Legislature attempts to end Dunleavy deal with $600-per-hour Trump lawyers

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Attorney General Kevin Clarkson are free to continue their anti-union crusade in the court system, but they should do it with state lawyers, not with the $600-per-hour services of President Trump’s lawyers in Washington, D.C.

That’s the reasonable solution the Legislature adopted in the operating budget this weekend. Dunleavy has already used his veto power once to defend the contract, but this gives him another chance to stop wasting state money on a contract with the lawyer who claims Trump is above the law as long as he remains president.

The budget language used by the Legislature limits outside contracts on the anti-union crusade to $20,000, which would save the state about $500,000. The state has 160 lawyers in the civil division, dozens of whom could handle the crusade in the courts with no problem. They are already on the payroll.

The attempt to end the contract started with a subcommittee that included Anchorage Reps. Andy Josephson, Matt Claman and Gabrielle LeDoux, and made its way into the final budget.

Dunleavy and Clarkson have never given a good reason for throwing state business at William Consovoy, a former law clerk for Judge Clarence Thomas. As of the end of February, the state had paid $171,300 to Consovoy’s law firm since August.

I’ve concluded this is an attempt by Clarkson to elevate his personal reputation with right-wing lawyers elsewhere in America, wasting hundreds of thousands of state dollars in the process.

Clarkson has a unique interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Janus case, one that other courts have rejected both in Alaska and Outside.

In the Janus case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those who are not union members can’t be required to pay an “agency fee” as a substitute for union dues. Clarkson claims to know that the Supreme Court really wanted to make a broader ruling that applied to union members, allowing them to stop paying dues whenever they wanted, instead of once a year.

It is likely that much more money would have to be appropriated to get this case through the superior and supreme courts in Alaska and the federal system. It will be years.

Clarkson’s office hired President Trump’s lawyers in August, citing as authorization a state regulation for “small purchases” that is only for use when legal services are “estimated to cost not more than $50,000.” It was a month-and-a-half later that the news leaked out about Consovoy McCarthy.

The claim that the cost would be under $50,000 appears in retrospect to be an attempt to evade state procurement rules that require competitive bids. The first contract was increased to $100,000 and then a second contract, this one for $600,000, was approved in December.

Law department Chief of Staff Ed Sniffen testified Jan. 31 that Clarkson wanted Consovoy McCarthy to get the contract.

“I think he knew this was going to be an important and potentially contentious issue. And he wanted to have some of the best advice that he could have in the country. And he settled on this firm as a firm that could provide the state with that assistance,” Sniffen said.

At $600 an hour, the Legislature doesn’t need this assistance.