State agrees to $700,000 for anti-union crusade, with option to spend more

William Consovoy, the high-profile Virginia lawyer who said President Trump could kill someone and not face prosecution as long as he remains in office, has landed a new contract of up to $600,000 to continue Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson’s crusade against organized labor.

Clarkson gave Trump’s personal lawyer a no-bid $50,000 contract last August for the “Alaska discounted rate” of $600 an hour to pursue the state’s losing case related to the so-called Janus decision.

Clarkson wants to make it harder for unions to collect union dues, pushing a legal theory that has failed in numerous courts. The AG later doubled the Consovoy contract to $100,000, but that wasn’t nearly enough. The state issued a request for proposals in November for $600,000 more and picked Consovoy again in December.

Perhaps Clarkson low-balled the original deal because a legitimate cost estimate would have generated bad publicity about the Dunleavy big government footprint.

In November, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Greg Miller rejected the request by Consovoy’s team to be declared the winner in the second stage of the state case after losing the first stage against the Alaska State Employees Association.

“The state offers no legal authority for this novel argument—that having lost at the TRO (temporary restraining order) stage and offering no new arguments at the preliminary injunction stage—that the preliminary injunction should now be denied, that final judgment should be entered in favor of the state and that ASEA should not be permitted to pursue discovery or a determination on the merits of all five of its counterclaims,” Miller wrote.

With Consovoy’s firm now in line for a total of $700,000, the total may keep climbing as the contract says the amount can be “amended in writing at the discretion of the state.”

Consovoy, who has been busy trying to keep Trump’s tax returns hidden from the public, is getting paid by Alaska to “defend the attorney general’s opinion concerning interpretation of the Janus V AFSCME decision,” but has lost in state court.

His new contract allows him to seek a cost of living increase in the $600-per-hour rate a year from now.

The request for proposals was set up so that 70 percent of the "evaluation criteria" were based on experience, qualifications and the organization, giving an edge to the company already handling the case.

In the press release last summer announcing his lawsuit against the Alaska State Employees Association, Clarkson did not mention that he had hired the law firm for $50,000 or why one of the attorneys who works under him was not assigned to the task.

The collective bargaining agreement signed by the Dunleavy administration Aug. 8 requires that union dues be deducted from the paychecks of bargaining unit members. Every federal court, as well as state courts, arbitrators and state labor relations agencies that have dealt with the issue have agreed that the Janus case does not affect the validity of voluntary union dues payments.

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