Mike Hawker, One Lucky Lying "Corrupt Bastard"

I’ve had just about as much as I can take of Rep. Mike Hawker (RINO-Anchorage).

Let me be blunt. He is a cynical and dissembling politician. He is a flat out liar.

He’s been carrying on and making a general ass of himself to the local and national media saying stupid things like this:

Anchorage Republican Rep. Mike Hawker, co-chairman of the committee that writes the budget, said TransCanada seems to be merely subcontracting some work to Exxon. “My take is what’s going on here is a completely overblown media circus,” said Hawker, whose wife works for Conoco in its Cook Inlet operations.

Overblown media circus? No, see, we’re talking about a natural gas pipeline that will be the largest private energy project in the world. We’re not talking about Troopergate.

Exxon is partnering – not subcontracting. There’s a big difference.

You just learned that Hawker’s wife works for Conoco, the company with a rival pipeline project in competition with Gov. Palin’s AGIA based pipeline, but let’s look a little closer.

Who is Mike Hawker? Let’s take a stroll down a crooked lane...

Hawker is a charter member of Alaska’s “Corrupt Bastards Club.” He’s one of the lucky ones though (he’s not wearing an orange jump suit).

The nickname [“Corrupt Bastards Club”] originated in the spring of 2006 as a barroom joke among Alaska legislators after a guest article by Lori Backes, executive director of All Alaska Alliance, that ran in Alaska’s three largest newspapers named 11 lawmakers who had received large campaign contributions from executives of the oilfield services company VECO Corporation, which has a long history of making large campaign contributions to Alaska politicians.

Here’s what Lori Backes wrote in her famous article:

According to Alaska Public Offices Commission reports, the most prolific and consistent “investor” in Alaska politics is the oil industry; with the employees of VECO Corp. standing out as the single largest contributing block.

Between 1998 and 2004, reports show that VECO employees and their family members contributed no less that $914,929.71 to Alaska political campaigns, with the following totals representing the amount of donations received from only the top seven VECO executives:

Sen. John Cowdery, chairman, Senate Rules Committee: $24,550
Rep. Pete Kott, former speaker of the House: $21,300
Rep. Norman Rokeberg, chairman, House Rules Committee: $18,000
Rep. Vic Kohring, chairman, House Special Committee on Oil and Gas: $14,708.65
Gov. Frank Murkowski: $14,300 (Does not include donations to his U.S Senate campaigns.)
Rep. Kevin Meyer, co-chairman, House Finance Committee: $12,300
Rep. Mike Chenault, co-chairman, House Finance Committee: $12,000
Rep. Lesil McGuire, chairwoman, House Judiciary Committee: $12,000
Sen. Con Bunde, chairman, Senate Labor and Commerce Committee: $11,500
Sen. Lyda Green, co-chair, Senate Finance Committee: $9,000
Rep. Mike Hawker, House Finance Committee member, Legislative Budget and Audit Committee: $8,050
Rep. Tom Anderson, chairman, House Labor and Commerce Committee: $8,000

One should note that these totals do not include Senate President Ben Stevens’ “consulting” contract with VECO, Rep. Meyer’s salary and benefits from ConocoPhillips; the salary, retirement and stock options to the Rep. Hawker household from ConocoPhillips or his own contract with ASCG, of NANA Corp., which has contracts for oil field services with VECO and BP, while he was involved in confidential discussions on the gas line contract. [emphasis added]

The crooked lawmakers listed in Backes' article just laughed her off:

According to Rep. Mike Chenault (R-Nikiski), one of the lawmakers named in the article, “Somebody walked up [in the bar] and said, ‘You corrupt bastards,’ and that name stuck.” Hats with the label “CBC,” standing for “Corrupt Bastards Club” or “Corrupt Bastards Caucus,” were later printed up, but according to Chenault “that was the extent of the CBC deal.”

Guess which one of the lawmakers named it the “Corrupt Bastards Club”?

