Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

The long-running attempt by some of Alaska's legislators to deny court-ordered benefits to the same-sex partners of several dozen state employees hit a roadblock Monday when the House declined to authorize a constitutional amendment to block the benefits.

The push for a constitutional amendment blocking same-sex benefits hit a roadblock Monday when a resolution proposing the amendment failed to pass the House.

Rep. John Coghill, a Republican from North Pole and sponsor of the proposal, said he was disappointed by the vote but not surprised.

The House voted 22-14 in favor of the resolution, with four members excused; 27 votes -- representing two thirds of House members -- were needed for approval.

Coghill requested the House be allowed to vote again at a later date, and said after the floor session that he might be able to get two House members to change their minds.

But Coghill acknowledged he needed more than two extra votes.

"I don?t know if I can get it back," he said.

An AP story from Anchorage Daily News (free registration required) offers this summary of the long and expensive attempt spearheaded by Coghill to deny the benefits.

The court fight over the benefits has gone on for years. It ended when the state Supreme Court in October 2005 ordered the state to provide benefits to partners of gay employees. The court found that denying the benefits to same-sex domestic partners violated the state constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

Further political and legal wrangling postponed the benefits until the state's high court this winter told the state it was tired of the delays and ordered it to provide the benefits as of Jan. 1.

During the open enrollment period, 67 state employees signed up their partners for benefits, according to the state Department of Administration. Based on the average claim costs in 2006, the 67 new enrollees could cost the state about $350,000 a year.

In an April 3 advisory vote, 53 percent of Alaska voters said lawmakers should send the proposed constitutional amendment to the November 2008 ballot. However, that vote -- which cost the state about $775,000 -- had no binding authority.

A Senate resolution that also would have to pass along with Coghill's House measure hasn't yet made it out of committee. The Legislature adjourns May 16.

Labels: Alaska, equal rights

Alaskans had the chance to play the game we played last month here in Seattle when they were asked to weigh in on an expensive advisory vote. We were voting about what to do with an rickety old highway on the waterfront. They voted yesterday on what to do about a few government employees who were granted insurance benefits for their same-sex partners by a state court ruling.

Voters were asked if they wanted the legislature to craft an amendment that would deny benefits to the domestic partners of state and municipal employees.

State employees have been eligible for the benefits since the start of this year. Domestic partners of employees of the University of Alaska, city of Juneau, municipality of Anchorage and other public entities have been eligible for benefits for longer than that, and also would lose them under the proposed amendment.

And the voters decided-- well... Both sides are still arguing about what the voters decided. With virtually all precincts counted Wednesday morning, 53.4% favored holding a vote to amend the state's constitution. 46.6% voted against voting on an amendment.

Rep. John Coghill, a Republican from the town of North Pole who's been pushing hard for the amendment, spun the vote as a victory for his campaign. "I'm going to say to my colleagues, 'They said yes. Give us a constitutional amendment we can debate on,'" Coghill told the press Tuesday night.

But opponents of the amendment who have managed to bottle it up in the legislature for over a year said that the margin of the vote and the small number of voters who turned out at the polls sends a different message. Jesse Cross-Call of the Alaskans Together campaign against the constitutional amendment was positive Tuesday night, despite trailing at the polls.

"The other side is looking for an overwhelming vote, and I really don't think we're seeing an overwhelming vote tonight," he said.

Republicans control both houses of the Alaska Legislature. Their caucus opposes the benefits, but their leaders have been unable to win the necessary two-thirds vote in each house to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. GOP leaders had hoped to persuade reluctant colleagues with the advisory vote, which is estimated to have cost the state $1.2 million.

State Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, who opposes the amendment, called the results of the vote "resoundingly not definitive."

Such a close vote is unlikely to win more support for the measure in the Senate, he said.

"They didn't have it last year, and they're further away this year," he said.

[Quotes from Juneau Empire report. Registration required.]

A column in today's Juneau Empire from a voter who cast a "No" ballot, hints at some of the other issues that played into the balloting:

[I]t flies in the face of fiscal conservatism to spend more than $1 million of scarce public funds for an ancillary exercise in gauging public opinion. I am quite certain a far more exact picture of public sentiment on the underlying issue would result if Dave Dittman or another reputable pollster were given a fraction of the money and allowed to conduct a scientific survey.

