I have no problem with a pay raise for legislators, the governor and cabinet members. Their salaries need to be raised to attract competent people to those positions.

I have a problem with the sneaky way that Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Sen. Gary Stevens and other state leaders are trying to bestow raises on themselves—without a vote by legislators.

They are trying to give raises all around with a backdoor plan that reeks of political cowardice. It began with Dunleavy’s decision to replace the members of the state salary commission and subvert the public process.

The new members of the commission, in their one-and-only meeting, approved a scheme that would give raises to legislators and top people in the executive branch, including the governor. The new members of the commission did no research or review before reaching a verdict. The fix was in.

They rubber-stamped a plan that would make top state executives and legislators happy. The raises will go into effect unless the state enacts a law that stops the process.

The easiest way to resolve this mess is for legislators to meet in joint session and vote whether to override Dunleavy’s veto of an earlier bill, a measure that Dunleavy claims was “no longer necessary,” because of the instant action by the new salary commission.

What’s necessary here is for legislators and the governor to show a tiny bit of political courage and go on the record, forsaking the gutless legal trickery that got us here.

If legislators want raises, vote against overriding the governor. If legislators don’t want raises, vote to override.

House Speaker Cathy Tilton has already requested a joint session with the Senate to take up the matter, which has to happen this week. Good for her.

But Stevens and other senators don’t want to go on the record. They would prefer that the raises take place with the legal gimmick engineered by Dunleavy, which requires no vote by legislators.

Stevens first claimed that he knew nothing about Dunleavy’s salary commission coup. But perhaps he knew nothing because he wanted to know nothing.

As the Anchorage Daily News reported March 15: Stevens said Dunleavy mentioned the circumstances that led to the political fight over salaries and said, “‘I’m gonna do something about that.’ And he did. But I had nothing to do with what happened.”

After Dunleavy vetoed the bill, he gave the pen as a gift to Stevens, another sign that the Senate president was more involved with what happened than he pretends to be.

On Tuesday, Stevens said that any legislator that doesn’t want a pay raise can ask the Legislative Affairs Agency to reduce his or her pay. He also said he supports the pay raise and is not sure if he will go along with allowing a legislative vote. I take that to mean “No vote.”

Sens. Bert Stedman and Lyman Hoffman also said they want the veto to stand, according to Matt Buxton’s account of a Senate press conference.

Fine. But legislators should be forced to vote on their pay raises.

Stevens is getting close to the end of a distinguished legislative career, perhaps with this term, and he shouldn’t sign off on this salary subterfuge without a vote by lawmakers. He should realize that denying a vote on the matter is unethical. As a former history professor, he must understand how underhanded this appears to people outside of state politics.

Refusing to hold a vote by declining the joint session will make Stevens a partner with Dunleavy in subverting the public process.

IN OTHER TOPICS:

The column printed Tuesday by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner by Michael E. Bemis is among the dumbest pieces ever printed by the newspaper where I worked for 37 years.

The News-Miner gave Bemis a full half-page to spin a load of nonsense about the Stampede Bus and the so-called “desecration of a memorial.” From start to finish, the piece is off the mark, riddled with errors.

The uninformed Bemis opines from his home in Vermont, a fact the News-Miner neglected to mention. The full title of his e-book tells you all you need to know: “The Hijacking of Alaska’s Magic Bus (Bus 142) - Desecration of a Memorial: Includes McCandless Totally Reimagined and Introducing Vermont’s Magic Bus.”

He was as ill-prepared to write a book on this topic as Chris McCandless was to survive an extended period without taking food and other supplies and the usual precautions.

And just like that, the estimated state deficit under the Dunleavy budget for this fiscal year and the next, has shot up to more than $900 million, mainly because the updated spring guessbook shows lower oil prices ahead.

The new state revenue guess is down $246 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30. And $679 million for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

As a reminder, candidate Dunleavy said last year that we were saving billions while paying giant dividends.

“We’re putting billions of dollars in savings this year on top of the dividend,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said on Oct. 19, five minutes into one of the few campaign forums he took part in while running for reelection.

“We’ve put billions of dollars into savings this year,” he said a half-hour later.

Seven minutes later, he said, “Today, we’ve put billions of dollars into savings.”

Four minutes after that he said, “We’ve put billions into savings.”

The repetition of the claim did not make it more true. We haven’t put billions into savings.

Dunleavy was stating a wish based on guesswork made last spring and summer when oil was selling for more than $100 a barrel. It’s now about $72.

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