Juneau Empire
Alaska voters will be asked to sign petitions reinstating the state’s Coastal Management Program and once again giving the state and local communities an official say in what happens in federal offshore waters. Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell Tuesday certified the petition, using the full 60 days in which he was given to review it.
Lake and Peninsula Borough citizens filed an application to have the Save our Salmon Initiative to appear on the next municipal election ballot, according to a press release. The Initiative, sponsored by 24 Lake and Peninsula Borough residents, will prohibit any large-scale resource extraction activity, including mining, if that activity could destroy or degrade salmon waters.
Alaska Attorney General John Burns, and his predecessor, Attorney General Dan Sullivan, have each rejected anti-abortion ballot measures submitted by Anchorage’s Clinton Desjarlais. Now, the anti-abortion activist says he intends to go to court to get a measure on the ballot to ban abortion and stop the government-sanctioned taking of human life.
The state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an initiative requiring parental notification for minors seeking an abortion will be on the August primary ballot. Planned Parenthood had argued that more than 36,000 voters who signed the initiative petition failed to receive key information on sign-up sheets, for example that physicians could be charged and imprisoned if they failed to properly inform a parent.
A ballot measure facing Alaska voters in August claims to be opposed to corruption, but Alaska Municipal League’s Kathie Wasserman says it is actually an attack on citizen participation in their government. Wasserman told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce Thursday that a ballot measure deemed the “anti-corruption” initiative isn’t what it appears. “This initiative sounds on the outside like something we’d all back,” she said.
Anti-abortion activists are sponsoring an initiative that would declare a fetus a legal person. KTUU reported they’ll need more than 30,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot in Alaska.
Planned Parenthood of Alaska and a high school teacher have gone to court to block a voter initiative that would make it illegal for minors to get abortions without notifying a parent. The lawsuit filed Friday in Anchorage Superior Court says the state should not have certified the initiative because of legal technicalities and because it is misleading.