Lawmakers formally call for investigation into Palin's Public Safety firing
Originally published Monday, July 28, 2008 at 3:16 p.m.
Updated Monday, July 28, 2008 at 5:46 p.m.
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Stumble It!JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska lawmakers on Monday approved an investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in firing former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.
The Legislative Council, which is made up of seven members each from the House and Senate, approved $100,000 for the investigation that is expected to take place over the next several months.
Lawmakers have long said say they understand that Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time.
But they want to find out whether Palin was angry at Monegan for not firing an Alaska State Trooper who went through a messy divorce and ongoing child custody battles with Palin’s sister.
Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat who serves as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, is in charge of hiring an investigator.
French said he has a short list of candidates.
“The object is to find someone with no connections to either party, no connection to the pro governor or the anti governor side, someone who doesn’t have any biases,” French said.
French said there are good candidates within the state.
“I know it’s hard for those of us in a fishbowl to believe this, but there are lots and lots of people who don’t pay attention to the political world,” French said. “So, it can get done.”
He’s also not opposed to hiring someone outside Alaska.
It’s the first political backlash against Palin, who ran for governor two years ago on an ethics reform platform. The state Legislature has been rocked by its own problems, including federal corruption indictments against one sitting member and four former members.
The firing has been dogging Palin since she dismissed Monegan on July 11, saying she wanted the department to chart a different course.
Palin replaced him with Kenai Police Chief Chuck Kopp, but that lasted just two weeks. He resigned Friday from the fallout after an undisclosed reprimand that stemmed from a sexual harassment claim against him came to light.
The Kopp issue apparently is over, but lawmakers still want more information from Palin, her husband Todd and members of her administration into the Monegan firing.
Palin was unavailable Monday, but in the past said she welcomed the investigation. “Hold me accountable,” Palin has said.
Palin’s spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, said Monday it’s implicitly expected the staff will cooperate with an investigator.
Calls for the investigation began about 10 days ago when Monegan said he felt pressured to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother-in-law.
Monegan has said pressure came from those around Palin, including first gentleman Todd Palin, former Palin chief of staff Mike Tibbles, Department of Administration Commissioner Annette Kreitzer, and Frank Bailey, director of boards and commissions. Monegan said he doesn’t know why he was fired.
Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom, an Anchorage Republican who serves as the council’s vice chair, said getting answers sooner rather than later is essential.
“We’ve had a cloud over our body the last few years since the (federal) investigations have occurred,” she said. “For the overall good of our state, we just need to get to the bottom of this.”
Before approving the $100,000, the council first had to formally name Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, the new chairman. Elton succeeds John Cowdery, an Anchorage Republican indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges three weeks ago. He stepped down from as the council’s chairman, but has ignored calls — including those from Palin — that he resign from the Senate.
Cowdery is also in poor health and has missed all but the first few days of the 30-day special session. He attended Monday’s meeting via conference call, but he did not cast a vote authorizing the investigation.
Elton said he believes the investigation will not amount to a witch hunt.
“You just have to put your faith and your good judgment of the investigator and the project director (French),” Elton said. “I’m perfectly comfortable that yes, there will be appropriate boundaries that focus on the issues and policies and not on the politics.”
Community Discussion
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Pay $100,000 to look into this? I'd gladly look into it for you - with no charge to the state!
Quit wasting OUR money!
If Monegan is concerned that he got fired, then he should hire a lawyer (like a normal citizen would) and take care of the situation himself.
IGNORANT!
Hiring someone does seem like a waste of money, especially for that amount of money. Sarah Palin has stated that she did not do this and I believe her. It may be a good thing to clear her name.
100,000 does seem like a large amount of money to spend on this. Especially since potential lawbreaking is something that should be investigated through the proper legal channels.
However, I suppose the proper legal channel is through the troopers, and I doubt there is any way Palin would get a fair investigation with troopers involved, so I suppose hiring an investigator is the best way to go.
Woot, a waste of $100,000 on things we could be using for more important projects. Shame on the lawmakers, I think all of them should be replaced with someone like Palin. Ever since Palin replaced that lazy rich fatman Murkowski, Palin shed some light and got our economy going again. Now that we got rid of Murkowski, we need to get rid of both senators and some of the other brainless lawmakers. What is an investigation gonna do anyway? Ok, she fired someone because of personal reasons, so what? What is worth more? A great governer that can save our state or wasting $100,000 just to give her some bad publicity?
