Day 4: The House Majority outlines its priorities, kind of

Happy Friday, Alaska! It’s day… 4 of the 2023 legislative session.

Here’s the major takeaways from the day: Just a day old, the House Majority held its first news conference on Thursday to outline its priorities for session in the sort of way you’d expect a day-old majority would. It was pretty vague with few details beyond “fiscal stability” and returning respect to the chamber, but there were lots of little takeaways that I’ll run down today. The daily schedule. The Anchorage Assembly is really getting into the Bronson allegations, taking the extra step to make sure the mayor isn’t spying on their meetings. And the House Committee assignments.

Current mood: 🤨

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The House Majority outlines its priorities, kind of

There’s been a lot of questions about the new House Majority, which formed on Wednesday in a deal between 19 of the chamber’s 21 Republicans and the four-member Bush Caucus. A day after the formation, and we got a little better clarity on where everyone will be sitting this session when they released their committee assignments but are still pretty foggy on just what the House Majority hopes to get done.

At their first news conference of the session, House Speaker Cathy Tilton said the majority is keen on “fiscal stability” for the state and bringing back respect to the chamber. That was about it.

Here’s the key takeaways from the news conference:

• Asked what fiscal stability meant, Tilton said they were still working on just what that means in practice. She said the fiscal plan laid out by the working group last year—which essentially called for a little bit of everything (and was quickly abandoned when a little bit of everything included new revenue)—could be a good starting place, and mentioned a tighter spending cap.
• On the dividend, Tilton said she’s still supports a full statutory PFD and was happy to see it in the governor’s proposed budget (which has a roughly $300 million deficit at this time). Interestingly, though, she also said they’re not planning to overdraw the Alaska Permanent Fund and talked about getting public buy-in on any potential changes to the dividen formula.
• On education funding where there’s been a renewed push to increase K-12 funding through the base student allocation formula, Tilton said education is important and that they’re keen on making sure more money makes it into the classroom (a common line we’ve heard over the years) but that there’s more ways to go about that than just increasing K-12 funding. Mentioning the far-right think tank the Alaska Policy Forum, she said there are other ways to boost student performance.
• On working with the Senate, Rules Chair Rep. Craig Johnson was blunt that they simply couldn’t be bothered. “I don’t plan on paying a lot of attention to what the Senate does.” The House will do whatever it thinks is best throughout session, he said, and get with the Senate at the end.
• How with the priorities of the four Bush Caucus members be integrated into the budget? Rep. Neal Foster said it’s not about driving the ship but helping steer while raising concerns important to rural Alaska such as infrastructure, Power Cost Equalization and other issues. “There’s some sensitivity to that,” he said.
• How’s the House Finance Committee going to work this year? It’s getting a similar treatment as the Senate where the responsibility of chair will be divided over three people—Reps. DeLena Johnson (R-Palmer), Bryce Edgmon (I-Dillingham) and Neal Foster (D-Nome)—with Johnson taking on the job of operating budget while Edgmon and Foster will figure out some division on the capital budget and running legislation.
• Is there a binding caucus, a requirement that members vote for the budget and other issues? “We don’t have a binding caucus per se,” Tilton said but then went on to essentially describe a binding caucus with the expectation that members raise their concerns and make their negotiations on the budget ahead of the final vote. Don’t expect to sit on the sidelines all session, then complain about the budget at the last moment. If people don’t vote for the budget, she said, they’ll have to go get votes from the minority.
• What about Reps. Louise Stutes and Dan Ortiz, who both expressed interest in joining the majority? Tilton pointed out that Ortiz has one of the minority’s spots on the House Finance Committee and Stutes is “where she’s at.” She said things could be reconsidered in the future, but it didn’t sound like a priority.
• Asked about Rep. David Eastman already complaining about the Republican Majority’s actions, Tilton said basically that the majority is no longer interested in “purity tests.”  

Follow the thread: The House Majority’s first news conference

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Today’s schedule

It’s starting to look a lot like session!

