By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO
There’s an old adage, that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. But in modern politics, especially here in Alaska, evil often triumphs because incompetent men and women occupy the seats of public trust and do nothing well. The danger is not just what they fail to do, it’s what they enable by failing.
The Alaska Legislature is a perfect case study. Sixty elected officials, all sworn to uphold the Constitution and act in the public interest, preside over some of the most consequential decisions affecting our lives, from energy policy to education funding, health care, and beyond. Yet when we follow the money, by examining Alaska Public Offices Commission reports, we find that many of these officials are financially tethered to special interests who routinely write the very bills these legislators sponsor.
This is not representation. This is outsourcing — moral, intellectual, and democratic outsourcing.
Instead of engaging deeply with the challenges facing their districts, our legislators are rubber-stamping prepackaged bills crafted by lobbyists, political action committees, national nonprofits, and public-sector unions. The legislative process becomes a theater of deliberation while the real decisions are made elsewhere, behind closed doors, at luncheons, or in carefully curated donor roundtables. Competence is neither required nor rewarded.
This is not just laziness. It is a systemic betrayal. When you are elected to serve the people but act on behalf of those who funded your campaign, you are no longer simply incompetent. You are participating in a moral inversion. You are facilitating harm through negligence and cloaking it in the procedural rituals of democracy.
And the consequences are real. We get laws that expand bureaucracy rather than reduce it. We get educational mandates that serve unions, not students. We get Medicaid policies that reward monopolies, not patients. Most disturbing, we get a citizenry that begins to believe corruption is normal and competence is impossible.
Some will say this is just how politics works. But that’s a coward’s answer. It is precisely this mindset—the passive acceptance of systemic failure—that allows evil to metastasize in the body of government.
If we are to rescue Alaska from this descent, we must restore legislative sovereignty and competence. Every bill should come with a transparency tag disclosing its true authorship and affiliations. Campaign contributions must be viewable in real time as floor votes happen. Legislative leadership should be earned through demonstrated integrity and expertise, not partisan loyalty or donor clout. And perhaps most importantly, we must build local drafting capacity—allowing legislators and their constituents to shape laws rooted in lived experience, not distant ideology.
We cannot afford a legislature that governs by submission. Alaska is too vast, too rich in potential, and too vulnerable to waste another decade on political caretakers unwilling to think for themselves.
Incompetence may be forgivable in a rookie. But when that incompetence becomes a mask for power serving everything but the public good, it becomes something far darker.
It becomes evil.
A Decade of Evil Through Incompetence: Year-by-Year Breakdown
- 2015 – Walker’s Unilateral Medicaid Expansion: The legislature fails to stop a constitutionally questionable executive overreach. The long-term financial liability is silently transferred to future Alaskans, and Indian Health Service obligations are quietly absorbed into the state bureaucracy.
- 2016 – Education Budget Bloat: Lawmakers increase the Base Student Allocation with no performance accountability, while rural schools collapse under administrative weight. No structural reform is proposed or passed.
- 2017 – Oil and Gas Tax Credit Flip-Flop: Legislators cave to lobbyist pressures and reverse course on needed reforms, bleeding the treasury to subsidize corporate risk with no long-term strategy for reinvestment or ownership.
- 2018 – PFD Cuts Institutionalized: After the initial raid, the legislature fails to restore the statutory Permanent Fund Dividend, solidifying a precedent of using citizens’ money to fund government waste.
- 2019 – Criminal Justice Chaos: House Bill 49, rushed under public panic, replaces SB 91 without proper analysis or local input, increasing incarceration without solving root causes.
- 2020 – COVID Spending with No Oversight: Billions in CARES Act funds are disbursed with minimal legislative oversight. The legislature recesses rather than taking charge of the emergency budget process.
- 2021 – Federal Dependency Deepens: Lawmakers eagerly accept American Rescue Plan funds without considering the long-term regulatory strings, further tying Alaska’s sovereignty to Washington.
- 2022 – Education Industry Capture: Despite abysmal test scores, the legislature gives more money to a failing system without opening it to competition or performance-based reform. Unions write the talking points.
- 2023 – Ranked-Choice Voting and Voter Confusion: No serious effort is made to reform or repeal a voting system passed by a narrow margin and riddled with confusion. Legislators stay silent to avoid donor retaliation.
- 2024 – Statehood Undermined in Silence: Legislators fail to act meaningfully against federal land lockup, IHS delegation, or ESG regulatory creep—allowing Alaska’s autonomy to shrink year after year.
- 2025 – Aggressive Leftward Shift Without Accountability:
- Plans to expand the Base Student Allocation move forward without any performance metrics or student outcome requirements.Defined benefit pensions return, exposing future taxpayers to unsustainable financial obligations once abandoned for their risk. A suite of “progressive” election reforms, including softened recount procedures, synthetic media loopholes, and ambiguous definitions of “election interference,” are rushed through under the guise of modernization. Energy legislation championed by special interests threatens to raise home heating and utility costs, especially for working families in Alaska’s coldest regions.
- And once again, the statutory Permanent Fund Dividend is gutted, diverting wealth from individual Alaskans to a bloated government apparatus that refuses to shrink, reform, or justify its cost.
This is not just a list of legislative missteps. It is a chronology of dereliction. These failures weren’t inevitable; they were chosen. Or worse, they were tolerated.
If Alaska is to survive the next 10 years with what spirit and sovereignty it still has intact, we must end this fusion of cowardice and capture. We must demand competence as a moral imperative, not just a political convenience.