You guessed it – Mike Hawker. What a card that guy is! Ha!

Under oath Pete Kott stated: “Mike Hawker came up with the name (Corrupt Bastards Club).” (from: US v Kott Case 3:07-cr-56 Document 212)

We have Rep. Pete Kott discussing the “CBC” baseball hats in a conversation wiretapped by the FBI:

Three pages of Kott’s May 29, 2006, conversation with Smith, also on a tapped cell phone, concern Kott’s efforts to obtain 20 Veco hats embroidered or printed with “CBC.”

The letters refer to the Corrupt Bastards Club, an informal group of legislators who received large contributions or employment from Veco.

“Hey. How many of them hats you want CBC on the back?” Kott asked Smith.

After trying to figure out what Kott was talking about, it finally clicked, and Smith said 15 or 20.

“We gotta figure out who the club is,” Smith said.

“Yeah,” said Kott.

“Gotta get with Hawker,” he said, referring to Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage.

“Yeah, I know,” said Kott. “Yeah, the 20 might be a lot.”

“Well, I mean, but then, you know, we need some for Bill (Allen) and, you know, and s--- like that,” Smith said.

Hawker said Tuesday he had no idea why Smith was referring to him, but he knew about the “club.”

“There was nothing nefarious involved,” Hawker said. He was among a group of legislators, including Kott, and others who were joking one night in the bar at the Baranof Hotel in Juneau. A newspaper column had questioned whether campaign contributions from Veco to lawmakers created undue influence over the state’s political process.

The joke was they were all part of some kind of “corrupt bastards club,” Hawker said, and part of the joke was some of them were writing an increase in state oil taxes.

“At the time it was just gallows humor at best,” Hawker said. [emphasis added]

Sure it was. Nothing at all “nefarious” about it. Can’t imagine why any of them would mention you as if you were a pal... *wink, wink*

Hawker never got busted himself, but he sure hung out with a lot of folks who did.

In the summer of 2007, he was on a sailing trip “in which bribes were discussed involving a private prison in Whittier. Mike Hawker was on the sailboat while illegal interactions between convicted legislator Tom Anderson and lobbyist Frank Prewitt took place.”

The ADN reported on it:

...on Aug. 5, 2004, Prewitt took Anderson, Bobrick and state Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage and the head of two key budget panels, on his sailboat for a trip out of Whittier. Prewitt acknowledged he recorded the outing.

[...]

On the trip, when Hawker was asked if he was on the budget panel for health, education and social services, he responded: “I own the HESS subcommittee,” Stockler said. Wasn’t that kind of talk just boastful? Stockler asked. True, Prewitt said.

While Hawker’s name has come up in the trial as a supporter of private prisons and halfway houses, he wasn’t getting paid to take those positions, Prewitt said.

Oh, well, that’s good to know. He was just hanging out with guys who were and cracking jokes about “owning” subcommittees. Sounds just like the sort of honest public servant we all want representing us.

Hawker is a cynical little man who is lucky he didn’t get caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

As JR noted back in March:

Hawker represents the Murkowski wing of the GOP and all that comes with it, which includes secret tax negotiations with the oil companies and VECO campaign contributions and goodies. This wing of the Alaska GOP represents the worst of “crony capitalism.” Hawker was a supporter of former Governor Murkowski’s “PPT Tax,” which was conducted behind closed doors, without much input from the rest of the legislature.

You’ll recall that six legislators were indicted for taking bribes from VECO in exchange for voting in favor of PPT, which benefited the oil producers and shortchanged Alaskans.

We’ve always known he was cynical and shady, but this hit-piece on Gov. Palin by KTVA yesterday, which relied heavily on Hawker’s outrageous lies, was just too much.

Hawker is claiming that Gov. Palin has no right to be upset about the sexual exploitation of young women.

