Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott has rejected a proposed pro-fisheries ballot initiative as inappropriately restricting the powers of the Alaska Legislature.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday morning, the lieutenant governor’s office announced Mallott has concurred with a Department of Law opinion saying the initiative violates Article XI, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution. That section says a ballot initiative “shall not be applied … to appropriations.” Appropriations don’t just mean money; they can mean grants of land or water.<\/p>\n
Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Bakalar, in a memo accompanying the decision, wrote that the initiative is so wide-ranging that it would “prohibit the use of anadromous waters for certain development purposes, leaving insufficient discretion to the legislature to determine how to allocate those state assets.”<\/p>\n
Sponsors now have 30 days to appeal the decision to a judge.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s horrible,” said Mike Wood of the Susitna River Coalition and one of the measure’s sponsors. “I think it’s very much politically driven. I’m disappointed that the lieutenant governor’s kind of going along with it. I could see this coming from Bill Walker, but not from the lieutenant governor.”<\/p>\n
“We’re really disappointed,” said Gayla Hoseth of Dillingham, the second of the measure’s three sponsors. “We’re really disappointed in the decision the lieutenant governor made to deny our ballot initiative.”<\/p>\n
Wood, Hoseth and Brian Kraft of Anchorage applied in spring this year to put the ballot initiative to voters in fall 2018. The group Stand for Salmon was formed to back the group, and according to the Alaska Public Offices Commission has spent more than $120,000 on the effort<\/a>.<\/p>\n