• The Senate Finance Committee hears from the Department of Revenue at 9 a.m. for the revenue forecast. It’s the first time we’ll see former Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner/Department of Health Commissioner Adam Crum in his new role as Revenue commissioner.
• The Senate has floor at 10:30 with nothing on the calendar.
• The House has floor at 11 with six resolutions to create their special committees for the year, which interestingly includes Tribal Affairs and the Ways and Means Committees created under the past bipartisan coalitions.
• The Senate Labor and Commerce Committee meets at 1:30 for a department overview with Labor and Commerce.
• The Senate Resources Committee meets at 3:30 to hear about the University of Alaska’s land grant, which actually got some good news this year.

Anchorage Assembly: No tapes for Bronson

The Anchorage Assembly met in an emergency meeting on Thursday night to discuss the legal liabilities that Mayor Dave Bronson may have exposed the municipality to in the litany of misconduct alleged by former City Manager Amy Demboski and others, which ranges from misuse of sole-source contracts, creating a hostile workplace and much more. Most of the hearing was spent in executive session so the Assembly could get a candid assessment from their legal team, so we don’t have a good look at what happened there, and they’ll be returning to action in a hearing this afternoon where they could consider taking official action to safeguard the city’s interests.

What was interesting is that under the normal rules, the mayor would be able to sit in on the Assembly’s executive sessions and review the recordings of them. The Anchorage Assembly wasn’t particularly keen on that, so they spent a fair amount of time ahead of the executive session working out the procedural rules to block Bronson from accessing the tapes as long as they remain confidential.

What that resulted in was Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance asking a Bronson a standard series of questions about whether he had personal financial or private interest in the content of the hearing. Of course, because he wasn’t there (his administration has yet to publicly respond at all) there was no response and LaFrance ruled that he had a significant conflict of interest.

Everyone on the Assembly agreed, including on a separate vote that specifically bars the mayor from accessing the tapes.

The Assembly met for about two and a half hours before returning to the public session, where they introduced a handful of measures that will likely be taken up today at 3-5 p.m. More info on the meeting and a livestream can be found here.

Follow the thread: The Anchorage Assembly’s meeting on Bronson.

Stay tuned!

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House Committee assignments

The Committee on Committee report gave us our first 39-NEASTMAN (a joky reference about the way lone no votes by Eastman get registerd on the big board) of what will be many this year. He was upset that neither he nor Rep. Stutes had direct representation on the committee assignments, even though he ended up with a spot on the House Judiciary Committee despite having no right to a committee seat at all as a member without a caucus. Stutes in on Transportation and House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage also asked that she be added to Fisheries, which was accepted (Fisheries and all the other special committees have not technically been created, yet).

Follow the thread: The House floor session accepts the committee report.

Community & Regional Affairs

• McCormick, Chair
• McCabe, Vice Chair
• McKay
• Patkotak
• Ruffridge
• Himschoot
• Mears

Education

• Allard and Ruffridge, Co-chairs
• Prax
• McCormick
• McKay
• Himschoot
• Story

Finance

• D. Johnson, Edgmon, and Foster, Co-chairs
• Coulombe
• Cronk
• Stapp
• Tomaszewski
• Galvin
• Hannan
• Josephson
• Ortiz

Health & Social Services

• Prax, Chair
• McCormick
• Ruffridge
• Saddler
• Sumner
• Fields
• Mina

Judiciary

• Vance, Chair
• Allard, Vice Chair
• Carpenter
• C. Johnson
• Eastman
• Gray
• Groh

Labor & Commerce

• Sumner, Chair
• Prax
• Ruffridge
• Saddler
• Wright
• Carrick
• Fields

Resources

• McKay, Chair
• McCabe
• Patkotak
• Rauscher
• Saddler
• Wright
• Armstrong
• Mears
• Dibert

Rules

• C. Johnson, Chair
• Tilton, Vice Chair
• Allard
• Sumner
• Shaw
• Fields
• Schrage

State Affairs

• Shaw, Chair
• Wright, Vice Chair
• Carpenter
• C. Johnson
• Allard
• Armstrong
• Story

Transportation

• McCabe, Chair
• C. Johnson
• McKay
• Vance
• Stutes
• Mina
• Gray

Thoughts?