The Alaska Supreme Court agreed to take up an emergency appeal filed Friday on behalf of six Republican lawmakers who want to shut down an ongoing investigation to determine whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power when she fired her public safety commissioner.

The court scheduled oral arguments in the case for Wednesday.

Just minutes before Thursday night’s vice presidential debate an Alaska Superior Court judge issued a ruling in which he refused to block the probe, which the GOP lawmakers claim has become tainted by partisan politics.

In an 11-page decision, Judge Peter Michalski said, “it is legitimately within the scope of the legislature’s investigatory power to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the termination (of) a public officer the legislature had previously confirmed.”

On Friday, attorneys representing the lawmakers requested the state’s high court to take up the case, stating they as well as Alaska citizens “will suffer irreparable harm if the investigation at issue continues and if the resulting investigative report issues as planned on Oct. 10, 2008.”

The lawmakers are represented by Anchorage attorney Kevin Clarkson and Texas-based Liberty Legal Institute, which is affiliated with James Dobson’s fundamentalist Christian organization Focus on the Family.  

The probe centers on whether Palin and several of her senior aides pressured Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper who was engaged in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Gov. Palin’s sister. Palin initially welcomed the investigation, which was approved unanimously in July by the state’s Legislative Council, which has a Republican majority.

In their emergency appeal, GOP Reps. Wes Keller, Mike Kelly, and Bob Lynn, and Senators Fred Dyson and Tom Wagoner, said “the Appellees intend to complete an unconstitutional and unlawful legislative investigation of “the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public Safety Commissioner [Walter] Monegan and potential abuses of power/improper conduct by the executive branch.”

The report, scheduled to be handed to the state’s Legislative Council on Oct. 10 by independent investigator Steven Branchflower, is an “October Surprise” intended to influence the outcome of the presidential election, the lawmakers claim in their appeal.

In a filing Friday opposing the emergency appeal, Peter Maassen, the attorney representing Alaska’s Legislative Council, said the investigation, which has been dubbed ‘troopergate’, is nearly complete and the complaint filed by Republicans would not “shut down the investigation” rather their complaint serves to “suppress” the findings of the two-month old probe contained in the report.

“The prospect that this Court would suppress a report, the contents of which at this point are wholly unknown, solely on the unsupported assertions of the plaintiff legislators that it might possibly say something hurtful about somebody – the most likely “somebody”…being the Governor, who presumably can fight her own legal battles-is utterly far fetched,” Maasen’s response to the appeal says.

Last week, Maassen said in a court filing that Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign tried to derail the inquiry because its findings could “cause serious damage to the Republican ticket.”

The “McCain campaign and its supporters, having apparently convinced themselves that the facts would cause serious damage to the Republican ticket if publicly known before the national election, are now moving on many fronts-including this one-to slow and stop Mr. Branchflower’s fact-finding inquiry and to prevent his issuance of the report authorized by the Legislative Council,” said Maassen’s court filing.

Palin initially welcomed the investigation, which was approved unanimously in July by the state’s Legislative Council, which has a Republican majority. Branchflower was picked to head the probe under the supervision of Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat who chairs the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee.

However, after McCain picked Palin in late August to be his vice presidential running mate, national and state Republicans began suggesting that the investigation was a partisan witch-hunt against Palin.

In their lawsuit filed two weeks ago, GOP Reps. Keller, Kelly, and Lynn, and Senators Dyson and Wagoner, accused Branchflower, French and the Legislative Council’s Democratic Chair Kim Elton, of “conducting a McCarthyistic investigation in an unlawful, biased, partial, and partisan political manner in order to impact the upcoming Alaska general and national presidential elections, and they are conducting investigations into matters that the Alaska Constitution entrusts exclusively to the Executive Branch, over which the Legislature has no power to act.”

Alaska Superior Court Judge Michalski, however, said Thursday the Alaska Constitution “expressly creates a “legislative council” and authorizes it to “perform duties and employ personnel as provided by the legislature” and the legislature’s authorization to probe whether Palin abused her position is well within the legislature authority as defined by the state’s constitution.

On Thursday, Michalski also threw out a lawsuit filed by Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg in which he asked the judge to invalidate more than a dozen subpoenas seeking testimony from senior Palin aides. Colberg alleged Alaska’s Senate Judiciary Committee does not have subpoena authority. But Michalski rejected that argument.

Colberg did not state whether he would appeal the decision or advise witnesses in the case who have already been subpoenaed to testify.

The Senate Judiciary Committee authorized thirteen subpoenas Sept. 12 and five were served to officials in the Palin administration. Palin’s husband, Todd, also received a subpoena.

But the witnesses refused to comply with the summonses and did not show up for scheduled depositions. That prompted French to send a letter to Senate President Lyda Green, stating a refusal to respond to the subpoena requires the Alaska Legislature to decide whether to impose fines against or pursue contempt charges.
 
However, the senate does not convene until January so any action taken would be well after November’s presidential election.