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Tag: Alaska state government

  • Alaska Natives rescued Navy crew in 1955. Their medals have arrived

    Alaska Natives rescued Navy crew in 1955. Their medals have arrived

    GAMBELL, Alaska (AP) — Bruce Boolowon, then a lean 20-year-old, and a group of friends were hunting for murre eggs in a walrus skin boat on a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait when they saw a crippled airplane flying low.

    “Something was wrong,” Boolowon, now 87, recalled of that day in 1955. “They came in and one engine was smoking.”

    Long before drones or weather balloons became military targets, a U.S. Navy P2V-5 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft had been attacked at about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) by two Soviet MiG-15 fighters roaring out of nearby Siberia. The plane’s right engine was destroyed and the pilot was making a controlled crash landing.

    Its 11 crewmen had injuries in varying degrees of severity, caused either by the bullets sprayed by the two jet fighters, shrapnel or the fireball that erupted when the Neptune landed wheels up on the tundra of St. Lawrence Island and fuel tanks stored in the plane’s belly exploded.

    “And as the plane decelerated, the fireball didn’t. And it rolled forward. It burned everybody,” the navigator on the flight, David Assard, told the Anchorage Daily News in 2015. Several of the men had severe burns.

    The men took refuge in a ditch on St. Lawrence Island — just 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Siberia and 715 miles (1,151 kilometers) west of Anchorage — to avoid the exploding ammunition and waited, but for what they weren’t sure. When the armed Siberian Yupik Eskimo egg hunters showed up, the Navy men didn’t know if they were about to be captured or rescued.

    “Well, they were glad to see us and that we were Americans,” Boolowon told The Associated Press.

    They were not only friendly faces but members of the First Scouts unit of the Alaska National Guard who lived on the island and whose job it was to monitor the Soviet Union given their proximity. The 16 guardsmen and an unknown Air Force member helped the crew get medical attention and alerted military authorities the men were safe.

    On Tuesday, the guardsmen were honored with Alaska Heroism Medals, giving the Alaska Native men the recognition that wasn’t available 67 years ago. Boolowon, then a corporal, is the sole survivor, and family members of the other 15 received the medals on their behalf.

    Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, not only approved the medals for the men, he personally handed them out at the ceremony held with a driving snow outside. Residents filled the gym at John Apangalook School in Gambell, home to the King Polar Bears — or Qughsatkut in Siberian Yupik— sports teams. Family members receiving medals sat in honored seats on the gym floor, and Saxe posed for photos with each after presenting the medals and a certificate. A community luncheon followed.

    “I’m glad we’re going to get recognized a little bit for saving the crewmembers,” Boolowon said.

    Shortly after the June 22, 1955, rescue, two of the guardsmen, MSgt. Willis Walunga and SSgt. Clifford Iknokinok, received honorific letters and certificates from the Navy and National Guard. They were taken to Washington, D.C., and presented “Wings of Gold” with the Honorary Naval Aviator Program designation. They were only the second and third persons so honored after the program started in 1949.

    The other 14 only received letters. “I don’t know why they didn’t include us,” Boolowon said of the Navy designation.

    There were no other medals available to the men for their deeds because it wasn’t a combat mission, and the rescue was considered a peacetime affair.

    “The families felt like that the members should have received a better award than a letter of appreciation,” said Verdie Bowen, the director of the state Office of Veterans Affairs. “The best one that we could find that fit this feat of valor was the state of Alaska’s Heroism Award,” he said. It honors Alaska National Guard members who distinguish themselves by heroism, meritorious achievement or going beyond the call of duty.

    Boolowon was with Iknokinok, Walunga and others in the first boat to arrive at the crash site, where they found the men.

    He said they weren’t scared it was a Soviet aircraft because they were familiar with the U.S. plane from its frequent maritime patrols out of Naval Air Station Kodiak. On this mission, the plane was looking for icebergs and navigational aids in the Bering Strait. The wreckage of the plane still sits 8 miles (12.9 kilometers) from the village.

