Juneau’s open secret: The Capitol culture of mutually assured destruction

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Partying going on in Juneau? None of this is new.

What spilled out of the bars and into public view this week on a political blog and then on the Amy Demboski Show on KENI didn’t shock anyone who’s spent time around the Capitol. It just said out loud what everyone already knows, and what too many people pretend not to see.

The so-called “party house,” now the worst-kept secret in Juneau, is only the latest chapter in a book as old as statehood. Affairs between married legislators and staff. Drinking that starts in committees and continues long after work. Drugs and drag shows. Secrets that are whispered but in reality are common knowledge. And the wink-and-a-nod understanding that as long as everyone keeps their mouths shut, the behavior can continue.

The culture is one of mutually assured destruction if anyone blows the whistle.

Here’s what Demboski said in an especially candid segment of her show:

As she says in the clip above, “You better not slip in the hallways of the Capitol because you might pick up gonorrhea.”

This Capitol Culture goes back. To review …

Back in the pipeline boom years, when money flowed like water and the state budget doubled almost overnight, the Capitol became a playground. I know because I saw it. I worked briefly in the Capitol during those years. Legislators, staff, and even executive branch officials partied hard. Cocaine wasn’t a rare sight. Sometimes it was on desks in lines, ready to snort … yes, even on the upper floors of the Department of Law. Women orbited the power brokers like fine accessories. The excess was shrugged off as part of the era. Boys being boys, politics being politics.

Caller Response to Juneau

Fast forward a few decades, and the names and personal preferences or pronouns have changed, but the behavior hasn’t.

There was the Love Caucus a few years back. There was the one (or more) legislator who fathered a child with a direct report. There have been endless late nights fueled by alcohol at places like the Triangle, long known as a legislative watering hole. Everyone in Juneau knows which bars, which houses, which doors are revolving. Oh if the walls could talk.

Now it’s the “Animal House,” owned by a legislator already notorious for bad behavior, that’s become the focal point. The talk of the town. The place where lines blur and reputations and marriages go to die quietly.

They think it’s under wraps. It isn’t.

What makes this worse isn’t just the behavior itself. It’s the hypocrisy. This is a Legislature that lectures Alaskans about ethics, accountability, and trust in government. A Legislature that passes rules for everyone else while quietly exempting itself from basic standards of conduct. A Legislature that wonders why public confidence is collapsing, while behaving like the Capitol is a frat house with better suits.

Not every legislator or staffer is involved. Not even close. Many come to Juneau to work, serve, and go home. There are many that do their jobs, who call constituents back, and toil late into the nights. But the tolerance of this behavior stains everyone. Silence becomes complicity. Looking the other way becomes endorsement. And it gives the entire Legislature a bad name.

Yes, we know, power corrupts. When lawmakers carry on affairs with staff, when alcohol and drugs become normalized, when secrets are traded like currency, the public interest always comes last. Decisions get compromised, people get protected who shouldn’t be. Everything has a price in those halls, including silence.

They think we don’t know. But many of us do know who is doing who, where they’re doing it, and how many more are in line. As they say in Juneau, you don’t lose your girlfriend, you just lose your turn.

The party has spun out of control. Those involved, you know who you are. We do too.

Suzanne Downing is founder of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.