Alaska News

Despite Alaska's budget tensions, it's not all serious work in Juneau

JUNEAU -- Many legislators here say that biggest issue facing them this year is the state's budget deficit, estimated at $3.5 billion or more.

But a month into their 90-day session, the House has so far passed more ceremonial bills than substantive ones, like measures designating a remembrance day for the 1964 earthquake and endorsing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Senate Finance Committee, meanwhile, spent part of a hearing last week on a bill to exempt Alaska from Daylight Saving Time. One representative has filed a measure to declare July the state's peony month.

In interviews, lawmakers defended their work by pointing out that efforts like those often start with constituents who come to them with problems and ways to fix them. And only a handful of legislators get to sit on the House and Senate finance committees, leaving others with spare time.

Much of the budget work happens behind the scenes, said Rep. Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage, the House majority leader. She maintained that the $3.5 billion deficit is legislators' primary focus.

"That is the bumper sticker for the session," she said in an interview. "The budget talks are constant."

Nonetheless, the schedule in Juneau for a typical day last week -- Tuesday -- included discussion of the Daylight Saving Time measure in the Senate committee, where an aide to Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River, argued that a change could avert heart attacks, suicides and car crashes.

Later in the day, Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, told the House Transportation Committee why it should pass her bill to force highway drivers to stay in the right lane unless they're passing. Members then heard testimony from the president of the National Motorists Association, a state construction engineer, and some frustrated commuters, one of whom said her experience driving on the autobahn in Germany felt safer than the Glenn Highway between the Valley and Anchorage.

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In an interview afterwards, Hughes said that the budget was still her primary focus. But she added that for some legislators, especially those who aren't named to one of the finance committees, "there's actually dead time."

"We can't all sit around the finance table," Hughes said. "So we're digging and we're doing what we can."

Like Millett, Hughes noted that she serves on several subcommittees that scrutinize state agency budgets. And in fact, seven of those subcommittees had their own meetings Tuesday, with most of them drawing little attention or coverage by the media.

Other legislative hearings that day addressed weightier topics like marijuana regulation, and the Senate Finance Committee discussed a bill involving the state's municipal bond bank before it moved on to the Daylight Saving Time bill.

Nonetheless, the Legislature's agenda has drawn the attention of one activist who says some of the measures so far have been a "distraction" and have given the budget short shrift.

Daniel Hamm, the president of the Alaska Republican Assembly, a conservative group based in Palmer, questioned the time that the House spent Monday debating a resolution to create an "Alaska School Choice Week," which he likened to a "National Apricot Week."

"It doesn't advance anything," Hamm said in a phone interview. "The budget is number one. That's what we need to focus on."

John Harris, a former House speaker and finance committee co-chair, said in a phone interview that it can be difficult to control the volume of legislation proposed -- and like Hughes, he added that some members do end up with time to work on bills that might not seem as urgent in light of the state's budget deficit.

"There can only be so many members on the finance committee," said Harris, now a lobbyist. "The issue always comes down to: How many people do you have working on any particular issue at one time?"

Harris added that during his own career as a lawmaker, his colleagues introduced some of their own measures that were viewed as frivolous. He cited one the Legislature passed in 2009 establishing a state "Marmot Day" that people criticized as a "waste of time."

In fact, that effort dates back at least two decades earlier to 1987, when citizens complained to a state salary commission that legislators shouldn't get raises if they couldn't produce more results than a holiday dedicated to an alpine mammal.

Harris pointed out that even if such measures seem unimportant, "to somebody, they're important."

Rep. Max Gruenberg, D-Anchorage, made the same point after a news conference Tuesday in which he referenced a bill he's working on to address the fate of pets when couples go through divorces or get stuck in abusive relationships.

"This may not be earth shaking on a global scale, but it's important to divorcing families," Gruenberg said. The issues, he added, "are important to people -- real people."

"If you go door to door with me, I'd say 50, 75 percent, the dog barks," he said.

At his own news conference Wednesday, Gov. Bill Walker didn't express any impatience with the Legislature's pace.

"The budget process, it's going to be ongoing," he said. "You don't hit a light switch and all of a sudden you have a balanced budget."

--Yereth Rosen contributed reporting.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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