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Alaska Senate Incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski Dishes on Joe Miller (R-Tea Party) Over His Ethics Violations

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[On October 26th,] the campaign of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski put out a statement last night following release of documents regarding rival candidate Joe Miller’s employment at the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The brief statement from Murkowski is as follows:

“Joe tried to brush off his unethical behavior while he was a public servant at the Fairbanks Northstar Borough, calling the issue ‘petty.’ I believe Alaskans disagree with the severity of his actions and they expect more out of all employees serving in government positions – especially out of someone running for the United States Senate. The bottom line is Joe cheated, he lied, tried to cover it up, lied again, then finally got caught and had to admit it, just as he lied to Alaskans when he initially denied any problems with his employment at the borough, claiming his record was ‘exceptional’ and ‘second to none.’”
—Rod Boyce, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner managing editor

Miller Heavy. We now know conclusively why Senate Tea Party/Republican candidate Joe Miller fought to delay Tuesday’s court ordered document dump of relevant portions of his personnel records from his legal work at Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB). The documentary evidence gives the lie to his repeated dodging of the issues about his March 2008 misuse of FNSB computers for political purposes. [For background see TWSA! post of Oct. 20 and Oct. 26.]  Will all this actually hurt his chances on November 2nd?  I’ll take a guess later on.
On the campaign trail, in a toss-up election, Miller repeatedly ducked the questions, particularly whether he had been fired or disciplined for his violations of the FNSB employee Code of Ethics. The documents reveal that he was disciplined, had lied repeatedly to FNSB supervisors, had also abused FNSB’s leave policies, but had not been dismissed, although the circumstances of his sudden resignation suggest that his termination appeared imminent. [For an excellent report, see here.] 
Politicians_Miller,+Joe_TeaParty-140x140
Miller’s personnel records


Who’s Joe Miller?
Glance through Alaska Dispatch’s
coverage of Joe Miller.

Lately, with the personnel document release a possibility, Miller admitted the misuse of FNSB computers, calling the issue “petty,” of no importance to the election.  He denied that he resigned from his FNSB job on September 1, 2009 due to the 2008 ethics scandal. To buttresss this, Miller released some of his own records from that period, (Attachments 6 & 8), and, at first, they seemed to show he resigned for purposes related to a variety of issues with FNSB, including FNSB’s cancelling of his leave time in August 2008. 


So, in a way, he told the truth;  however, the truth about the question he chose to address. That “truth”, however, is subject to revision in light of the documents released Tuesday.  They reveal Miller was essentially dogged by his past at FNSB and, in the end, he had also abused and misused FNSB’s leave policies. For example, on September 1, 2009, the day of his resignation letter, Miller had cancelled a preapproved medical procedure that FMSB had approved for three and a half weeks total leave, with time for recuperation included. Then, later that day, when he was found out by FNSB, Miller refused to come back to work for the remainder of the day. Next up? Miller’s “resignation” letter.

As summarized by the Alaska Dispatch, FNSB personnel records revealed:

Miller called the line drawn by the borough over the technicalities of his time off as a “retaliatory act due to our differences,” but [supervisor] Dolan refused to budge.



“You cannot obtain leave on the basis that you need [redacted] immediately and keep the leave when that circumstance changes significantly. Instead you did not show up to work today and when requested to do so you resigned effective immediately. What exactly am I missing here,” she wrote in an e-mail to Miller about two hours after accepting his resignation.


By that time, Miller’s supervisors were already wary of the part-time attorney who clearly was on his way out. E-mails in his personnel file show colleagues and other outside attorneys had been told not to copy him on documents or correspondence having to do with what was once his biggest case — the trans-Alaska oil pipeline valuation matter.


When he failed to keep his medical appointment and then refused to come to work, that was it.


“So do we just consider him to have quit without notice today then?” Dolan wrote to Broker.


“That’s how I read it,” Broker replied.


His personnel file includes the notation that he is not eligible for re-hire for at least three years.

Miller Lite. Here’s a taste of how candidate Miller has viewed this controversy during the campaign, for example, in an interview with Real Clear Politics’ John King:

[All emphasis added]

KING: He [Alaska Dispatch reporter Joe Hopfinger, for background , see my October 10, 2010 post] says what he was trying to do is ask you some simple questions about your past work for the Borough (FNSB), for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. You have said that you don’t want to talk about those things. . .  