House Finance Co-Chair Mike Hawker, R-Alaska, is highlighting the fact Alaska has the nation’s highest domestic violence and sexual assault rates, and says the governor is under-funding public safety.

[...]

“It is my personal opinion that the Department of Public Safety has been woefully under funded,” Hawker says, “and is absolutely being denied the material resources they need to address the issues across rural Alaska.”

Did Gov. Palin under-fund the Department of Public Safety?

Let’s see what the budget numbers actually show us:

FY2004 Operating Budget - $78,346,400 for DPS – under Gov. Murkowski
FY2005 Operating Budget - $84,344,000 for DPS – under Gov. Murkowski
FY2006 Operating Budget - $94,502,800 for DPS – under Gov. Murkowski
FY2007 Operating Budget - $104,898,200 for DPS – under Gov. Murkowski
FY2008 Operating Budget - $108,104,700 for DPS – under Gov. Palin
FY2009 Operating Budget - $119,065,000 for DPS – under Gov. Palin
FY2010 Operating Budget - $129,194,800 for DPS – under Gov. Palin

As you can see, Gov. Palin allocated more spending to Public Safety than her predecessor, and she has been increasing spending yearly to address the issues of rape and violent crimes.

Hawker doubles down on stupid with this outrageous bit of dissembling:

Without the governor’s support for a new crime lab, Hawker says the real solution cannot be addressed.

“We absolutely need a new and expanded crime lab facility in order to handle that,” Hawker says. “The administration this year just really prevented the discussion from getting started.”

Hmmm, it’s not the governor who stands in the way of allotting the funding for the crime lab.

In an article this past February, the ADN noted:

Gov. Palin sought money for the new lab in a bond proposal last year. But as record-breaking oil prices filled up the state treasury, lawmakers decided against asking voters to do any borrowing. Instead, legislators put up $12 million, which finished the design and will prepare the boggy site so it is ready for building this spring. But oil prices have crashed since last year, and a $1 billion-plus budget shortfall is looming. In her pending budget, Gov. Palin didn’t request any money to take the final step and actually build the new crime lab.

So this important crime-fighting project sits on the drawing boards, all queued up and ready to go -- as soon as the state finds $94 million to build it.

Gov. Palin wanted to bond for it, but lawmakers rejected that idea. But at the start of the legislative session, lawmakers like Hawker were screaming that the governor’s budget was too big, and yet now Hawker tells us that he wanted the governor to include $94 million for the crime lab. She came up with a bare bones budget for a time of recession. That’s what you do during a recession. The lawmakers could have funded the crime lab with a bond when they had the chance. Now, who knows.

Hawker was all too happy to scream that Palin’s budget was too big, and yet he never once proposed what she should cut. And now he is whining because she didn’t include $94 million for a crime lab. (Also, keep in mind that Palin’s administration appears to have accurately predicted the rise in the price of a barrel of oil. Mike was wrong about that too.)

The ADN reported last month:

...the Legislature and Gov. Palin have spent the money to design a much larger, state-of-the-art [crime] lab and prepare the site for it, along Anchorage’s Tudor Road, a half-mile west of the current lab. This project is shovel-ready, but lawmakers have not yet seen fit to fund construction.

Part of the funding delay comes from project critics, who claim the $94 million project is overbuilt and gold-plated. They got the state to commission a peer review of the design, but the results of that work are not yet public.

Guess who was the first of the “project critics”? You got it – Mike Hawker. And now he’s whining about it not getting funded. Newsflash, Mike: you sit on the Finance Committee. It’s your job to push for the funding if you want to see it there. If you have a problem with the crime lab funding being pushed down the list of priorities, then take it up with the Senate Finance Committee. Take it up with your fellow lawmakers, not the governor. You guys control the purse strings, and you criticized her fiscally conservative budget as too big to begin with.

Work on the new crime lab is still moving forward because Gov. Palin allocated $12 million for the design and site preparation. They anticipate getting the full funding after the peer review of the design is made public and the legislature meets for the next session.

