Miscellaneous

I’ve decided to involve myself with the Dan Sullivan for Senate race in Alaska.  One of his primary opponents is a nut, the other one is Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, one of Hickel’s boys.  Sullivan’s the better man, and candidate.  He came to AK in ’97 or so, and I don’t know him, and probably don’t know his campaign manager either.  So I’m going to introduce myself to them by writing a piece in the Anchorage Daily News.  I wrote a bi-weekly column for them for five years in the 90’s until they asked Sen. Ted Stevens if they could do anything for them.  Ted said, “Get rid of Pettyjohn”, so they did.  The guy who told me that story was Mike Carey, my editor there.  I’ve emailed him, and I’m sure he’ll help get me on.  It’ll be about Jay Hammond and the Permanent Fund, and include the story of Jay’s first National Governor’s meeting.  He went to a governor’s prayer meeting and met Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.  Jay called me up at the height of the Lewinsky scandal and said he wanted to visit my law office.  He’d never done that.  He wanted to share a laugh at his own expense, about how Clinton’s big blue eyes were so sincere and convincing.

If this goes over well, I’ll write one or two more about Hammond.  There’s lots of stories.  This will re-identify me in Alaska, and associate me with Hammond.  It will introduce me to Sullivan.  And maybe Sullivan and I can figure a way to use it to identify Sullivan with Hammond.

In Alaska, that’s political gold.

Tennessee came in last night, an overwhelming vote.  22.  Bill Furth gets the credit.  He did a hell of a job.

I learned, or relearned, a great deal in Utah.  The biggest was the levels of ignorance and pigheadedness to be found among state legislators.  I knew this when I served, but it had faded from my memory.  These people, or a lot of them, are so parochial and paranoid that it’s breathtaking.  In Utah the problem is that 75 people showing up for a House district caucus can deny you the Republican nomination.  That scares these guys.  I’ve thought of the solution.  It’s based on a time in my own career.

In ’82 I’m running for the State Senate.  It’s tough.  I only really started living in Alaska in ’74, and I didn’t really know very many people.  I’m not a very social guy, so outside of political inside circles I’m a mystery man.  Plus, I’m a lawyer.  Not good. Plus, I was part owner (or was) of a couple big rock and roll bars, Gussie L’Amour’s and Swiftwater Bill’s.  Not good.  My Democratic opponent was a political amateur, but he was one of the biggest homebuilders in Anchorage.  He put about a hundred grand of his own money up.  I was outspent 2-1. 

The governor’s race was Republican Tom Fink, Democrat Bill Sheffield, and Libertarian Dick Randolph of Fairbanks.  Fink was hugely popular in my district.  He took it 2-1.  So I wanted to align myself with him, but he didn’t trust me.  I was identified with the Hammond wing of the Republican Party, and Fink thought I was some kind of RINO.

Sheffield was running a TV ad statewide — except for Anchorage — called Rhode Island Red.  It said Fink was the Anchorage candidate, and he was the candidate of all of Alaska.  The whole state hates Anchorage, so it was working.

They had a gubernatorial debate at the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Bill’s home turf.  He was a past president.  When they got to Q and A from the audience I was first up.  I asked him, “How does that TV ad you’re running everywhere but Anchorage, Rhode Island Red, fit in with your theme of bringing Alaskans together?”  Bill had no answer, and his reply was incoherent.  The poor bastard had a speech impediment  to begin with, and as he started mumbling and stuttering people in the audience started laughing at him.  It was brutal.

Fink took a shine to me, and I’m not sure I would have won without his help.  I only won 52-48.  But Sheffield also won, and as a freshman State Senator I faced a Governor who wanted a piece of my ass.  This was a problem.  Because of reapportionment, my Senate seat was up again in two years, and I knew damn well Bill was out to get me.  It was personal.

So when I got to Juneau I’d go back to the office every night at 6:00 and make cold calls back to my district.  Actually my secretary, Anne Williams made the call, and passed it to me when she got through.  I called only Republican  and Independent supervoters, both husband and wife.  I’d say, “This is Fritz Pettyjohn down in Juneau.  I represent you in the State Senate.  Is there any issue or area of particular concern to you, that I should be working on?”

People ate it up.  I’d go two, three hours a night.  The next day they got a letter thanking them for taking the time to talk to me, and assuring them that education, or whatever the hell they were interested in, was a priority of mine.  They would tell neighbors, and people at work, “Dude, I got a call from Senator Pettyjohn last night.  He wanted to know what I thought.”

