This guest post is from David Eastman, answering the question: why do our elected representatives continue to hide behind judicial decrees instead of exercising their constitutional authority, in service to their oath to the Constitution – “…all persons have a natural right to life… to equality of rights… to equality under the law?”

From David Eastman:

In Alaska, the left controls state govt and most local governments,  with Republican support.

This is the part you don’t often hear. AK is a right of center state, controlled by Democrats, run by Republicans.

The idea of bucking that system is anathema to all elected Republican officials. It would be like going to the Soviet-backed puppet prime minister of Poland after WWII and saying “be more capitalist”. It’s a non-starter. They hold their position with the blessing of Moscow. If they cross Moscow they lose everything, so the idea of them doing so is anathema to their political future. And everything is about their political future.

So, everything you hear a Republican elected official say, or see a Republican elected official write, in this state, needs to first be filtered through this bedrock perspective that is universally held by those currently in office.

When push comes to shove, they don’t get their political power from Republicans. They get it (or perceive that they get it) by a political power structure over which the left has veto power.

A new court ruling that vetoes this or that part of the Alaska Constitution is just one method they have used to exercise that veto. There are others.

The left has even arrogated to itself  the power to veto any amendment to the Alaska Constitution that it doesn’t support.

This is the perceived reality in which legislators on both sides of the aisle operate. It has been this way for decades. Look at their actions (not simply their rhetoric) to confirm that this is true.

Also, look back over recent decades and try to find even one piece of conservative state policy that the legislature achieved that remains in operation today. Perhaps the closest I’ve been able to find is when the state was forced to step back from the multi-billion dollar boondoggle that was the defined benefit pension debacle, and only because they literally couldn’t afford it any longer (and even today we are still billions in the hole).

Here is the conclusion:

If you acquiesce to the left on being able to rewrite the AK Constitution whenever and for whatever reason they like, then you accept they have automatic veto authority over everything. They become Moscow and you as a state official are simply a puppet subject in every meaningful respect to the regime in Moscow.

Passing a constitutional amendment is no exception since you will have already acquiesced to their possessing a veto power over constitutional amendments as well as the original text.

In other words, if you acquiesce on that point, you have already relegated current and future generations to the political tyranny of the left, come what may, and you had best simply see whatever state policies you can beg the left to accept. That’s it. There is no other avenue of pursuing a policy change.

In contrast to that, you have a constitutional form of government. In a constitutional form of government all elected officials take an oath to the constitution itself, not to the chief justice of the Supreme Court. No one branch of government has an absolute veto over any other branch, but the branch that comes closest to possessing one is the legislature because the constitution grants to the legislature exclusive authority to pass laws and to fund (and defund) government.

If Republican legislators choose to throw off the abject tyranny of the left and to operate once more under a constitutional framework then an equal protection bill is the way to do it. The entire system is able to lean on constitutional support for continued killing because the legislature religiously consents to the killing at least once every year, both legislatively (by not changing current law) and financially (by funding the killing in at least one appropriations bill that is signed into law). With a governor’s veto, even a minority of legislators could put a stop to it any time the appropriations bill comes up for a vote.

David Eastman is a Christian husband, father of six, four term Alaska Legislator, friend of Alaska Right to Life, and defender of God’s image and likeness in children.