In his confirmation hearing last week, the first question asked of Alaska’s acting Attorney General Stephen Cox was from Republican Senator Gary Stevens. Stevens asked what the AG could do to address the people’s increasing distrust in government. Trying not to be controversial, Acting AG Cox gave a typical politician’s non-answer. Since Cox failed to answer the question, let me explain to the good Senator why the public doesn’t trust him. It is really pretty simple. The people don’t trust the government because it has failed to fulfill its responsibilities. Here are some examples.

Alaska has the highest rate of violent crime in the country, especially violent crime against women. Nothing exemplifies this more than our largest city. I talked to three women in Anchorage, and all related how dangerous their lives are. One woman who works at an office on 5th avenue has to walk a zig-zag path to her car every evening through a minefield of passed-out inebriants and panhandlers, with no police around to protect her. Another woman who also works downtown reported getting out of her car one morning and encountering a homeless person so high or out of his mind, he was spinning in circles with his arms out, shaking his fist at the sky, and cursing at everyone who walked by. She had to run into a hotel lobby to avoid a dangerous confrontation with this lunatic. A third individual reported stopping at a business in midtown with her kids, and as they got out of their car, they found used syringes and bloody underwear scattered in the parking lot. Sorry for the graphic detail, but I am sure women in every other city in Alaska have similar stories to tell. Life in Alaska is dangerous for them. They have no reason to trust the government.

Senator Stevens, our country is based on a social compact between the people and the government. You get your power and authority from the consent of the governed. By failing to do your job properly, the people no longer trust you.

Then there is distrust of our judiciary, resulting from the botched Judge Murphy perjury trial. When that case was dismissed on a technicality and then never presented to another Grand Jury, it gave the impression of a cover-up. When the grand jury’s public report on her indictment was suppressed, it further strained the public’s confidence in the judiciary. The final nail in the coffin was the unconstitutional Supreme Court Order 1993, which subverted the grand jury process so that no future independent investigation into judicial malfeasance can ever happen. It is bad enough that the judiciary is under a cloud of suspicion, but when neither the previous attorney general nor the legislature took any action to defend the rights of the citizens, it gives the impression of collusion and cover-up. Like a tote full of rotting fish sitting in the hot sun, the stench clinging to the state justice system from the Murphy case is only getting worse with time.

Then there is distrust in the electoral process. Alaska has more registered voters on the voter rolls than eligible adults living here, a physical impossibility. Those extra voters result in a large number of late-arriving absentee ballots that always seem to sway election results after election day. Just examine the last RCV recall attempt in 2024 if you need an example.

There should be no surprise that voters distrust the Alaska election system, especially when neither the Lt. Governor nor the Division of Elections has shown any interest in addressing the matter. When we question the Division of Elections about the inflated voter rolls, they tell us this is normal because of Motor Voter legislation and automatic PFD voter registration. Their story is implausible on the face of it, but it gets worse when you look at the legislature’s lame attempt at improving things. This legislative session, the legislature attempted to correct issues in the election system with Senate Bill 64, but it was a controversial and poor attempt at election reform. The bill was ten years in the making, but so poorly written that the governor vetoed it two weeks ago. We have serious election issues in this state, including inflated voter rolls and the detestable Ranked Choice Voting system, but all we get from the Division of Elections and the Legislature are half-hearted attempts at action. The voters will have no confidence in elections until we get a system that can be trusted.

Then there is the behavior of our elected officials once in office. Many of the politicians campaigned as conservative Republicans to get elected, but then once elected, joined with the Democrats to form governing caucuses in both houses of our legislature. Those caucuses have not governed like the conservative majority they were elected to be. Once in Juneau, they advanced a liberal agenda that has abandoned fiscal responsibility. One clear sign of that is that every state budget in the last 10 years has resorted to stealing a large portion of the PFD from Alaskans to balance the budget. That PFD is allotted to the citizens by statute and then taken from them by despicable politicians who are more concerned with pandering to their campaign contributors than serving the people of this state. That is no way to get the public to trust you.

Senator Stevens, our country is based on a social compact between the people and the government. You get your power and authority from the consent of the governed. By failing to do your job properly, the people no longer trust you. If you really want to know who to blame for the lack of trust the people have in government, go look in the mirror, and you will see the problem. If you want to do something about this distrust, try serving the people for a change instead of abusing them.

The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.

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