Since at least 2012, Jim Minnery has been the executive director of the Christians Alaska Family Council. And for all of those 12 years, Minnery has played ambush politics in judicial retention elections, singling out a judge or justice who issued a decision that Minnery thinks is bad and arguing Alaskans should therefore vote against retention of the judge of justice.

The Alaska Constitution requires that state superior court judges stand for retention election every six years. To assist voters in deciding whether or not to retain a judge, the Alaska Judicial Council conducts performance evaluations of all judge standing for election. Judge Al Zeman, one of the judges standing for retention, received excellent scores. Attorneys, court employees and jurors all gave Judge Zeman very high marks, across the board.

Alaska’s trial judges don’t get to pick their cases; the cases are assigned. Judge Zeman was assigned a challenge to Alaska’s school voucher program, a lawsuit claiming that the voucher program, as it was being administered, violated Alaska’s constitutional ban on use of state funds to support religious schools.

The voucher program, in its present incarnation, was proposed and supported by then state senator, and now Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy. When he proposed it, Dunleavy knew it would require a constitutional amendment, and in fact introduced such an amendment. The voucher program passed into law; the constitutional amendment never made it to the floor of the state senate for a vote. Later, as governor, Dunleavy approved use of vouchers to pay tuition at religious schools. An indisputable, direct violation of the Alaska Constitution.

Faced with uncontradicted evidence that state voucher funds were being distributed to private religious schools, Judge Zeman had little choice but to find the use of Alaska’s DEED vouchers to pay religious school’s tuition fees unconstitutional.¹

Minnery doesn’t like the result. But instead of pressing for the constitutional amendment that would allow state monies to go to his Christianist schools, Minnery has again attacked the judge for following the Alaska Constitution, urging voters to disregard the Alaska Judicial Council’s recommendation and Judge Zeman’s decision following the Alaska Constitution, and instead kick Judge Zeman out because he didn’t do what Minnery wanted.

This is Minnery’s pattern: attacking judges who adhere to the law instead of doing what Minnery wants. He did it to Judge Sen Tan back in 2012, to Justice Dana Fabe in 2015, to Justice Joel Bolger and Justice Peter Maassen in 2016, to Justice Sue Carney in 2020 and to other judges and justices far too often. In 2022, Minnery wanted voters to reject all 29 judges on the ballot. In the hyperpartisan times in which we live, increasing number of voters seem to be listening, especially in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, part of the Third Judicial District. That’s concerning.

Alaska needs a judiciary that follow the law. That follows the constitution. We don’t need a judiciary that follows a theology, or the dictates of Christianist minorities. Indeed, it is that judiciary, certainly not Alaska’s governor or legislature, that protects citizens from the theocracy the Christianists seek.

Voters Alaska’s Third Judicial District should vote to retain Superior Court Judge Al Zeman.

Source: Wickersham’s Conscience

1. The Alaska Supreme Court, on appeal, has sent the case back to Judge Zeman, with instructions to address a couple of threshold issues and to find a narrower remedy than tossing out the entire voucher system. All the Alaska Supreme Court has given us so far is the bare order; we are still awaiting the full opinion. ↩︎