Once-powerful Jim Clark falls victim to VECO’s web
March 5th, 2008
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Former Democratic House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, who served while Murkowski was in office, called the news tragic, but says he can’t forget what he called four years of bullying tactics.
“There was an unholy alliance of big oil, the Murkowski administration and the Republican operatives that treated the Legislature and state assets as their own private domain,” said Berkowitz, who is now running for Congress.
“They operated by threat instead of logic,” Berkowitz said. “You do better with people by persuading them, than when you try to bully them, but that’s what he did.”
Berkowitz said Clark once told lawmakers that if they didn’t pass a statewide sales tax, there would have to be cuts in social programs. And the hubris didn’t stop there, Berkowitz said. Even against the Legislature’s wishes, Murkowski bought a jet on the state’s dime so he could travel around Alaska and to the Lower 48 more quickly.
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