Electoral gold. 

 

  We lost Utah 32-41-2.  It really was a long shot, without doubt the biggest mountain to climb, because of their caucus primaries and superbly organized opposition.  Next year the Mountain States, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, North and South Dakota hold the key to winning this thing.  Add Arizona and Oklahoma if we don’t pull them out this year.  The west is the key — Washington and Oregon will hopefully be in play as well.  I like traveling in the west, the country, the people.  I feel at home there.  As long as I have the strength (I’ll be 69 in September) I’ll be seeing a lot of these states. 

What was the Gipper doing when he was 69?

The TN senate passed the reso today 29-0-1.  Things look good in  the House, so we should add TN this month, I would think.

Today Utah House voted for the DLA 55-20, a good sign.  The reso will be brought up tomorrow or Monday, depending on Rep. Powell’s reading of the vote.  A win in Utah would be an upset.  The CoS state director, Allen Boetcher, told me that if we got Sen. Lee’s support we would get a whole lot of conservative activists to join.  We’re trying multiple approaches to him.  We’re pretty certain he’s with us, but he doesn’t want to upset Eagle Forum, part of his base, and partly responsible for his caucus victory over Bennett.  Kirk Uhler told me he’s really tight with Mark Levin, so I spent a few hours Tuesday and Wednesday waiting to get on Levin’s #4 ranked radio talk show.  I got 3 or 4 minutes of air time.  I told him we were looking to Sen. Lee for help.  I didn’t get the impression that he’ll call Lee on our behalf.  He’s an irritable son of a bitch, and he picked up that I was trying to steer him to a place he didn’t want to go.  Over all, I’ve been told that it went quite well, though.  I must say I was surprised by his lack of enthusiasm for our effort.  He sent copies of his book to every state legislator in the country, and here we are doing what he passionately believes in, and yet a ho-hum response.  Maybe the CoS guys are pals of his, or something.  Anyway, my big idea of getting him to be our cheerleader doesn’t look promising.

I asked Kraig to contact reporter Gehrke of the Salt Lake Tribune.  He wrote a pretty good piece on the committee hearing I testified at.  We want him to call Lee’s DC office e and try to get an answer from the Senator on his position on HJR 8.  Kraig tried, to no avail.  He says Gehrke is a liberal who doesn’t do favors for R’s.  Oh, well.

The community is the 7300 or so members of the 50 state legislators.  The organization is a network of Article V supporters. 

The Mount Vernon Assembly last December, where 100 state legislators met to discuss the procedures of an Amending Convention, was aimed at organizing this community.  They’ll meet again in Indianapolis in June.  They’re trying to get presiding officers or their designees from every state.  The main man is Indiana Senate President David Long.  

The Article V Caucus is organizing this community as well.  ALEC has been doing it for over 40 years, though not focused on Article V.

I’m trying to do my part through the BBA Task Force.  My ultimate goal is to have state legislators from around the country communicate with one another about the next Article V amendment.  The Utah House Speaker wants to repeal the 17th Amendment.  I’ve heard a fair amount of talk about repealing the 16th Amendment, thus ending the income tax.  I’m for term limits, but I’d settle for the Madison Amendment — which would make it easier for states to amend.  The best one of all, I think, will also be one of the hardest to pass, so it should be the third Article V amendment.  That would allow 30 states to overturn a law passed by Congress or a regulation of the feds. 

This comes up because my latest mind attack is to organize legislators to lobby each other on Article V.  The effort is underway for Utah.  The Task Force is reaching out to a dozen or more of our more committed legislative supporters, asking them to contact around 15 members of the Utah House — not to ask them to pass the Reso, but to assure them that Harry Reid, Obama, and Congress will have absolutely nothing to do with an Amendment Convention.  Any attempt, by anyone, to interfere with the workings of the Convention will be summarily rejected.  And, of course, to assure them that only the BBA will be considered.  Kraig Powell is hearing these arguments a lot, and this is what we’re doing to deal with it.

The more these legislators interact with one another, the better.  Very few of them realize it, but they’re all members of the Fourth, and Supreme, branch of the government designed by the Framers.  This Super Legislature votes by state.  Right now it can only act with a 2/3 vote.  But it can do ANYTHING — except reduce the equal suffrage of the states in the Senate.  Once this community flexes its muscles, and exercises its power, it’s going to be mighty tempting to do it again.

Feds, beware.  The States are coming.