hire properly, my office relied on that advice and we followed that advice. Andree McLeod put in a public records request for copy of the advice.

Assistant Attorney General Alan Birnbaum responded that “we understand that the referenced advice was provided orally…accordingly, because no records are known to exist, this response represents a denial of your request.”

The Samuels campaign said that conflicts with the attorney general saying earlier on the radio that “some of it was oral, some of it ah, you know wasn’t oral, and I said I would like to see it and so I took a look…and it wasn’t super in depth.” That's when Sullivan promised to do the more thorough review.

Parnell has said he didn’t ask Dahlstrom to resign and that he wants Therriault to stay. They had relied on the position of the department of law, Parnell said, and were not at fault.

Parnell campaign manager Michelle Toohey said the attorney general has been clear that Parnell sought the advice of the Department of Law. She pointed to Sullivan’s conclusion that the governor’s office acted in good faith and consistently with the law as it was interpreted by the department.