A lawsuit filed in Superior Court against the Haines Borough and assembly member Greg Goodman is ready for a judge’s decision.
Z. Kent Sullivan of Baxter, Bruce & Sullivan in Juneau filed a brief Feb. 16 on behalf of Karen Hess, a write-in candidate for the October assembly election. Sullivan also submitted a brief Jan. 14, and borough attorney Brooks Chandler responded Feb. 2.
Chandler has said he expects a ruling from Judge Philip Pallenberg by April or May.
Hess challenged that Goodman was not eligible for an assembly seat. According to borough charter, each candidate must be “a resident for at least one year immediately preceding the election.” A resident is defined as a person whose “habitual, physical dwelling place is within the area in question and who intends to maintain his dwelling place in that area.”
Goodman registered to vote in Anchorage on March 26, 2009, and re-registered in Anchorage on July 30 of that same year, Sullivan wrote in the first brief.
Goodman, a longtime Haines Police chief, returned his voter registration to a borough address Aug. 2, 2010. He had a house sitter in Haines during his time in Anchorage.
Sullivan has referenced Alaska statute that states, “The address of a voter as it appears on the official voter registration record is presumptive evidence of the person’s voting residence. This presumption is negated only if the voter notifies the director in writing of a change of voting residence.”
Chandler wrote that Goodman’s stay in Anchorage for employment at Everts Air Cargo was a “temporary relocation” and “the Assembly determined whether a person is a resident of the Borough is based on a person’s intent to reside within Borough boundaries.”
“Under Alaska law, it takes ‘clear and unmistakable’ terms in an election statute to undo the expressed will of a majority of voters and permit a ‘wholesale disenfranchisement of qualified electors through no fault of their own,’” he wrote.
Sullivan’s Feb. 16 brief argued that Chandler’s references to intent were too far-reaching.
“Were the court to accept the borough’s arguments about the importance of a candidate’s intent to the exclusion of all other facts or criteria, then perhaps no actual physical residency would be required at all, and a simple profound fondness for Haines in one’s heart in conjunction with residency in the distant past might suffice to make one eligible to run for Assembly in any given election,” Sullivan wrote.