Well--there you go! All the people that were requiring an investigation--is it worth $100,000? I think its great that the DNM printed how much was alotted to this. Its kinda like a slap to all the people that wanted her to be investigated. And for what? They will never prove, unless Palin comes out and admits it, that she did anything wrong.
Don't we have a judiciary branch of Government in this State?!!! Makes no sense that we can approve wasting $100K on here say and can't get a contract for a gas line with a formal legislative process after 3 special sessions. ALASKA STATE CONGRESS: GET TO WORK and stop WASTING the surplus!
The $100,000 cost does seem like a waste and I have confidence in Gov. Palin but if she is selected as McCain's VP the national media would make a big deal out of it so it may be better to start handling it now. "Troppergate" may be the reason that McCain did not announce her after there was some speculation during Oboma's international trip that he may announce his VP then.
I didn't vote for Palin two years ago, but I sure will be come re-election time. $100,000 and several months is such a huge waste. I'm going to have a hard time voting for anyone who thought this was a good idea.
I think $100,000 is a bargain to find out if the Governor is lying and breaking laws. Far more has been spent on something of far less value. If you reported a crime to someone, wouldn't you want someone to investigate it?
If she's so innocent, let the investigation bear that out. This Governor has been trampling on people for far too long to let this very egregious violation get swept under the rug. For all you Palin lovers who applauded every time she accused someone of wrongdoing and demanded their resignation, I say put your money where your mouth is.
The hypocrisy is deafening.
Again, it doesn't matter what they determine her reasons were. She doesn't need any reason to fire him so all this will do is satisfy everyones curiosity and provide political fodder for one side or the other. What a waste.
$100K!!
Rediculous-
She appointed him and, for whatever reason, she fired (unappointed) him. There, investigation closed. Just send the $100K with my dividend, okay?
This pales in comparison to how she failed as a mother. After reading the transcripts from the police interviews, I was shocked and dismayed that she didn't file charges against the brother-in-law (he threatened her child who was witness to an assault on her cousin (the taser/pepper spray incident))...and demand that her sister do likewise.
One mother to another, Sarah, you dropped the ball. Politics and career do not trump a mother's/sister's obligation.
Mrs S
If Governor Palin abused her power and we look the other way, we give her tacit approval to do it again. Then what? Eventually we end up with another corrupt official of government running amok, serving herself and not the people of the state?
There are checks and balances for a reason, we should never have blind trust in our elected officials.
Governor Palin has done many good things for the state, but that should not make her immune from accountability for any misdeeds she may have committed.
Mike_Starkey and others who say that she doesn't need a reason to fire a cabinet member: that is true UNLESS the reason she fired them is illegal, and that is the allegation that is being made. If she fired Monegan for not firing Wooten, that would have been an illegal use of power, and that is what is being investigated.
"Again, it doesn't matter what they determine her reasons were. She doesn't need any reason to fire him so all this will do is satisfy everyones curiosity and provide political fodder for one side or the other. What a waste."
You are right, she doesn't need a reason. The investigation is to find out if she did have a reason and if it broke the law.
I personally feel she has broken the 3 alaska state laws regarding abuse of power for elected officials, based on what has been reported in the DNM and ADN thus far.
Either way, as a state we cannot have this hanging over our heads. Time to clear it up.
It kind of worries me how willing most people in this state are to cast a blind eye to public officials. 100k is a small fee to pay for peace of mind in this matter. Palin is not some sort of deity that is immune to breaking the law; she is a person like all of us and just as able to commit misdeeds. If she abused her power in this matter then she'd better be held accountable. This willingness to look the other way is why we have all these politician under investigation elsewhere in our government.
If she is indicted at the end of all this, do you think she will take her own advice and resign?
Palin isnt worth investigating. That money should be going towards investigating the lawmakers that approved the investigation.
I guess this thing is going to be investigated even though none is needed. When it is determined that Sarah Palin did nothing against the law, then maybe her detractors will stop trying to undermine her at every turn.
These posters crack me up. All of a sudden we're concerned about $100,000? What about giving $ to people for having a pulse and a zip code? Selling state land at a loss for agricultural uses and building grain silos that sit empty. Then there's the clean coal and seafood processing plants nobody wants. The Mat Maid Dairy, Pt Mackenzie Ag project, free mining claims with rights to build cabins, ANGDA and AGPA. State money and resources down the drain. I admit this is a lotta $ and we should be able to get the truth for less $$. But the sanctimonious posts above are too much.
