Since Sarah Palin's July 3rd resignation, she has had all of her spinmeisters in overdrive misrepresenting the Executive Branch Ethics Act, misrepresenting the ethics complaints, misusing data, smearing the complaint filers, etc...
In Mel Green's piece "The 2 million dollar meme" where she discusses the Palin Administration's faulty budget numbers regarding the "cost of the complaints," she also addresses some very important points about the ethics complaints themselves:
1) What qualifies as a "frivolous complaint"?
2) Why would it cost thousands of dollars for the Personnel Board to "dismiss" an ethics complaint?
She goes further into discussing the fable of the "frivolous" ethics complaints and questions how one could even determine if a complaint was "frivolous."
Ray Ward's July 6th complaint filing and dismissal today gives us an opportunity to more clearly explore that question and gives the Governor another opportunity to misrepresent the process.
Until the State of Alaska has better checks and balances (i.e. a Legislative Branch that will do its duty and actually hold the Executive Branch accountable) I am unwilling to call ANY ethics complaint "frivolous." However, I can present the EBEA (Executive Branch Ethics Act) process, as I became aquainted with it through my filing and continuing experience with the Arctic Cat complaint.
There are multiple levels that a complaint travels through during the process and actions can be taken at each level. Looking at those can help determine whether or not the Personnel Board actually viewed a complaint as having potential.
--First, to file a complaint:
(b) A person may file a complaint with the attorney general regarding the conduct of a current or former public officer. A complaint must be in writing, be signed under oath, and contain a clear statement of the details of the alleged violation.
(c) If a complaint alleges a violation of AS 39.52.110 - 39.52.190 by the governor,
lieutenant governor, or the attorney general, the matter shall be referred to the personnel board...
To summarize, the complaint must:
a) quote the portion of the EBEA that the charges address,
b) do a thorough write-up, explanation and provide evidence on what the charges are and
c) be notarized and signed "under oath" before the document is turned in to the Department of Law, it's first stop.
--If it is a complaint against the Governor, the Lt. Gov. or the AG, it is reviewed by Julia Bockman or someone in her office at the Dept. of Law for the a,b and c requirements listed in the above paragraph. If it lacks any one of those things, generally the filer is contacted and is told they have X number of days to comply before the complaint will be tossed...yes, that happened to me as I did not understand the "under oath" was part of the notarization process. (They have a special stamp for it.)
Note: ALL OF THIS is SUPPOSED to be done in the Department of Law, before it goes to the Personnel Board.
Interestingly enough, Mr. Ward was clearly not given the same time frame (or ANY time frame) to correct his error like I was. Perhaps it was because THE DEPARTMENT OF LAW determined that the rest of the complaint did not fit the requirements it needed to pass it on to the Personnel Board. As I said before, those determinations are made BEFORE the complaint goes to the Board.
I don't think that the vagueness of the Governor's statement on this dismissal is that surprising in light of that. Why? Because it shines a light on the fact that the rest of the complaints DID fit the requirements and DID get passed to the Personnel Board.
(By the way, this also emphasizes one of the Palin Adminstration's "big lies"...the alleged "Edna Burch" complaint. If her name was fake, she would never have been able to have it legally notarized...it would not have passed the "sniff test." If "Edna's" complaint DID make it to the Personnel Board, then Julia Bockman or someone in her Dept. of Law office seriously fell down on the job.)
So, now we know one way that a complaint can be rejected...by the Department of Law itself. It should take no more than an hour of Julia Bockman's time to do so.
--Moving right along...
...The personnel board shall retain independent counsel who shall act in the place of the attorney general under (d) - (i) of this section, AS 39.52.320 - 39.52.350, and 39.52.360(c) and (d). Notwithstanding AS 36.30.015(d), the personnel board may contract for or hire independent counsel under this subsection without notifying or securing the approval of the Department of Law.
Summarizing: if the complaint fulfills the requirements (and if the complaint is against the Gov, Lt. Gov or the AG), it is sent to the Chair of the Personnel Board (Debra English) who then hires an independent investigator. This investigator DOES NOT use the resources of the Department of Law...a conflict of interest in the case of the AG, the Governor and the Lt. Governor. That's why he/she is an "independent investigator" as required by statute.
--From now on, substitute "independent investigator" for "Attorney General" as we are talking about complaints against the Governor:
(d) The attorney general shall review each complaint filed, to determine whether it is properly completed and contains allegations which, if true, would constitute conduct in violation of this chapter. The attorney general may require the complainant to provide additional
information before accepting the complaint. If the attorney general determines that the
allegations in the complaint do not warrant an investigation, the attorney general shall dismiss
the complaint with notice to the complainant and the subject of the complaint.
The next level: once the "independent investigator" gets the complaint that has previously been determined to fit the requirements, he/she can then determine whether or not the complaint warrants an investigation.
According to investigator Thomas Daniel, that was his determination with the SarahPAC complaint because he said it came under Federal jurisdiction. I am unaware of any other ethics complaint that was dismissed at that point of the process.
--So then, the investigation proceeds:
(f) If the attorney general accepts a complaint for investigation, the attorney general shall serve a copy of the complaint upon the subject of the complaint, for a response. The attorney general may require the subject to provide, within 20 days after service, full and fair disclosure in writing of all facts and circumstances pertaining to the alleged violation. Misrepresentation of a material fact in a response to the attorney general is a violation of this chapter. Failure to answer within the prescribed time, or within any additional time period that may be granted in writing by the attorney general, may be considered an admission of the allegations in the complaint.
(g) If a complaint is accepted under (f) of this section, the attorney general shall investigate to determine whether a violation of this chapter has occurred. At any stage of an investigation or review, the attorney general may issue a subpoena under AS 39.52.380.
According to the Arctic Cat dismissal report from investigator Thomas Daniel, he gave Governor Palin the 20 days and then an extension to get back to him regading the questions he asked.
The Governor's attorney Thomas Van Flein did not respond until after the deadlines had passed.
--Dismissal:
Sec. 39.52.320. Dismissal before formal proceedings.
If, after investigation, it appears that there is no probable cause to believe that a violation of this chapter has occurred, the attorney general shall dismiss the complaint. The attorney general shall communicate disposition of the matter promptly to the complainant under AS 39.52.335(c) and to the subject of the complaint.
Arctic Cat was filed in March and not dismissed until June 3rd. It was investigated as were (to my knowledge) the rest of the complaints. There were ample opportunities to dismiss them prior to an investigation but the investigator determined that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE COMPLAINTS warranted those investigations before it could be determined WHETHER THERE WAS A VIOLATION. I disagree with the dismissal of Arctic Cat and took the action available to me as I'll discuss in the next post...contining the explanation of the ethics complaint process. However, I believe this post has shown this complaints had merit in the eyes of the investigators, thus putting the question of whether the complaints were "frivolous" to rest.
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