Benjamin Brown says that legislators failed in their duty by approving the advisory vote.

A dispassionate analysis of the advisory vote, if one is possible, shows some value-neutral reasons to vote in the negative. I was particularly taken by the analysis of the League of Women Voters, which pointed out that when we elect legislators, we empower them to introduce the resolutions necessary to bring constitutional amendments before voters. It is not the ordinary course of business to conduct costly statewide elections to get a legislator to muster the courage to drop a bill or resolution in the hopper.

Activists who favor amending the state's constitution tried to cast the vote as a plebiscite on gay marriage

The signs are popping up all over town: "Vote Yes -- Protect Marriage."

Jim Minnery with a group called Alaska Family Action is behind the signs.

"We're often identified as the bigots and the hate-filled religious radicals, and in fact, what we're trying to do is have an open dialogue on what the vote was in 1998," said Minnery.

In 1998, Alaska voters passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

In 2005, the state Supreme Court ruled the state and municipalities must offer employment benefits to partners of same-sex couples.

"What the Supreme Court said was that because gay and lesbian couples cannot get married in our state, we should give them benefits that are equivalent to marriage and basically in our view create a counterfeit marriage in everything but name," said Minnery.

"The people of Alaska dealt with marriage in 1998," said Jesse Cross-Call, Alaskans Together campaign manager. "What we're talking about Tuesday is benefits and if you look at the language on the advisory vote the word benefits is in there. The word marriage is not."

An Associated Press report on the vote offers this summary:

The court fight over the benefits has gone on for years. It ended when the state Supreme Court in October 2005 ordered the state to provide benefits to partners of gay employees. The court found that denying the benefits to same-sex domestic partners violated the state?s constitution?s guarantee of equal protection.

Further political and legal wrangling delayed the benefits until the state?s high court this winter told the state it was tired of the delays and ordered it to provide the benefits as of Jan. 1.

During the open enrollment period, 67 state employees signed up their partners for benefits, according to the state Department of Administration. Based on the average claim costs in 2006, the 67 new enrollees could cost the state about $350,000 a year.

Labels: Alaska, equal rights, politics

All that odd political wrangling going on with our red-state neighbors to the north, has one Alaska blogger seething:

Queer Alaskans are a friendly people but right now they're as pissed off as a polar bear with his nadds on the barbie. As the state gets ready to consider a proposal to amend the Alaskan Consitution for the soul purpose of discriminating against Gay couples us Queer Folk are getting organized, digging our fox holes, and building our armory. Nothing can be wasted -- each shot must count.

Tenpa points out that Alaska doesn't have a statewide LGBT advocacy group. "We depend on the local chapter of the ACLU and activists (we like to say AKtivists) in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks," he explains.

He lists a large network of those "AKtivisits" who have banded together to raise money and to lobby to defeat this latest round in the long-running battle. And he quotes a friend who is one of the 55 people for whom legislators are spending millions to overrule a program that would cost the state, at most, a few hundred tousands per year:

"Tenpa, look what I have! It is my new insurance card and it includes my other half! Can you believe it! All of these years it has been so hard. Now we don't have to depend on public assistance and grants for his medical care and medications. Now I don't have to worry every month if I will have enough money to keep him going. My co-pay will be my co-pay. Our life can now be regular ?.. more predictable. I never thought this would happen!"

Labels: Alaska, LGBTQ, link bites, politics

Legislators in Alaska made another bizarre move this week in their years-long effort to deny court-ordered benefits to the partners of LGBT state employees. The state house voted to authorize a non-binding advisory vote on the issue. The balloting would cost the state about $1.2 million, according to some lawmakers. That's about four times the annual cost of the benefits that the legislature is refusing to pay.

The ballot measure was first approved in a special session last November. This week's vote occurred after its Republican sponsor offered another bill to cancel the election.

"I still think that's the right thing to do, to ask the question. I was just really pondering, is it the right time, can we get enough information out?" Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, said when he introduced the bill.

But then Coghill, who had been the prime sponsor of the bill that set up the ballot, appeared to change his mind again and decided he might let it go ahead.

One exasperated Democrat in the Republican-controlled house commented, "If our purpose is to find out what Alaskans think about same-sex benefits, we should pay 12,000 bucks and get a scientific statewide opinion poll, not pay $1.2 million for an unscientific opinion poll."