    Boolowon and two other men from the first boat went to Gambell to get medical supplies, stretchers and more help. Another boat arrived, and the guardsmen eventually took the men to the village for treatment by a local nurse at a clinic and a church until a transport plane arrived about 12 hours later to take them to Anchorage. Seven of the injured were later flown to California to recuperate.

    The June 22, 1955, attack was labeled a possible “mistake” by embarrassed Soviet leaders and came at a problematic time for the Soviet Union. A summit to de-escalate Cold War tensions was planned the following month in Geneva with President Dwight Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and the prime ministers of Great Britain and France.

    After learning the plane was shot down, Eisenhower directed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov during the 10th anniversary meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco.

    Molotov was unaware of the incident but promised an investigation. The Kremlin wired Molotov his instructions, which included presenting Dulles “with a conciliatory note that admitted the incident could have been ‘due to a mistake,’” David Winkler, the historian at the Naval Historical Foundation, wrote in his 2017 book ”Incidents at Sea: American Confrontation and Cooperation with Russia and China, 1945-2016.”

    It was the first time the Soviets both ever expressed regret and paid reparations, Winkler told the AP last summer, and the summit went on as planned. The Soviets agreed to compensate the U.S. for the plane, sending just over $35,000 (about $400,000 today) in reparations. The money was split among the crewmen.

    In the early 1990s, Assard travelled to Gambell to thank them and presented the village with a bronze plaque.

    “We were very fortunate in landing on an American island and being found by American Eskimos,” Assard, the flight navigator who is now deceased, told the Anchorage newspaper in 2015. “They couldn’t have been more gracious.”

    The other 13 guardsmen posthumously awarded medals were Pfcs. Holden Apatiki, Lane Iyakitan, Woodrow Malewotkuk, Roger Slwooko, Vernon Slwooko and Donald Ungott; Sfc. Herbert Apassingok; Sgt. Ralph Apatiki Sr.; Cpls. Victor Campbell, Ned Koozaata and Joseph Slwooko, and Pvts. Luke Kulukhon and Leroy Kulukhon.

    JoAnn Kulukhon accepted medals on behalf of her two uncles and plans to prominently display them in her home. “I’m so proud of them,” she said. “I know they’re happy.”

    As for receiving his own medal, Boolowon said the recognition is simply for work well done.

    “I’m glad we did our duty as a guardsman,” he said.

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    AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Biden creates national monuments in Nevada, Texas mountains

    Biden creates national monuments in Nevada, Texas mountains

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is establishing national monuments on more than half a million acres in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. The conservation measures are “protecting the heart and soul of our national pride,″ Biden said.

    Speaking at a White House summit on conservation action, Biden said the new monuments are among the “natural treasures” that “define our identity as a nation. They’re a birthright we have to pass down to generation after generation.″

    Biden designated Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in southern Nevada that Native Americans consider sacred, as a national monument, along with the Castner Range in El Paso, Texas. He also moved to create a national marine sanctuary in U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.

    Conservation and tribal groups praised Biden’s actions, but Nevada’s new Republican governor slammed the monument designation as “federal confiscation” of Nevada land and “a historic mistake that will cost Nevadans for generations to come.”

    Gov. Joe Lombardo, who unseated the state’s Democratic governor in November, said the White House did not consult with his administration before moving to block clean-energy projects and other development in his state. “This kind of ‘Washington Knows Best’ policy might win plaudits from unaccountable special interests, but it’s going to cost our state jobs and economic opportunity,” Lombardo said in a statement.

    “Our national wonders are literally the envy of the world,″ Biden said in a speech at the Interior Department. “They’ve always been and always will be central to our heritage as a people and essential to our identity as a nation.″

    The Nevada site spans more than 500,000 acres (200,000 hectares) and includes Spirit Mountain, a peak northwest of Laughlin called Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE’ kwa-meh) by the Fort Mojave Tribe and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The rugged landscape near the Arizona and California state lines is home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and a large concentration of Joshua trees, some of which are more than 900 years old.

