Sweet Old Bob

Posted on by Fritz Pettyjohn

It was 1973. and Babbie and I were in an apartment in Santa Monica, while I attended my second year of law school. There was a billboard in the hallway at UCLA Law, where notices were posted. I saw one from the City of Ketchikan, Alaska, advertising for a legal intern to work for the City Attorney’s office. It would last six months, from June through December, and the law school would grant academic credit for the quarter I would be gone, if I got hired.

I was going to Alaska, anyway, as soon as I graduated, so this would give me a head start. Plus, instead of paying tuition, I’d make a little bit of money. Babbie was game, so I got hired and she got to see Alaska for the first time.

I was welcomed by the lawyers of Ketchikan, most of whom took a shine to me. Part of my job was as City Prosecutor, and when the city cops made an arrest for drunk driving, I got the case.

I looked over the police report and the guy looked guilty as hell, so I charged him with DUI. He was the President of the Moose Club and hired the most prominent and successful lawyer in town, State Senator Bob Ziegler, a great guy. Bob calls me to get the charge reduced to reckless driving in a plea deal. But I didn’t want a deal. I wanted to go to trial. It would be quite a feather in my cap if I could go back to UCLA to finish law school and have a jury trial under my belt.

Bob explained that all DUI’s in Ketchikan got settled in a plea deal. That’s just the way it was done. I told him I didn’t see any justification for reducing the charge and we were going to trial. It sort of pissed him off, but the fact was that no Ketchikan jury within the living memory of man had ever convicted on a DUI. It was a hard drinking town, on an island with about 15 miles of paved road, and pretty much everybody drove around with a buzz on. Bob’s client had absolutely nothing to worry about.

All the lawyers in town thought this was great. The young hotshot from California was going to get a lesson.

And, of course, I did. After the verdict, the forewoman of the jury leaned over the rail, gave the defendant a hug, and said, “Oh, Paul, I’m so glad you got off.”

But I didn’t make a fool of myself, thanks to gracious treatment by Bob. He could have made me look really bad, but he knew it wasn’t necessary. I have always been grateful for that to Bob Ziegler.

Ten years later I met him again in Juneau, after I got elected to the Senate from South Anchorage. Bob was a blue dog Democrat who was disgusted by the corruption in the Democrat Senate Majority. He didn’t want to be complicit in their betrayal of his values, so he joined the Republican Senate Minority.

Bob was famous for his correspondence with constituents. When one would write to ignorantly criticize something he’d done, he’d send a response, advising the voter that some fool was sending letters to Juneau with their name on it. He’d sign it “Sweet Old Bob.”

One day he comes into my office and shows me a bill he’s carrying. It’s a Joint Resolution, calling on the United States Congress to call an Article V Convention of the States for the purpose of proposing an amendment to the Constitution for fiscal reform. At this time the national debt had just reached $1 trillion, and people thought that was outrageous.

I looked at that bill and couldn’t believe my eyes. I had a degree in Political Science from Cal, and I had been politically active since Goldwater in ’64. Article V? How come I’d never heard of this? This is totally awesome! To hell with Congress, we can get around them. We can amend the Constitution ourselves. What a concept!

Bob told me to calm down, and when the bill comes to the floor, don’t say a word. He had the votes, and didn’t want me to queer the deal.

Well, here I am 41 years later, and I’m still working on Article V. Babbie looked it up, and she says I have 8.8 years left to live.

Never say die!

Lucky Nick Begich III

Posted on by Fritz Pettyjohn

It’s better to be lucky than good. It’s best to be both. Our new Congressman got elected on merit, and he’s lucky to be a member of the 119th Congress. The next two years will be the most exciting time of his life, and the most productive. I admit I’m a little jealous.

He’ll be treated well by the Republican leadership. He took a seat away from the Democrats, and they want to see him to keep it. And they know that developing Alaska’s resource wealth is a key not only to energy dominance, but to the overall health of the American economy. Prosperity is good politics.

It’s true, I believe, that he has yet to develop any rapport with President Trump. He lost to Mary Peltola two years ago only because of the vainglorious Sarah Palin, who was a Trump candidate. Trump only endorsed him this year after he beat the candidate Trump did want, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom. But it is in the mutual interest of both men that the other succeed, and self-interest will be enough for a good working relationship.

