Alaska ethics panel votes to seek relief from harassment training duty

Legislators and legislative staff could see their ethics instruction expand after the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics voted unanimously Friday to direct staff to send a letter to the Human Resources Manager and Legislative Counsel stating that sexual harassment and civility training falls outside the committee's purview and should be handled by a more appropriate agency.

The vote does not eliminate the training. Committee members argued it should be transferred to another office so the ethics panel can restore the core instruction it was chartered to provide. Joyce Anderson, a public member of the committee, made the motion and said the added assignment has squeezed out that core ethics instruction.

"When I came on board as administrator in 2001, we were not charged with this particular training," Anderson said. "I have always felt that adding this to the ethics training has reduced the ethics training which has limited then the information that is given to both legislators and staff."

The training responsibility originated in a 2018 sexual harassment and workplace harassment policy in which Legislative Counsel stated the training was required and assigned responsibility to the ethics committee. Staff noted the legal opinion behind that assignment asked only whether the training "may be included," not whether the ethics committee was the right body to conduct it. Members also raised concerns that since COVID-era training began, the same video recordings have been used without updates and without live instruction.

Rep. Alyse Galvin supported the move. "I concur this is not in the purview of what this committee's work is," Galvin said, adding that a formal vote and letter would signal the committee understands the training matters to the state even if another agency should conduct it.

Anderson was clear the training itself must continue. "That means somebody else would do the training. It would just be by somebody else other than us. It absolutely needs to be done."

The letter will go to both the HR manager and Legislative Counsel, the office whose 2018 policy created the assignment. The committee's vote directs staff to seek relief from the requirement rather than immediately transferring the duty, leaving the final reassignment to be worked out with HR and Legislative Counsel.