MILLER: Well I think that there’s been a real effort here in Alaska to basically take away from the Alaskan voter the opportunity to see the issues that are before them. There’s been a concerted effort to cloud it with things from the past that really have nothing — they’re petty issues and that’s all they are. They aren’t things that have anything to do with where we are as a state. . . And as long as we talk about petty issues or we talk about you know a reporter that assaulted somebody, we aren’t getting at the issues.

KING: I think a fair issue for any voter to make is can I trust somebody that I’m going to send to Washington for a six-year term to deal with these big consequential issues, and the question Mr. Hopfinger says he was trying to ask you was this. Were you ever disciplined when you worked for the Borough for improperly using essentially public taxpayer computers for political purposes?


 [Dodging interviewer King’ direct question, Miller continues, TWSA! writer comment]


MILLER: What he [Alaska Dispatch reporter/editor Hopfinger] asked me was I ever threatened with termination from the Fairbanks North Star Borough and I answered him directly and I said no and that’s the straight truth. That’s exactly what we’ve said consistently throughout this campaign and that was the answer that we gave him and again, yet another attempt to look at something from years ago to dissuade the voters from the issues that are at hand. Yes, our perspective is, is the record speaks for itself. The work I did there as a part-time Borough attorney speaks for itself. 

KING: The mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Mr. Whitaker, was quoted in a newspaper saying you were disciplined for violating the ethics policy. Is that true?

MILLER: I will answer that correctly that it was in fact a case that happened while I was at the borough. There were a myriad of things that happened over time and this was something back in 2008, but the fact of the matter is the performance of the borough at the time that I left had absolutely nothing to do with anything that happened two years before then. This is an attempt again to take away from the voters an opportunity to see where we are at as a state, an opportunity to take a choice that is not based on the past which is the Scott McAdams Lisa Murkowski path, but one that is designed to look at the petty issues and say that really is what matters to voters. I don’t think it’s fair to Alaskans. . .

Is he actually saying that his resignation without notice (Sept. 1, 2009) was due to “the performance of the bureau,” and not his own new violations of FNSB leave policies?  In fact, Miller had been warned for previous violations of the leave policy.  So Miller’s implication that on September 1, 2009 he suddenly quit his FNSB job due to conditions at FNSB runs hard aground on the facts of his leave policy violations and the likekihood that FNSB would discipline him or terminate his employment.   

Quo Vadis Alaska? SO, given the new revelations about Joe Miller – especially his attempted manipulation of FNSB’s leave policy – will any of this afffect his election prospects?  And if so, will the effect be negative or positive?  His far right and further right Tea Party support is thought to be glacier solid, but will the sudden glaring light of his personnel records pack enough heat to melt it a bit?  Since the beginning of October, incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski has gained a bit of ground, to be sure, although Miller has lost a small amount of support over time, he’s still maintained a lead of from 2 to 9 points, depending upon whose polls you believe. 

CNN/Time Poll Shows Possible Miller Weakness.  No poll yet has truly measured the preferences of likely voters since October 17th’s “debacle at Central High,” the Miller Town Meeting where Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger was handcuffed and “arrested” by Miller’s security detail.  On October 19,  however, a CNN/Time poll found the race to be a dead heat among likely voters with Miller and Murkowski both pulling 37% with Scott McAdams (D) at 23%. So perhaps Murkowski’s gain was due to the events a tthe Town Hall meeting blowing back on Miller. I believe it was.

Generally, a significant number of voters make no decision until the week of the election.  Although the polls indicate relatively few undecideds in Alaska, Miller, I believe, is stuck in the mud.  His months long record of deflecting  FNSB issues suggests he’s consistently played a shell game with the voters and the press that informs them.  He also was suspiciously late reporting his finanxial records, and within the last week questions have arisen regarding legal status of WIllow, Alaska property that Miller allegedly illegally failed to disclose in 2004 while serving as a federal magistrate.  The latest disclosures will, I think, cause Miller’s campaign to sink further into the mud, and benefit both Murkowski and Democrat Scott McAdams.  Will McAdams gain enough to contend?  Will Murkowski gain the lead in time for the election?  I’m guessing the toss up will be McAdams vs. Murkowski, with Miller consigned to the mud.  Well earned.

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Michael Matheron

From Presidents Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush, I was a senior legislative research and policy staff of the nonpartisan Library of Congress Congressional Research Service (CRS). I'm partisan here, an "aggressive progressive." I'm a contributor to The Fold and Nation of Change. Welcome to They Will Say ANYTHING! Come back often! . . . . . Michael Matheron, contact me at mjmmoose@gmail.com

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