Talk about an interesting time to be a member of the House Majority! For a while, at least, it looks like a 217 to 215 split, which means any one Republican defection can deny the Speaker a majority. It’s hard to imagine any Republican Congressman actually doing such a foolish thing, but any collection of 217 politicians will contain a few odd ducks. Actually, more than a few. For an old pol like me, this is great entertainment.

Every day seems to bring something new to get excited about. Take NASA. Please.

This is the organization that got us to the moon. If you’re old enough, you vividly remember where you were and who you were with when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. I was in a tiny apartment on West 27th in Spenard, watching a little black and white TV with the original Fritz Pettyjohn and his wife. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

Those were the glory years of NASA, but it’s been more or less of a boondoggle ever since. It’s been captured by Boeing, the company that builds planes with exploding doors.

But it’s got a new boss, Jared Isaacman, a big customer of Elon Musk. He paid Musk for a ride on a SpaceX rocket and got to do a spacewalk. What a guy! He’s going to have a $20 billion budget to play with, and I think he’s going to use it to help Elon get to Mars.

Aside from seeing an Article V Convention, and walking my granddaughter down the aisle, my dearest wish is to see a man land on Mars. I like pointing out Mars in the night sky and telling my grandsons that it is not a star, it’s a planet, like Earth, and some day they will see a man walk on it.

That’s one day, and one announcement, about one federal agency.

What a brave new world it may be!

Nick will be in the middle of all of this. What’s curious is that his grandfather, Nick Begich I, was in the same position 54 years ago. He was as good as Nick III, but he didn’t have any luck. He died with the House Majority Leader, and Speaker-to-be, Hale Boggs in a tragic airplane crash somewhere in the Chugach range. What a waste!

If you’re a Christian, you believe that Nick I is in heaven watching all this, and he’s very proud.

An Obligation to the Founders

Posted on by Fritz Pettyjohn

The Framers of the Constitution were students of history. Most of them were lawyers, and they had studied the history of the law. They were establishing a republic and looked to history to guide them. The history of the Republic of Rome (449 B. C. to 131 B. C.) was given special attention.

The Roman Constitution, the Twelve Tables, had a fatal flaw. There was no way to amend it. In 131 B. C., when reformer Tiberius Gracchus became frustrated with his inability to change a society which was woefully in need of it, he, essentially, overturned the Constitution. If Gracchus could do it, anyone could. And soon did. And that was the end of the Roman Republic.

So the men who met in Philadelphia in 1787 were determined to allow for amendments to their Constitution. But they didn’t want to make it easy. Supermajorities, by their nature bipartisan, would be needed to amend. 2/3 of each House of Congress to propose, 3/4 of the states to ratify.

Since the first Congress proposed the Bill of Rights, we’ve had a couple technical amendments, (11 and 12) and then the great Civil War amendments, 13, 14, and 15.

The progressives at the turn of the 20th century, Republican and Democrat, brought us the income tax and direct election of senators, 16 and 17, (1913) and then the enfranchisement of women, 19 (1920). The only other truly significant amendments were 22 and 25, term limiting the President and providing for his removal if he is unable to perform his duties.

That’s it, the total for the last 230 years. They did good work, the Framers of the Constitution.

You will notice, if you look closely, that none of the reforms which have been adopted since 1791 have anything to do with Congress. That’s because Congress has no desire to place constitutional restrictions on itself. The first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, do restrict Congress, but they were only agreed to because that was necessary to get the Constitution ratified.

The 17th amendment was a reform of Congress, but it was only agreed to by Congress because 30 of the required 32 states had passed Article V Resolutions calling for a Convention of States to propose direct election of senators.

It goes without saying that over the last 233 years Congress has evolved in ways the Framers wouldn’t recognize. Today it is a corrupt and dysfunctional institution, desperately in need of reform

This can only be done when state legislators wake up, and realize they hold the power in their hands to fix Congress. The Framers gave it to them, in Article V. Because they have this power, they bear the responsibility. I would argue that to keep the oath that they all swore, “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” they must take up the power given them in Article V, and use it.

I think it is their obligation.