Several Democrats have offered a bill that would delay the vote until the legislature to passes a special $1.2 million appropriation to pay for the vote.

All of this stems from a lengthy series of court cases responding to a 1999 suit that was filed by the ACLU and nine state employees in 1999. After several circuits through the judicial system, the state and the municipality of Anchorage had been given a January 1, 2007 deadline to begin offering the benefits. Anchorage complied and now offers benefits to same-sex partners of city employees.

The state tried to block benefits despite some stern words from the courts that had first mandated the benefits in 2005. The legislature went into an expensive special session late last year to address the issue. They authorized the advisory ballot and also passed a law specifically denying the benefits. That law was deemed unconstitutional, however, by the state's attorney general and was reluctantly vetoed by the state's new governor, Republican Sarah Palin. That allowed benefits to be offered.

The benefit enrollment period for the employees began Jan. 1. AP reports that [#] 55 same-sex dependents are now under state health plans and another 22 are pending, according to the state Department of Administration. The cost of the 77 new enrollees is estimated to be $313,562 a year.

The vote authorized by the legislature would be a non-binding vote because the court ruling that requires the benefits cannot be overcome without an amendment to the state's constitution. It would take a two-thirds vote in both the house and senate to put a proposed amendment on the ballot. Opponents of the benefits have not been able to muster the super-majority needed to put an amendment on the ballot.

In an editorial today, the Anchoage Daily News scolded legislators [free reg required] about their waste of money.

Perhaps legislators are realizing it's a million-dollar public opinion poll dressed up as an election.

This isn't like the 1999 advisory vote that buried a proposal to use some Permanent Fund earnings to help balance the state budget. That was a purely political decision that did not involve the fundamental law of the land and equal-rights protection. The Supreme Court's benefits ruling does.

That leaves foes of same-sex benefits a straightforward path to follow if they're serious: They need a two-thirds vote of each legislative chamber to put a constitutional amendment before the voters.

If there's passion enough for that, let the Legislature try to summon the votes. If not, then let's not bother with a vote that doesn't count. Anchorage Rep. Mike Doogan and 11 of his colleagues have introduced a bill that would stop the special election. If lawmakers act quickly, they can pass the bill and save a million dollars.

Let's cut our losses at the $175,000 already spent on ballot printing and let life go on.

Labels: Alaska, equal rights, gay news, legislature, politics

A cross-link from Seattlest (which we, from our spot on the blogger D-List, always appreciate) does bring up some interesting questions about what happens in those Alaska towns when a boat filled with over a thousand gay cruisers makes its port call.

That many men (mostly) in one town at one time will tip the town's sexual balance toward the time when John Nordstrom was still looking for gold in the ground instead of gold from the shoes on people's feet. The folks in Ketchikan, Sitka, and Juneau may have adjusted to their semi-regular influx of cruise-tourists, but how prepared are they for something like this?

Googling "gay ketchikan" brings up several gay dating sites, a news story about someone named "Carol Gay," and several articles about scheduled gay cruises stopping there, but not much else. Sitka? Pretty much the same. Since it's the capitol city and a college town, Juneau offers more resources. There are a couple of locally-branded, but non-local city guides, but also this guide from a group called SEAGLA ("sea" there is for Southeast Alaska rather than Seattle and "gla" is the expected "gay and lesbian alliance"). It's a great attempt to answer what they say is an oft-repeated question, "What is it like to live and work in Juneau?"

If we can summarize a bit unfairly, the answer seems to be that it's like living and working in any moderately tolerant small city with a state capitol and college -- in other words, not all that uncomfortable. And, hey, they have a "huge Fred Meyer" and (let us exhale our urban sighs on this) a WalMart "coming soon."

They offer this advice and/or warning to visitors: "There are essentially no "Gay" or "Lesbian" destinations in S.E.Alaska. Gay or Lesbian travelers will generally want to plan their trips just the same as any other visitor. "

Unless, of course, you're on a big gay boat in the harbor. In that case, you might want to check out the trinkets, points of interest, and on-shore tours "the same as any other visitor" but head back to the boat for the cruising and for, umm... cruising.

