We often hear
the jest that "Anchorage is only one half hour from
Alaska". After seeing the Anchorage TV and newspaper
coverage of the special session of the Legislature,
I'm beginning to believe that jest may have some validity.
Our Anchorage media just doesn't seem to know what
is going on in Alaska.
Governor Cowper
called a special session of the Legislature in order
to ram through a constitutional amendment that would
have appeared on the ballot in November. That constitutional
amendment would have changed our Constitution in a
most unpleasant way. Right now, our Constitution provides
that all Alaskans have equal rights. Governor Cowper
proposed that the Constitution be changed to make
urban citizens "second class" citizens, with less
rights to our natural resources than Alaskans living
in rural areas.
The Governor used
all sorts of excuses to justify taking away the rights
of urban Alaskans. None of his excuses had any validity.
First, the Governor
claimed that opponents of his amendment wanted to
end subsistence use in Alaska. This was nonsense.
Opponents of the Subsistence Amendment did not oppose
subsistence. They simply felt that a rural preference
for subsistence was discriminatory, especially in
view of the fact that courts in this State have held
that, under our Constitution, all Alaskans have equal
rights to access of fish and game resources. Opponents
of the Subsistence Amendment realized that some areas,
especially in the more remote areas of the State,
rely on subsistence hunting and fishing for their
existence. Opponents of the Amendment recognize, however,
that such subsistence use can be protected by enacting
regulations governing seasons, bag limits, methods,
and means that would protect a subsistence lifestyle,
without denying other Alaskans their rights under
our Constitution.
Second, the Governor
claimed that if an Amendment wasn't passed, the Federal
Government would step in and take over the management
of fish and game resources on federal lands in Alaska.
Again, the Governor was not being accurate. The real
truth is that, for years, we have had management of
our fish and game resources by the Federal Government.
Since the passage of the Alaska National Interest
Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which allowed federal
subsistence management on federal lands in Alaska,
if our subsistence law did not comply with the federal
standard, the Feds have directly, and indirectly,
determined how we should manage our resources.
An example of
this is the recent U. S. District Court decision in
the Kwethluk case. ANILCA allows anyone who is unhappy
with the State's subsistence management, to file an
action in the federal court against the State. The
village of Kwethluk didn't like the fact that the
Alaska Board of Game wouldn't allow hunting of a small
band of transplanted caribou near the village, until
the herd's population had increased to harvestable
numbers. So Kwethluk went to federal court. The federal
judge, ignoring the decision of the State's game board,
ordered that the villages be allowed to take fifty
animals from the small herd.
Another example
of federal management is the Lime Village case, wherein
the federal court overturned the State's hunting seasons
around Lime Village to let villagers take moose during
closed seasons.
The enactment
of a constitutional amendment would not have put a
stop to federal intervention, as the Governor claimed.
Instead, it would have made all of Alaska subject
to management by federal judicial decree.
Third, the Governor
claimed that passage of his constitutional amendment
would have brought the State back into compliance
with ANILCA by restoring Alaska's subsistence law
to the way it was before our Supreme Court, in the
McDowell case, threw out the law as violating Alaska's
Constitution. The Governor claimed that if we restored
the law to pre-McDowell days, we could prevent federal
take-over because we would be, once more, in compliance
with ANILCA.
Again, the Governor
was wrong. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in the
Kenneitze case (decided even before McDowell) had
held that our subsistence law did not comply, even
then, with ANILCA.
The Governor made
all his erroneous claims, surrounded by the power-brokers
of the State. It was a real "dog and pony show". Unfortunately,
the media in Anchorage seems to have bought it. While
the newspapers in Fairbanks (which calls itself "real
Alaska ") opposed the Governor's proposed Amendment,
the Anchorage papers supported the Governor, thus,
in effect, advocating denial of equal rights to the
very people, the urban people, who are their readers.
The Anchorage TV stations would daily begin their
coverage of the news of the special session with lines
like: "Once again the Alaska Legislature has failed
to enact a constitutional amendment" as if the
Legislature somehow was negligent in failing to
pass the Governor's discriminatory legislation. The
media also indicated that it was the Legislature's
fault for the Federal Government's takeover of subsistence
management on federal lands.
Our Anchorage
media simply has not done its homework! The Anchorage
media has failed to see the violation of equal rights
that the Governor's proposal would have imposed on
Alaskans. The Anchorage media has failed to see that
the real culprit, responsible for the Feds being involved
in management of Alaska's game, is the Governor himself
who, through his Attorney General, should have challenged
the ANILCA law which gave the Feds authority to stick
their noses into Alaska's game management. And the
Anchorage media has failed to honor those Alaskan
lawmakers who took the time to study the issue, understood
it, and who had the courage to withstand the Governor's
hoopla and vote against his discriminatory amendment.
