Reader delivers tough questions about dysfunctional relationship of Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski

A reader writes that the questions I put to Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office about the delay in selecting potential judicial nominees for a vacant federal court position in Alaska were of the predictable kind, all guaranteed to produce pat answers. I missed the big picture, the reader said.

I thought it over and came to the same conclusion.

It is not mentally rewarding or enlightening to read Sullivan’s pre-packaged statements that senators have many different ways of recruiting and vetting nominees for federal judicial appointments, and that his new committee is nonpartisan, etc.

The reader provided me with a list of important questions that Sullivan should be asked. I thought that comment over, read the questions and wished I had thought of them.

I have submitted the list below to Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, asking both to answer for the benefit of the people of Alaska.

They are not going to want to answer these tough questions. They will try to avoid them. They will say the Alaska delegation is not dysfunctional.

I don’t think this is anything close to the split between Ted Stevens and Mike Gravel—I remember hearing Stevens claim he made a New Year’s resolution for 1979 that he would never again use the proper noun to refer to his rival and that the six letters stood only for gravel, the building material.

Still, the Sullivan-Murkowski disagreement on something as vital as nominee suggestions to forward to President Biden for a key federal court position is a major problem for Alaskans.

Perhaps if enough people ask, the senators will come to see that Alaskans deserve better than the public relations pablum that has helped conceal an alarming situation that is harming our state.

(I think the only question that I doubt the merits of is the assertion that Sen. Ted Stevens was a steadfast supporter of the bar poll for decades. I don’t know enough about this. Stevens did use the bar poll approach when Ralph Beistline became a federal judge more than two decades ago. Perhaps he did on other occasions. But Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been steadfast in recruiting to fill vacancies that way.)

Here are the reader’s questions:

1. What's going on with Senator Sullivan and Senator Murkowski? Why don't they get along?

2. Why is Senator Sullivan not using the same process that Senator Stevens used for decades? What does he know that Senator Stevens apparently didn’t understand?

3. Are there any other instances that you are aware of in the past 20 years, or even 30 or 40 years, where two senators from the same state and from the same party did not cooperate on a nomination like this but, instead, employed separate and very different processes?

4. How is this vacancy ever going to get filled if Senator Sullivan refuses to turn in his blue slip for a candidate that Senator Murkowski advances, and she refuses to turn in her blue slip for a candidate that he advances?

5. You’ve been very critical of Senator Tuberville for blocking the confirmation of military leaders for political reasons. Aren’t you doing exactly the same thing on an appointment that has a big impact on the access your constituents - Alaskans — have to justice and the federal courts?

6. The larger story here isn’t about who is the best judicial nominee and how do the senators figure that out. The big story is why is the Alaska delegation so dysfunctional? Why do two Republican Senators from the same state barely talk to one another and impede one another’s work and efforts?