Our senators and representatives have gone out of their way to commit legislative fraud on the citizens of Alaska. First of all, the voters (in a lawful election) mandated that they conduct the state's business in a 90-day session. This year they spent weeks discussing daylight saving time instead of working on a budget that they knew was going to be hard due to declining revenues. In the end of the 90-day session, they did not complete a fully funded operating budget or any other major business. If any worker, in any job, was told to complete a project in 90 days and they failed to do so they would be fired.
Then the duly elected governor of Alaska called them into special session in Juneau to complete an operating budget, work on Erin's Law, and to expand Medicaid in Alaska. The first thing they did was vote themselves a recess. Then they essentially told the governor that they would be meeting in Anchorage at the new elaborate, super-expensive Anchorage Legislative Information Office. When they closed out that special session, they had not passed any of the measures they were called into special session for.
Again they failed to perform their duties as required by the Alaska Constitution.
Voters of Alaska have voted to keep our Capitol in Juneau several times. Am I the only one who thinks that our current legislators are thumbing their noses at the voters by holding the special session in Anchorage? They were adamant that they were going to keep the Anchorage LIO even though the rents were four times higher than the average. They even stated that they were interested in purchasing the building -- when the state's budget is billions of dollars in the red.
The proposed budgets developed so far have: drastically cut education funding; cut funding for public safety causing the closure of trooper posts and the grounding of their rescue helicopters with the rationale that cuts had to be made (How much is a saved life worth?); violated contracts with state employees; cut funding for courts and children's services; failed to protect abused children with Erin's Law; cut funding for the Alaska Marine Highway System that will impact tourism and the funding that comes with it; and made other cuts that harm Alaskans.
In their deliberations those cuts were preferable to reducing funding in the following areas: The new LIO in Anchorage; the Suisitna-Watana dam project; the Bragaw road project in Anchorage that has citizen opposition; the road out of Juneau that is considered a major boondoggle; any cuts to their offices and the LIO offices throughout the state; and they were unwilling to propose, or ask the oil companies for, a deferral on production incentive tax credits.
The Republican majority seems to want all of the impacts to fall on the average citizen. Their callous attitude is why many voters are becoming independents, as the party platforms of both parties are too radical for us. As if this was not bad enough, it now looks like we will suffer more when the government is shut down and state employees are laid off due to lawmakers' inaction.
I for one will remember this legislative year when elections come up. I will also be extremely active in reminding all voters who may have forgotten how we were treated. Contact your LIO office to see how your senator and representative voted on issues important to you. Then use your vote to provide appropriate "term limits."
Len Malmquist is a retired fire chief from Soldotna. He spent over 30 years working in government, and says he understands that at times budgets need to be adjusted due to outside influences, but that every time he had to adjust his own budget, he always put the public interest first.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.