Labels: Alaska, gay business, tourism

Cruise Planners, Inc., an Albuquerque cruise company (which sounds a bit odd, but they do have a big salt-water aquarium there in the mountain desert), will sponsor the Alaskan Gold Rush Cruise, an all-gay big-ship charter cruise from Seattle this fall aboard Seattle-based Holland America's flagship, the ms Amsterdam.

And when we say "big ship," we do mean big ship. The Amsterdam is expected leave from Terminal 30 in Seattle at 4pm on September 7 with 1380 guests -- all of them either gay or friendly enough to book passage on a cruise marketed exclusively to the gay market.

The cruise itinerary includes stops in Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan in Alaska along with sightseeing on the Puget Sound, Inland Passage, Stevens Passage, and Glacier Bay. The ship will stop for a Thursday evening outing in Victoria, BC before returning to Seattle at 7am Friday, September 14.

The Alaska cruise is one of ten gay cruises sponsored by Cruise Planners for 2007.

Chuck Kantrowitz of Cruise Planners explained that their gay cruises feature special entertainments geared to the crowd. The schedules, he said, include "tea dances, costume parties, gay comedians, newlywed game, large on-deck parties, super hero's parties, cabaret, singles mixers, hypnotists and such all geared toward gay passengers."

Kantrowitz said that the exact entertainment lineup for the Alaskan cruise won't be scheduled until June, but added that "likely talent" for the week will include local favorite DJ Kimberly S., Deborah Cox, Abigail, DJ Manny Lehman, and DJ De Leon.

He said that past entertainers on their gay cruises have been Joan Rivers, Rosie O'Donnell, Mario Cantone, Margaret Cho, Blondie, Patti Lupone, Bruce Vilanch, and Roseanne. "There is always a great show on board," Kantrowitz assured us.

Cost? Well, they don't say on their website, but you can call Cruise Planners at 866-899-4425 or send a question over their web form. The ship offers a range of accommodations from huge penthouse veranda suites to inside staterooms.

Labels: Alaska, gay business, Gay events, Gay Seattle, Seattle, tourism

Alaska's new governor, Sarah Palin, today vetoed a bill that would have denied equality of benefits to the same-sex partners of state workers. The issue of partner benefits for state workers has been a contentious one in Alaska since the state's highest court ruled in October 2005 that denying benefits to same-sex domestic partners violated the equal protection guarantees in the state's constituiton.

Since then, the GOP-controlled state legislature failed in a regular session and in two special sessions to address the issues raised by the court ruling. Facing a court-mandated Jan. 1, 2007 deadline, a state administrator drafted stringent regulations tentatively responding to the court order but neither the state's lieutenant governor or then-Governor Frank Murkowski would sign the regulations.

The issue was kicked back the courts a few times before the legislature finally met in a third special session in November called specifically to address the issue. But instead of adopting regulations of some sort, the legislators passed a law ordering the administration not to implement the regulations that had already been developed by the commissioner of the Office of Administration.

That law, however, was never signed by Murkowski. That left Palin to veto it less than a month after her inauguration. Gaywired.com explains:

The Associated Press reports that the governor said she rejected the bill despite her disagreement with a state Supreme Court order directing the state to offer benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Palin said in a media statement that she vetoed the bill on the advice of her new attorney general who said it is unconstitutional."Signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office," Palin said in her media release Thursday night.

The Alaska blog Queer Frontier explained the situation after the Court's latest (and, they said, last) ruling on the blown-out issue:

The state and the Anchorage municipality must provide benefits to the same-sex partners of Gay and Lesbian state employees and employees of the Anchorage municipality on January 1st 2007.

The court also stated that any future challenges of this issue must be taken up in new proceedings. In a nut shell... this particular suit filled against the state by the ACLU and nine gay/lesbian couples has run its course, the court has made its decision, the decision is final and the court will not entertain further discussion.

Of course there will be more discussion as conservative legislators are not going to swallow this pill easily. Although they have said they would abide by the courts decision, I for one don't expect them to do so. They are a nasty bunch that believe they have "God" on their side. As for our new Governor? Forget it! Although she is abiding by the court decision she is not helping us out. She has signed a bill allowing the legislators to call a "special election" which will consider a constitutional amendment banning what the court has just upheld.

Hat tip: Alaska Daily News has a December summary of the story here, but registration is required to view it.

Clearly, there's more to come on this one.

Labels: Alaska, gay news, LGBTQ