ALASKA: Governor Proposes Amendment To Overturn Court Decision

Well, that was fast! I posted on Sunday about a decision by the Alaska Supreme Court which preserves domestic partner benefits for same-sex domestic partners of public employees. Now comes word that the Governor of the state, Frank Murkowski (former U.S. Senator and father of current U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski) is proposing a state constitutional amendment to overturn that recent court ruling. You may recall that in the case of ACLU v. Alaska the Alaska Supreme Court said that the "[state's] spousal limitations violated the Alaska Constitution equal protection clause." (bold emphasis mine.) This is how Republican's react when constitutional violations are pointed out by a court: try to amend the constitution. Of course, the other strategy is to appoint judges who won't recognize the constitutional violation in the first place.