And even without the new crime lab, Palin’s Department of Public Safety has made excellent progress in keeping the turnaround time for laboratory service requests less than 30 days.

In CY2006, 62% of service requests were completed in less than 30 days. In CY2008, 78% were completed in less than 30 days. Clearly, Gov. Palin’s DPS has made great progress – even without the fancy new crime lab.

But, of course, Hawker was lying. Don’t take my word for it:

Late Friday afternoon, Administrative Services Director Dan Spencer responded to CBS 11 News’ request for comment from Palin.

Spencer called Hawker’s characterization misleading, saying the governor has actually increased the Public Safety Department and the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Council’s budgets since the Murkowski administration.

The governor’s philosophy, according to Spencer, is to increase public safety funding once all Trooper positions are filled. That had not been the case until recently, so Spencer says the administration does not agree with Hawker’s philosophy.

Spencer says it was actually the legislature who reduced Palin’s requested public safety budget by $1 million this year, including eliminating new trooper and village public safety officer positions.

Whoops! That would be Hawker’s Finance Committee again. So, who is really responsible for “denying the Department of Public Safety the resources they need”?

Now, let’s backtrack for a moment, and look at what I consider a disturbing assertion that Hawker makes:

Hawker’s accusations sound very similar to those made during Troopergate. He says Palin’s bad family-Public Safety Department relationship is playing out with the governor poorly funding that department, including efforts to fight sexual assault.

“Clearly there were incidences of the family’s problem with that organization, and I’m really afraid that it has resulted in denying the Department of Public Safety the resources they need,” Hawker says.

[...]

Hawker says instead of trying to help those numbers improve, the governor has hurt the Public Safety Department because of the Palin family-Trooper Wooten relationship.

First off, she hasn’t denied them anything. We’ve already proven that. Second, the Palins have nothing whatsoever to apologize to the Department of Public Safety for in the Troopergate investigation. On the contrary, the Palins are owed an apology. They are the ones who are still being harassed by Mike Wooten – a terrible trooper who has no business wearing a badge.

Essentially Hawker is faulting the Palins for reporting on a bad cop who tasered their nephew, drank on the job, and threatened to kill the governor’s father. So, reporting on a bad cop = deciding to under-fund efforts to fight sexual assault. Make sense?

In her book “Guilty,” Ann Coulter noted the following about the bogus partisan Branchflower Report:

On the main charge against Palin, the firing of her public safety commissioner, the investigators found it “was proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority” to fire her own department head. Though the report doesn’t dwell on it, this particular public safety commissioner was badly in need of firing. In the midst of the Palin family’s formal complaints about state trooper and former Palin brother-in-law Mike Wooten for threatening her family, drinking on the job, and Tasering Palin’s nephew, the public safety commission asked the governor to sign a photo of a state trooper, in uniform, saluting the flag for the purpose of turning the photo into a poster. The trooper chosen for this photo was none other than…Mike Wooten!

But the report also accused Palin of “abuse of inaction” for not preventing her husband from complaining about Wooten. Notwithstanding Palin’s stated fear of the trooper, the report concluded that this was not a genuine fear because according to the geniuses on the investigating panel, getting Wooten fired would not make him any less dangerous. “On the contrary,” the report advised, “it might just precipitate some retaliation on his part.”

So whatever you do, do not complain about abusive cops: They might retaliate! Though I still think it might make them a little less dangerous to take away their badges and guns.

[...]

In any other connection, a woman going through a divorce from a cop who had made threats against her father and Tasered her son would be a Lifetime TV (for women) movie. The media had to do a highly unusual 180-degree turn on cops to make Sarah Palin the villain in this story.

Yes, indeed. Mike Hawker is still trying to make her the villain, which is awfully brazen given Hawker’s shady background.

By the way, he's up for re-election in 2010. Is there no honest Alaskan brave enough to take on this dissembling little man?