    In Texas, the Castner Range designation will protect cultural, scientific and historic objects, honor U.S. veterans and tribal nations, and expand access to outdoor recreation on public lands, Biden said. Located on Fort Bliss, Castner Range served as a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Army ceased training at the site and closed Castner Range in 1966.

    Together, the two new national monuments protect nearly 514,000 acres (208,000 hectares) of public lands. The Avi Kwa Ame landscape is sacred to 12 tribes and is home to rare wildlife and plants, while Castner Range is the ancestral homeland of the Comanche and Apache people, and its cultural ecology is considered sacred to several Indigenous communities.

    “To the native people who point to Avi Kwa Ame as their spiritual birthplace, and every Nevadan who knows the value of our cherished public lands: Today is for you,″ tweeted Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nevada, who sponsored a bill to protect the rugged region near the Mojave National Preserve from development, including solar farms and a proposed wind farm.

    “Spirit Mountain will now be protected for future generations,″ Titus said.

    Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Avi Kwa Ame “holds deep spiritual, sacred and historic significance to the Native people who have lived on these lands for generations,″ adding that she was grateful to Biden “for taking this important step in recognition of the decades of advocacy from tribes and the scientific community.″

    In the Pacific, Biden directed the Commerce Department to initiate a marine sanctuary designation to protect 777,000 square miles around the Pacific Remote Islands. If completed, the new sanctuary would help ensure the U.S. reaches Biden’s goal to conserve at least 30% of ocean waters under U.S. jurisdiction by 2030, the White House said.

    The area to be protected is “larger than Alaska and Colorado put together,″ Biden said.

    Biden’s actions come as he faces sharp criticism from environmental groups and youth activists over his approval of the huge Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.

    Biden has made fighting global warming a central part of his agenda and has pledged to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. But the decision on Willow has alienated supporters, particularly young activists skeptical about political compromise at the same time Biden is planning to announce his reelection campaign.

    Climate activists gathered outside the Interior Department on Tuesday to condemn what they call Biden’s “climate hypocrisy” and demand the administration change course on Willow. Protesters hung a large yellow banner that said, “Stop the Willow oil project” and chanted “no more drilling, no more drilling, no more drilling on federal land.”

    In Texas, the Castner Range monument “will preserve fragile lands already surrounded on three sides by development,″ help ensure access to clean water and protect rare and endangered species, said Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar.

    Fort Mojave Tribe Chairman Timothy Williams, who attended the conservation summit, said tribes throughout the Southwest consider Avi Kwa Ame to be sacred land. Biden’s creation of a new monument demonstrated his “commitment to respect tribal nations and our nation-to-nation relationship.″

    Under the leadership of Biden and Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member, “We have a seat at the table and we have seen an unprecedented era and opportunity for our tribal communities,″ Williams said.

    The Honor Avi Kwa Ame coalition, which includes tribes, local residents, state lawmakers and conservation groups, said its members were “overjoyed” at the new monument.

    Biden designated his first national monument, in Colorado, last year. In 2021, he restored the boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah after they were significantly narrowed by President Donald Trump, a Republican.

    Biden announced other steps Tuesday to conserve, restore and expand access to public lands and waters, promote tribal conservation and reduce wildfire risk. The proposals seek to modernize management of America’s public lands, better harness the ocean to help fight climate change and better conserve wildlife corridors, the White House said.

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    Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Ken Ritter and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this story.

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  • Biden OKs Alaska oil project, draws ire of environmentalists

    Biden OKs Alaska oil project, draws ire of environmentalists

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday it is approving a huge oil-drilling project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope, a major environmental decision by President Joe Biden that drew quick condemnation as flying in the face of his pledges to slow climate change.

    The announcement came a day after the administration, in a move in the other direction toward conservation, said it would bar or limit drilling in some other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.

    The approval of ConocoPhillips’ big Willow drilling project by the Bureau of Land Management will allow three drill sites including up to 199 total wells. Two other drill sites proposed for the project will be denied. ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Ryan Lance called the order “the right decision for Alaska and our nation.”

