Letters to the Editor

Critical comments ignore protection of both U.S., Alaska constitutions

Mr. McCombs' article of Dec. 20 is another example of consistent critical attacks on the "sport" fishing public users of Alaska's public trust fishery resources.

The commercial fisheries, many who are nonresident, sell over 80 percent of their harvest to foreign markets.

When he uses Gov. Tony Knowles' hypocritical, politically based statement, that the best use of fish are on "some" Alaskans' dinner tables, he, like Knowles, ignores the constitutional equal access protection of all citizens to fish for common use of these common property fishery resources.

During the first constitutional convention, some of the larger colonies wanted their residents to have special privileges to their larger resources. The rest of the colonies opposed this, stating that this would create a group of separate nations and not a union of equal states and citizens. This resulted in the adoption of Article 4 Section 2: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.) The U.S. Supreme Court has held that this mandated equality extends to both intrastate and interstate protection."

The 14th Amendment gave each sovereign state the specific servitude responsibility to assure these rights to all citizens, both resident and nonresident alike: "... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

So instead of your tiring attacks on the common users of Alaska's fish, have a Happy New Year and invite your sometimes friend, Gov. Knowles, to read the Alaska and U.S. constitutions with you.

Dale Bondurant, Soldotna