Alaska Supreme Court says legislative immunity shields ethics committee from Reinbold suit

Legislative immunity bars courts from second-guessing how the Alaska Legislature's ethics committee disciplines its own members, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled Friday.

In plain terms: when the Legislature polices its own members, that's its business, and the courts won't step in, even to force a hearing or hand over the file. The decision ends former Sen. Lora Reinbold's four-year effort to force a public hearing and obtain the committee's investigative file, all of it stemming from a finding that she'd improperly blocked a constituent on Facebook. The court limited its holding to the Legislature's discipline of its own members, writing that "our discussion addresses only the legislature's discipline of its own members." It did not decide whether immunity shields every challenge to legislative action.

The court affirmed an Anchorage superior court's dismissal of Reinbold's suit against the State of Alaska and the Alaska Legislature Select Committee on Legislative Ethics. Justice Borghesan wrote the opinion.

The dispute began in February 2021, when an individual filed an ethics complaint alleging Reinbold blocked him on her Facebook page and deleted his comments. The nine-member committee, which includes four legislators and five public members appointed by the Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court, found probable cause that she violated two provisions of the Legislative Ethics Act: one on preserving the integrity of the legislative process, and the other, which requires that constituents have unencumbered access to legislators. The committee imposed no sanctions. It directed her to "refrain from blocking members of the public from commenting on her legislative social media site(s) solely for expressing opinions in disagreement with her own."

Reinbold deactivated the page. The committee then told her at a confidential meeting in March 2022 that the process was "complete" and denied her requests for discovery and a public hearing. She sued that June, arguing the denial violated her due process rights.

Legislative immunity under article II, section 6 of the Alaska Constitution "protects members of the legislature from litigation over the exercise of their official duties," the court held. Those duties include writing rules of conduct and sanctioning legislators who break them. The court said immunity applies even to due process claims.

The claims against the State failed on a separate basis. The court agreed with the superior court that Reinbold's original complaint alleged no action by the executive branch that could support relief, noting that the substance of her complaint concerned actions taken by the Legislature. Nor could the State hand over the ethics committee's investigative materials or hold a public hearing on the committee's allegations, the court said, because those actions were entirely within the committee's authority.

The court also rejected her argument that the federal Communications Decency Act barred the committee's action, holding the law "protects individuals from civil liability, not from nonmonetary legislative sanctions." Claims she sought to add against Gov. Mike Dunleavy over a 2021 letter were moot or filed too late.

Reinbold argued the case for herself. She raised the Alaska Constitution's "fair and just treatment" clause, which covers people subject to legislative investigations, but the court said neither side briefed how that right squares with legislative immunity and left the question undecided.