There is a line in the Alaska Constitution that prevents Rep. Tammie Wilson from taking a new state job created for her by the Dunleavy administration for at least a year after she leaves office.

It’s called the “ineligibility clause.”

The authors of the Alaska Constitution didn’t want legislators to move immediately into jobs in the executive branch to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Article II, section 5 says, “During the term for which elected and for one year thereafter, no legislator may be nominated, elected, or appointed to any other office or position of profit which has been created, or the salary or emoluments of which have been increased, while he was a member.”

There was a similar one-year ban that applied in territorial days going back to 1912.

The state press release Friday night left no doubt that Wilson’s job has been created for her by the Dunleavy administration in the Department of Health and Social Services.

It said that to “ensure progress can be made as soon as possible” on child services, Dunleavy and health commissioner Adam Crum “developed a policy advisor role in the DHSS commissioner’s office. This new policy advisor will be Tammie Wilson.”

The new job was created while Wilson is a legislator. The Constitution does not allow her to take it until next year. She said she is quitting the Legislature Saturday.

The press coverage of Wilson’s new job did not delve into this important detail.

The Anchorage Daily News mentioned it in this way: “The Alaska Constitution prohibits state legislators from taking state jobs that were created or had a pay increase while they were in office. Wilson said both she and the administration confirmed that has not happened since the 2018 election and said she decided to take the job Thursday. She said the position is currently vacant.”

Wilson’s assertion that the job already exists conflicts with the press release that says the job was developed for her. It also conflicts with a state budget request that identifies it as a new position.

She told KTVA that she would be working in a “kind of a new unit being put together.”

Before creating Wilson’s new job, Dunleavy and Crum should have considered the cases of former legislators Gene Therriault and Nancy Dahlstrom and the one-year ban.

Dahlstrom quit the Legislature in 2010 to take a job advising former Gov. Sean Parnell on military matters. Parnell claimed the move was constitutional because the job was not technically created until after Dahlstrom quit the Legislature, though she knew she would get the job before quitting.

Parnell hired Therriault to deal with energy issues under an agreement reached before he quit the Senate. In Therriault’s case, this came to light after political activist Andree McLeod obtained a document through a public records request that proved Therriault had signed a "Request for Personnel Action" before quitting the Senate.

In Wilson’s case, she agreed while serving as a legislator to fill a newly created position. The circumstances are clearer than in either Dahlstrom’s or Therriault’s case.

In the past, attorneys general had often told governors it was OK to sidestep the Constitution by not filing official technical documents to formally create a new post until after the legislator quit.

In other words, a legislator could quit on a Monday, knowing that a job with the governor was waiting. The hire would be legal if the job didn’t formally exist until Tuesday.

This issue became a point of controversy in 2010 when Gov. Sean Parnell was running for office.

After the Department of Law first found no legal problem with hiring legislators right away, Attorney General Dan Sullivan called for a more thorough review. He reversed the previous position of the department and said there was an “appreciable risk” that the courts would find these agreements illegal.

"Once I read that, it was very clear to me the only honorable thing to do was resign my position," Dahlstrom said at the time. Therriault eventually resigned as well,

After more time passed, both obtained new state jobs. Dahlstrom is now the corrections commissioner.

In 2010, Republican Ralph Samuels, who ran and lost against Parnell, said: “The point is that you can’t be a member of the administration until a year after you leave office” and “If you have to find ways to get around the Constitution, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”

"You ask how these provisions would affect the eligibility of a former legislator for appointment to an executive branch position created after the legislator resigns from the legislature," a state attorney wrote a "So long as the position did not exist while the legislator was a member of the legislature, these provisions would not bar the appointment of a former legislator."

In Sullivan’s 2010 opinion, he said “an Alaska court might not endorse a strict formalistic interpretation of when a position is ‘created.’”

In Wilson’s case, we have a press release from the Dunleavy administration saying the job was created for her, which makes it unconstitutional for her to take it until 2021.

There is also the health department budget request, which mentions the special assistant job given to Wilson.

The budget proposes four new positions in the department for $633,000—“one new deputy commissioner, one special assistant to the commissioner, and two project coordinators to support a new unit to provide direct oversight and leadership to the Office of Children's Services and the Division of Juvenile Justice.”

If the Dunleavy administration says the hiring is legal because the paperwork has yet to be filed and the job doesn’t really exist yet, that contradicts the press release and runs afoul of the 2010 AG opinion.

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