Because evil doesn’t always arrive with malice. Sometimes, it walks in dressed as indifference and makes itself at home.
Michael Tavoliero writes for Must Read Alaska.
PACs and unions have rigged the system thanks in part to planted liberals like Lisa Murkowski and her minions. What is the solution? How do Alaskan’s unrig the democratic bulldozer which is pushing the state to full on Marxism?
I agree.
Sadly though, these are duly elected officials making these decisions.
People here cast those ballots and elected these individuals.
The problem is us.
Sorry, the problem is RCV and mail in ballots along with dead people voting, our voter roll is atrocious, why hasn’t that been fixed? People are tired and they have given up, I know, I talk with them daily.
So?? Those of us with common intelligence have long been aware of mentioned problems.. We donate, we vote, we write but still Alaska continues down the whirlpool to the bottom.. Sadly, many of those who vote are just plain stupid. And as the man said, you can’t fix stupid.
We citizens should do more than vote. To ensure our elected officials are accountable, we need to talk to them directly by either: walking into their office, writing a letter/email or phone call.
“We the people” means that WE need to let them all know what we want and need. Otherwise, they are guessing or in many cases; following the $$$$$$
Where’s Mike?
This is so on point. Put your hat in the ring for Governor please.
The Alaskan people are not informed and don’t understand the ramifications of not vetting their legislators. Second, voter turn out is insanely low. Without getting involved in local government your excepting others ideology and views. Please do it for your children.
Just received Matt Clamen’s newsletter:
“Prior to adjourning, the Legislature passed a balanced budget that funds essential services and does not overdraw from savings”
Matt, balanced? Really? $200 million needed Using AIDEA and AK performance scholarship $. I don’t call that balanced. I call that stealing! The AK leg is a criminal organization.
The evil I have seen and experienced inside the system of State of Alaska government during my 30-year career is outrageous. At this point, I could probably write my own Alaska version of Kash Patel’s book Government Gangsters that includes governors, attorney generals, commissioners, directors, and countless members of the legislature. As I mentioned in your other article, no one cares. And until we get a governor that does care and is willing to do what is necessary, it’s only going to get worse.
With midterms coming up I only see it getting worse Too many people have their heads buried in trying to make a living and not paying attention till it’s too late, Or just that stupid, Alaska is sinking fast and I hate it!
If you spend some time watching the legislature during a committee meeting, bill introduction, or a Q and A about a bill, you will see how truly intellectually deficient many of the elected officials are. I watched the House Finance committee recently debate or discuss a bill that would modernize a set of outdated laws. The Bill being debated is a model law passed by many other states, and has support from both the industry and regulators. The questions or comments posed by the Republican members was embarrassing. The other side did fare much better, but it seemed that each side was given a set of talking points from a lobbyist either supporting or opposing the bill. These elected folks are NOT doing the hard work, and they are lazy ignorant buffoons. Alaska certainly deserves better.
Thank you for a succinct, albeit depressing, overview of the past ten years. Regardless of how ‘tired’ we all are, giving up, checking out, not voting, not vetting, are all apathy and contribute to the problem. The quote commonly credited to Edmund Burke, ‘Evil prevails when good men do nothing’ is true. I also agree with CB above that our election system in our state is part of the problem.
We will hopefully have another opportunity to rid ourselves of RCV, but to do so will require large voter turn out. What would it take for Anchorage to also get rid of the cheat by mail as well? Who is responsible for our state voter rolls and why have they not been dealt with?
Judicial Watch has sued Alaska for NOT cleaning up the voter rolls. Nothing has changed. As pointed out it appears dead people are voting, people that moved long ago are voting and those in nursing homes that haven’t voted until the last few elections are voting. Recounts and recalls are a joke. Systemic problem from TOP DOWN! It isn’t the legal voters fault. I read somewhere and it appears very true – those that count the votes determine the winner. Twice our state election absentee ballots have been rejected with NO opportunity to correct or respond. Twice our mail in votes in Anchorage were rejected with no opportunity to correct or respond. So I say it is NOT the voters it is the ballot counters and rigged system that is broken. It was very obvious when the repeal of RCV was ahead until right at the end. I say in person voting with voter ID only and legitimate absentee ballots. NO MORE MAIL IN BALLOTS that are sent to every in the voter registration database that ARE HARVESTED and returned by phantom voters! Vetting by political parties is a joke. Alaska needs an independent committee that isn’t party to PACS to vet ALL candidates.
None of this would have happened if Alaska’s population actually voted. Rather, we get a government of idiots installed by a well-organized coalition of progressives who do go out and vote. Sanity will not prevail until we figure out how to motivate that large majority of non-voters.
Amen,amen,amen with the voter apathy displayed at all levels in this state we are reaping what has been sown.
My best regards for succinctly annotating the challenges that face Alaska going forward. The question now is how will we rally the state’s citizens to do the right thing and rid ourselves of the corruption, graft, and fraud occurring in our government on all levels. I think the real problem is the void that exists in leadership. We need people with character, around whom we might gather with a cohesive, majority voice that unifies those who recognize the urgent call for change. Who is willing to answer the call?
Absent any real shift in leadership, the only possible hope for a modicum of integrity would be to move the legislative sessions out of Juneau and onto the road system. The legislators would then have to face their constituents and answer directly to the citizens for their legislative cowardice in real time.
Even a casual observer will conclude that Alaska always has had an incompetent state legislature. I can count on one hand the number of half-way decent ones since statehood.