She is our leader in the battle of the energy crisis and has been doing great. One guy lost a job. If we don't solve this energy crisis soon, thousands may lose their jobs! Can you all do your jobs well if you have to spend time fighting stuff like this? Get back to the IMPORTANT stuff! Politicians: All of you work TOGETHER for all of us... this is not a time for politics as usual!
The legislators have never been happy with the fact that the Alaska constitution has given the Governor of Alaska more power than any other State's governor. The legislative body has always wanted to have more control over the administrative body and the Governor. Her ability of firing a commissioner at will is what really has them seeing red, not the man she fired. Has any of them heard about billing by the hour and setting a limit. Wonder who it will be and if any political paybacks are being made here.
As Mayor of Wasilla she also terminated that Chief of Police for basically the same reason, a new direction was needed. When you are young with energy, who wants a deadbeat hanging around. Why didn't they investigate Frank, he fired half of his commissioners by his second year into his term. Then again his Chief of Staff is sitting in jail right now.
Time for the old republicans to be replaced.
Time for the Republicans to be replaced, young AND old.
Pavel - Are you really going to trust the ADN and DNM on this topic? Their bias against the Gov has been pretty obvious from when she was elected.
flyer5000 says: "Time for the Republicans to be replaced, young AND old."
I agree about young. Don Young, that is.
I generally support Sarah, but I don't believe in giving any elected official the benefit of the doubt. There's too many questions about this one. Is she innocent? I hope so. And I will assume so until shown otherwise. But it needs to be demonstrated to the public's satisfaction. Given the recent history in this state, vigilance is not a waste of money.
I ignore their editorializing, but I don't ignore the factual parts.
The complaints came from Todd and Sarah Palin during the divorce and custody battle. Only a couple were upheld. Sarah Palin was present for the tasering part, and got a cut of the "illegal" moose. She also waited a good long while to report it.
What I see is an elected official attempting to use her office for the personal gain of her sister. Getting Trooper Wooten fired is a sure fire way to swing a custody battle in favor of her sister.
Even if it is all born out to be false, it really, really looks bad for our governor. The appearence of impropriety is all it takes these days, with politician after politician being indicted for abusing their elected position.
Lawers at work
Who cares?? Why would you spend OUR money on something like this? Maybe because you don't want us to notice how you are raking in extreme profits selling OUR oil back to us for world market prices? Hmm? This is ridiculous. It's over! Now get over it!
Use some of the money to investigate why the Point Hope caribou slaughter is up to 120 and punishing the person(s) responsible.
Pavel, I think any intelligent judge would look at Wooten's personnel file and see "Oh look, he tasered his step-son, I don't think he's going to be a great person to have unsupervised visits with children".
Given what he has already been proven to have done, getting fired is probably not going to affect his case all that much.
As for waiting a while to report the moose, what family member hasn't thought of everything they could to use against someone in a divorce? Several years ago when one of my friends went through a divorce she made up lists of every single bad thing her now ex-husband had did and handed it over to her lawyer, that tactic isn't anything new.
Palin probably wasn't planning on reporting him until the divorce happened, and no matter what she did she was in a loose-loose situation with people. If she hadn't reported him and it came out she knew, people would be upset she covered for him breaking the law. Since she did turn him in people are upset she has a vendetta against him.
As far as her using her position to get Wooten fired, I think that would have been waaaaaaaaaaaay too obvious. I would like to think she has more style than that if she was going to pull something sneaky.
Here we go again lets WASTE $100,000 when it could help ALASKANS with there fuel bill this winter. It is just like the Democrats to waste money. Let's not waste the surplus. I plan on writing my rep's to stop the waste.
So someone gets canned and starts talking trash about their old boss. That's what Monegan is doing. Andrew Halcro actually started this whole thing. I used to respect him until this. Now I just think he's a sore loser.
How does Palin "win" this? If she divulges all the details of why she fired him then she's a poor manager that doesn't respect HR confidentiality. If she doesn't tell her side of the story then she's just another politician covering up misdeeds.
It's not even the money that bothers me so much as the TIME the legislature is spending on this. Does it really take a few months to review a personnel file? You really have nothing better to do?
I really hope that the newspapers that created this story can go back to covering real news. Investigative reporting is Watergate. This is just tabloid gossip.