    More on the Willow project

    The Houston-based company will relinquish rights to about 68,000 acres of existing leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

    The order, one of the most significant of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s tenure, was not signed by her but rather by her deputy, Tommy Beaudreau, who grew up in Alaska and briefed state lawmakers on the project Monday. Haaland was notably silent on the project, which she had opposed as a New Mexico congresswoman before becoming Interior secretary two years ago, until releasing a video Monday evening.

    She described Willow as “a difficult and complex issue that was inherited” from earlier administrations. Because ConocoPhillips has held leases in the area for decades, Haaland said officials “had limited decision space” to block the project but focused on minimizing its footprint.

    Haaland defended the Biden administration’s record on climate change, saying, “I am confident that we are on the right path, even if it’s not always a straight line.”

    Climate activists remained outraged that Biden approved the project, which they say puts his climate legacy at risk. Allowing the drilling plan to go forward marks a major breach of Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil drilling on federal lands, they say.

    Monday’s announcement is not likely to be the last word, with litigation expected from environmental groups.

    The Willow project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenues for the federal, state and local governments, the company said.

    The project, located in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, enjoys widespread political support in the state. Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with Biden and his advisers in early March to plead their case for the project, and Alaska Native state lawmakers recently met with Haaland to urge support.

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Monday the decision was “very good news for the country.”

    “Not only will this mean jobs and revenue for Alaska, it will be resources that are needed for the country and for our friends and allies,” Murkowski said. “The administration listened to Alaska voices. They listened to the delegation as we pressed the case for energy security and national security.”

    Fellow Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said conditions attached to the project should not reduce Willow’s ability to produce up to 180,000 barrels of crude a day. But he said it was “infuriating” that Biden also had moved to prevent or limit oil drilling elsewhere in Alaska.

    Environmental activists who have promoted a #StopWillow campaign on social media were fuming at the approval, which they called a betrayal.

    “This decision greenlights 92% of proposed oil drilling (by ConocoPhllips) and hands over one the most fragile, intact ecosystems in the world to” the oil giant, said Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen. “This is not climate leadership.″

    Biden understands the existential threat of climate change, “but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals,″ said Dillen, whose group vowed legal action to block the project.

    John Leshy, who was a top Interior Department lawyer in the Clinton administration, said Biden’s climate goals aren’t the only factor in an environmental review process that agencies must follow.

    Leshy, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, called the decision on Willow defensible, adding: “I think it reflects a balancing of the things they have to balance, which is the environmental impact and the lease rights that Conoco has.″

    Christy Goldfuss, a former Obama White House official who now is a policy chief at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said she was “deeply disappointed″ at Biden’s decision to approve Willow, which the BLM estimates would produce more than 239 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over the project’s 30-year life, roughly equal to the combined emissions from 1.7 million passenger cars.

    “This decision is bad for the climate, bad for the environment and bad for the Native Alaska communities who oppose this and feel their voices were not heard,″ Goldfuss said.

    The Willow project has been a particularly galvanizing issue for young activists, who flooded TikTok with videos opposing the proposal.

    Biden has not commented publicly on the project’s approval. However, he talked about climate change with Kal Penn, an actor who served in the White House under President Barack Obama, in an interview that was taped last week and will be aired Monday evening on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

    “We’re going faster than anyone has ever gone,” Biden said when asked about young people who want him to push harder. He said the energy situation “got really complicated” with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, adding that “we’re going to need fossil fuel.”

    “So it’s a matter of transitioning, but it’s not like you can cut everything off immediately,” Biden said.

    Anticipating anger among environmental groups, the White House announced Sunday that Biden will prevent or limit oil drilling in 16 million acres in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. The plan would bar drilling in nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea — closing it off from oil exploration — and limit drilling in more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve.

    The withdrawal of the offshore area ensures that important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears and other wildlife “will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development,″ the White House said in a statement.

    The conservation announcement did little to mollify activists.

    “It’s a performative action to make the Willow project not look as bad,” said Elise Joshi, the acting executive director of Gen-Z for Change, an advocacy organization.

    City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is closest to the proposed development, has been outspoken in her opposition, worried about impacts to caribou and her residents’ subsistence lifestyles. “My constituents and community will bear the burden of this project with our health and our livelihoods,″ she said.

