Former state legislator Ray Metcalfe is trying to get an initiative on the 2016 ballot that would limit conflicts on interest in the legislature.
Metcalfe said he does not think any legislators would be interested in introducing the draft that he has come up with based on past experience.
Metcalfe: “Not a single legislator is interested in seeing this pass, I’ve had one phone call from one legislator but I initially proposed this about four years ago to the legislature and I went to Juneau and put it on everybody’s desk and showed them why it worked, why it functioned, why the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold it, and I couldn’t get a single legislator to introduce it.”
He also gave some history about what kinds of issues it would prevent.
Metcalfe: “Ted Stevens was sitting there at the helm of the state Senate and he was getting paid $4,000 a month by VECO for consulting but when you are the President of the state senate you’re working 18 hours a day basically seven days a week, you don’t have time for consulting. I took this to the state troopers, I wrote a big paper on why I thought he was violating all kinds of state laws, the state troopers didn’t even respond, I took it to the attorney general’s office, the attorney general wrote about a three page letter defending Ted Stevens. When we initiated a recall petition, they sent about a half a dozen attorneys to defend him from that recall petition.”
This would likely take Kenai Peninsula representatives like Speaker Mike Chenault and Senator Peter Micciche out of oil tax votes, like the recent SB21. Metcalfe says the pair wouldn’t be completely eliminated…
Supporters have one year to gather a little over 28,000 signatures. If that is turned in before the 2016 Legislative Session, it will appear on the 2016 ballot.