TB - Hopefully the legislature and people of Alaska will trust the investigator if they say Palin had a good reason, and chooses not to divulge it.
I would like to see Palin comply with the investigation because it is consistent with her platform. However, I think that the investigator should be able to withhold any personal details about Monegan and anything that is generally considered confidential, and only issue a final statement about the lawfulness of the events. I think that would be both fair to Palin and Monegan.
I guess I just don't want this whole thing to sidetrack them from the larger issues at hand. This sort of housekeeping doesn't have an expiration date & isn't going anywhere.
IF there is nothing here will the DNM apologize for sensationalizing this - and reimburse us the 100k?
USE THIS FOR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT!
kinda smells like they are pushing this to ruin her chances at becoming VP.....wonder where J-Bird is on this one....
I love people who don't understand that a chief executive chooses his/her cabinet and hires and fires at will, just as other governors, and the president, can do, and does do.
Firing monegan because she doesn't like the way he works, in any fashion, is totally within her rights. He has a job, because she GAVE it to him. Commissioner appointments are NOT permanent jobs!!! they typically change whenever a new governor or president comes in, and that person brings their own crew in.
If she fired monegan because of her sister.. well, thats a problem.
and by fired I mean dismissed from his current position, and relocated to another. he is not unemployed, but he's not top cop.
I suspect her problem with him stemmed more from police union issues. As in, maybe she doesn't like a guy that is a union puppet running the DPS.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but it sure seems politically motivated. If she is cleared of any wrongdoing and the accusations were frivolous, we should make Hollis French and his associates pay back any funds expended for this action. Maybe if faced with this directive, the boys and girls in Juneau would get down to legislating and making decisions rather than pointing fingers.
When are we going to get to the real story here. J Bird had a good idea, cut the sessions to 90 days. Now I think its time to stop ALL "special Sessions" those guys just have way too much free time on their hands and WAY tooo much money to waste. If she broke the law, arrest her and put her on trial, like you and I would be.
Lets stop this political soap opera and TRY to act like grown up people.. what a shame..and waste of time and money. Sad day in Alaska
Who cares why she fired him. It is the governor's right to fire any of her appointees. Palin needs to hang tough and ignore her political enemies and the media trying to make this an issue.
It is ridiculous that we approve of our legislators spending $$$ to investigate this; she has the right to dismiss her commissioners. What ought to be investigated is why the state hasn't prosecuted the trooper for his criminal actions, i.e., shooting a moose w/out a permit, child endangerment or assault on his step-son, dui. Kudos to Palin and anyone else who demanded that his superiors take action to get him off the street. Anyone else would have and should have been charged. And, at the end of the day, she could still say she wants DPS to go in a different diretion and that is her right.
In the real world, if you keep changing your story every time a new fact is uncovered, you are a LIAR. Apparently people around these parts don't like to use the same yardstick that they live with applied to their pretty little princess Sarah. wake up people, she is a vindictive, power hungry, lying peice of political trash. Come on people, how much money went down the drain in the Mat-Maid debacle? How much has her DOC Commissioner cost the State? How much is it going to cost the Sate to MAYBE have a gas line built 10 some years from now? And you folks are whining about 100K to start finding some answers, and begin pulling back the not so transparent curtin on this corrupt as Murkowski Administration.
What kills me the most is why nobody is asking what Sarah is getting from TC? Come on you bunch of sheeple, why is she backing a company that has stated that IF, and that's a big IF, they build a line, it will not be until 2019, or later? $500,000,000 out of our pockets right now for a huge MAYBE 10 years or more down the line. If you guys want to save some money, award me the contract. I'll only charge $500K and I'll promise that I MIGHT start building 5 years from now. All joking aside, what is Sarah getting from TC as payment for being so hot and heavy about such a rotten deal?
Where does the $100,000 come from? It could be better used in the education budget. Or let me do the investigation...I'll do it for a mere $75,000. I'm going to vote for her again too.
Yes, the Guv can fire her commissioners. I found it interesting that last week all of her (personally) appointed commissioners were singing praises for her. Perhaps they are too afraid to tell the truth. I think the family bond and the maternal desire to protect her family (in this case, her sister) went over the line. This doesn't make it okay for her to dismiss Monegan because he wouldn't fire her ex brother-in-law. The 100K for this investigation is a drop in the bucket, and worth it.
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