    But there is “majority consensus” in the North Slope region supporting the project, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose members include leaders from across much of that region.

    The conservation actions announced Sunday block drilling in the Beaufort Sea and build on President Barack Obama’s actions to restrict drilling there and in the Chukchi Sea.

    Separately, the administration moved to protect more than 13 million acres within the petroleum reserve, a 23-million acre chunk of land on Alaska’s North Slope set aside a century ago for future oil production. Areas to be protected include the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay Special Areas, which serve as habitat for grizzly and polar bears, caribou and migratory birds.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this story.

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  • In rift with Biden, Manchin vows to block oil, gas nominee

    In rift with Biden, Manchin vows to block oil, gas nominee

    WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sign of a deepening rift among Democrats on energy issues, conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says he will not move forward on President Joe Biden’s nominee to oversee oil and gas leasing at the Interior Department.

    Manchin, of West Virginia, chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and has great influence on energy and environmental issues in the closely divided Senate. In an op-ed Friday, he cited a leaked memo signed by nominee Laura Daniel-Davis that proposed charging oil companies higher rates for drilling off the Alaska coast.

    Manchin said the higher rates backed by Daniel-Davis for the proposed drilling project in Alaska’s Cook Inlet “were explicitly designed to decrease fossil energy production at the expense of our energy security.″

    Even though he had supported Daniel-Davis in the past, “I cannot, in good conscience, support her or anyone else who will play partisan politics and agree with this misguided and dangerous manipulation of the law,″ Manchin wrote in the Houston Chronicle.

    The dispute over Daniel-Davis’s nomination comes as the Biden administration nears a decision on a major oil project in Alaska that many environmental groups say would be a blight on Biden’s climate legacy.

    Climate activists are outraged that Biden appears open to the huge Willow project on Alaska’s North Slope, which they call a “carbon bomb” that would break his campaign pledge to curtail oil drilling on public lands and waters.

    Approval of the project would risk alienating young voters who have urged stronger climate action by the White House as Biden approaches a 2024 reelection campaign.

    At the same time, Alaska Native leaders with ties to the petroleum-rich North Slope support ConocoPhillips Alaska’s proposal. They say the Willow Project would bring much-needed jobs and billions of dollars in taxes and mitigation funds to the vast, snow- and ice-covered region nearly 600 miles (965 kilometers) from Anchorage.

    Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and state lawmakers also support the project.

    Daniel-Davis, who currently serves as Interior’s principal deputy assistant secretary for lands and minerals management, would not directly decide the fate of the Willow project, but Manchin and Alaska’s two Republican senators have criticized what they consider her lukewarm support for oil drilling on public lands and water. Daniel-Davis oversees Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

    She was first nominated for the assistant secretary position nearly two years ago, but her bid has stalled because of the concerns of Manchin and Senate Republicans. Biden renominated her for the post in January.

    In a statement Friday, the White House said Biden “nominated Laura Daniel-Davis because she has worked to conserve public lands, protect wildlife and address climate change for three decades, while prioritizing a collaborative and partnership-based approach. She is well-qualified for this position and we look forward to her moving forward in the confirmation process.″

    Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, said Interior was “very disappointed” to learn of Manchin’s opposition to Daniel-Davis after he supported her during two committee hearings and votes over the past two years.

    “Laura Daniel-Davis has served this administration, as she has two others, with a dedication that we should aspire to see in every public servant,″ Schwartz said in an email. “She will continue to lead this portfolio at Interior and implement President Biden’s direction, stated consistently and clearly since Day One, with respect to carefully balancing the role that public lands and waters play as we face the climate crisis.”

    Daniel-Davis is one of several Biden nominees whom Manchin has opposed. Another is Gigi Sohn, who withdrew her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission after Manchin opposed her.

    Manchin also voted against Daniel Werfel’s nomination to lead the Internal Revenue Service. Werfel was confirmed Thursday with support from several Republicans.

    Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the energy panel, hailed Manchin’s latest announcement. “Laura Daniel-Davis has done everything she can to undermine American energy production. As I have said before, her nomination should be withdrawn,″ Barrasso tweeted.

    But Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the liberal Center for Western Priorities, called Manchin’s “flip-flop” on Daniel-Davis “baffling, hypocritical and short-sighted.″ Daniel-Davis will continue to oversee oil and gas leasing in her current role, “with or without Manchin’s support for a promotion,″ Rokala said. “But now the White House and Interior Department have no reason to keep catering to Manchin’s whims.″

    In his op-ed, Manchin sharply criticized the Biden administration’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, a key climate, tax and health care bill that Manchin helped craft.

    “While the Biden administration has continued to play political games and incorrectly frame the IRA as a climate change legislation, the truth is that the IRA is about securing America’s energy independence for the coming century,″ Manchin wrote.

    “The Biden administration continues to ignore congressional intent on critical components of the IRA … to illogically advance a partisan climate agenda and appease radical activists,″ Manchin added. He said the Interior and Treasury departments “have explicitly and unabashedly violated the letter of the law … in an effort to elevate climate goals above the energy and national security of this nation.”

    Manchin has repeatedly slammed Treasury for issuing guidelines that allow car makers in Europe and Asia to bypass requirements that significant portions of electric-vehicle batteries be produced in North America.

    “This is wrong and it must stop,″ Manchin wrote.

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  • Alaska lawmaker with Oath Keepers ties eligible for office

    Alaska lawmaker with Oath Keepers ties eligible for office

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Alaska lawmaker with ties to the far-right Oath Keepers group is eligible to hold office, a state judge ruled Friday.

    Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna issued the ruling after overseeing a trial this month in the case against Republican state Rep. David Eastman. The decision can be appealed.

    The ruling found that Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers, but that he “does not and did not possess a specific intent to further the Oath Keeper’s words or actions aimed at overthrowing the United States government.”

    Eastman was sued by Randall Kowalke, who was among those who earlier this year filed challenges to Eastman’s candidacy for the Alaska House with the state Division of Elections. The division determined Eastman was eligible to run for reelection, but Kowalke’s attorneys argued the division failed to investigate Eastman’s eligibility under the so-called disloyalty clause of the state constitution.

    That provision states that no one who “advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold” public office.

    Eastman won reelection last month but McKenna had previously ordered certification of the election results be delayed pending trial and further order from the court. The new legislative session begins Jan. 17.

    Nationally, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and a Florida chapter leader have been convicted of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. A trial against four other Oath Keepers is ongoing.

    Eastman has acknowledged his membership in the Oath Keepers but said during the trial that he sees the group as dormant. Eastman said he was in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 for a speech by then-President Donald Trump but did not participate in the riot. Eastman has not been accused of any crimes. He has not disavowed the Oath Keepers.

    The judge found that his membership in the far-right group doesn’t disqualify him from public office.

    The judge’s order is on hold pending a possible appeal. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4 to discuss whether an appeal has been filed.

    “We’re obviously disappointed with the outcome, but we’re proud of the case we put on,” Kowalke’s attorney, Goriune Dudukgian, said in an email. “We will make a final decision on an appeal at some point next week.”

    Eastman’s attorney, Joe Miller, said in a text message that they’re pleased with the ruling.

    “We are especially glad to see the rejection of Plaintiff’s argument that those who simply attended a speech given by the President somehow participated in an insurrection,” Miller said.

    Rhodes, who is awaiting sentencing, testified on Eastman’s behalf, including providing at-times difficult-to-understand testimony from inside his cell. He said he did not direct anyone to go into the Capitol and said a decision by some to go inside was “stupid,” in part, because it “exposed us to persecution” by “political enemies.”

    Miller in court documents said “none of the plea agreements, and none of the indictments, and none of the convictions that have heretofore been obtained, reference any conduct that qualifies as an attempt to overthrow the government.”

    Sam Jackson, who has studied the Oath Keepers, is an assistant professor at the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University of Albany. He said Eastman is the first person he is aware of facing a challenge to his eligibility to hold office specifically due to ties to the Oath Keepers.

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