Breaking: Fairbanks assemblyman resigns after Assembly majority censures another member’s free speech

Brett Rotermund, serving on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, has resigned his seat in protest of the Assembly censuring Assemblywoman Barbara Haney, a fellow conservative, over having expressed her opinion.

Haney wrote an opinion column in the Fairbanks New Miner, and the editors added to the end of it that she serves on the Assembly. The reference had not been included by Haney, but a radical in the Fairbanks community lodged an ethics complaint about the reference, and during Thursday’s meeting, the Assembly majority censured Haney and fined her $1.

Rotermund resigned because he believes the Assembly has violated the Constitution. The leftists on the Assembly were saying that Assembly members have no right to any public communication without a disclaimer — email, campaign literature, op-eds included, but not, apparently, verbal communication, only written. Borough code they cited her under says “all communication,” which implies op-eds have to have a “paid for” disclaimer on them.

Fairbanks leftists seek to quash free speech of conservatives through bogus ethics complaints

The presiding officer of the Assembly, Savannah Fletcher, is running for state Senate. She is a specialist in using law fare to get her way and suppress the rights of others and is associated with the Northern Justice Project. As an attorney, she has gone after Rep. David Eastman, Rep. Kevin McCabe, Sen. Lora Reinbold, the Mat-Su School District, and others.