Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- State Rep. Berta Gardner figured it was time to turn the page on a personal pet peeve -- a nuisance she was sure annoyed many Alaskans.

"You know, the day you come around the corner, pull into the drive and are greeted by nine phone books stacked there," she said. "If I throw them in the trash, I feel guilty. I said, by golly, I'm going to do something about it."

So Gardner, an Anchorage Democrat, this year proposed a law titled "An act limiting the number of published telephone directories that may be distributed to a household."

House Bill 387 says a telephone utility may distribute only one set of phone books to a household each year.

Gardner believes her bill would save landfill space, not to mention aggravation among her constituents. The bill's been popular, she said, drawing more e-mails to her office than any other.

Yet in the halls of the Capitol, where partisan politics and huge dollars dominate, curiosity bills such as HB 387 often get lost in the tall timber of tax, budget, education and other weighty legislation.

That's probably even more true this session, the first with a voter-mandated 90-day limit. Used to be, legislators had 121 days to consider the hundreds of bills introduced.

With only two weeks left before lawmakers adjourn on April 13, Gardner concedes the line has gone dead on her telephone book bill.

The phone companies and directory publishers fought her, raising "constitutional issues," and the bill is stuck in committee. What's more, Gardner is in the minority in the Republican-controlled House, meaning she has little power to push legislation through.

So HB 387 likely dies when lawmakers gavel out.

Here's a look at other curiosity bills and their prospects for passage.

PUT A CORK IN IT

Let's say you and a date go to dinner at a fine restaurant and you splurge on an expensive bottle of Bordeaux. Or two.

When it's time you go, you'd really like to take that unfinished bottle home, but it's unlawful to carry alcohol out of a restaurant or have an open container in the car.

So you polish off the wine -- what a shame to waste it -- and slide behind the wheel.

That's a scenario state Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, sees as worrisome and unnecessary. So he sponsored Senate Bill 305, the "recorking bill."

It allows a person to take home the unconsumed portion of one or more bottles of wine consumed with a meal if the server reinserts "the original or a similar type of cork" so that it's removable only with a corkscrew.

"It's a good thing for business owners and for moderate consumption," said Ellis, the Senate majority leader and chairman of the Labor and Commerce Committee.

Outlook: Fans of this bill can raise a glass. SB 305 is nearing a Senate floor vote and Ellis is confident it'll pass the full Legislature.

THE BURNING BUTTE BILL

Everybody knows the mud flats where Jim Creek flows into the Knik River is a fine place to get drunk, shoot up a dead Subaru and set it on fire -- hell yeahhhhh!

Well, Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, who represents the Butte, has seen enough.

So have the state fire marshal, the troopers, the keepers of the state Knik River Public Use Area, and the folks from BARCO -- the Butte Area Residents Civic Organization -- who told lawmakers they're fed up with the "epidemic of car burnings."

Stoltze and other Mat-Su area lawmakers are sponsoring House Bill 268, which would establish a new felony arson crime for revelers who torch or blow up a car on public land. Stoltze figures the fear of a felony rap might be a deterrent.

State Fire Marshal David Tyler was among witnesses who testified in hearings that firefighters take a big risk responding to these burning cars. Did you know that shock-absorber bumpers, when heated up, can explode like grenades and take a firefighter out at the knees?

Although the Jim Creek party zone is the focus, lawmakers heard testimony about dozens of car burnings around Seward and Fairbanks, too.

Outlook: HB 268 is on fire, passing the House unanimously on Feb. 21. It's now in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

GIVE NURSING MOMS A BREAK

Rep. Sharon Cissna, D-Anchorage, believes the healthiest children are breast-fed as babies.

So does a group of working moms who urged Cissna to sponsor House Bill 190, titled "An act relating to break times for employees who nurse a child."

The bill says employers must provide up to three unpaid breaks a day for a woman to either breast-feed her baby or pump milk for later. The bill also says the employer must make a reasonable effort to provide a private, sanitary room -- a bathroom stall won't do.

In support of her bill, Cissna got lots of e-mail from moms on how breast-feeding at work can, uh, really suck sometimes.

"I work in a cubicle, and at first I tried to pump there, by blocking the entrance, but abandoned that practice the first time a fellow stood on tip-toe and peeked over my cubicle wall," wrote one.

Others wrote the only choice they had was a dirty toilet stall during their lunch hour period.

Cissna got opposition to her bill from the National Federation of Independent Business, which noted that although lawmakers dropped a provision for a $50 fine for violators, business owners would be subject to the whims of regulators enforcing the law.

"Small businesses have a great record of working with our employees to accommodate their needs," NFIB Alaska director Denny DeWitt wrote Cissna.

Cissna, however, worries women without a good situation at work might just stop breast-feeding and switch to baby formula.

Outlook: HB 190 "can't get through" this year, Cissna said. But she's hopeful of pushing it past at least one more committee, which might help when she reintroduces the bill next year.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call him in Juneau at 1-907-586-1531.

PROCESS: Check the status of bills.

www.legis.state.ak.us/basis

More offbeat bills

With two weeks left before the Alaska Legislature adjourns for the year April 13, these and many other bills likely face long odds of becoming law.

• House Bill 389: Would require use of automobile headlights at all times from Sept. 16 through April 30.

• Senate Bill 118: Would levy a 15-cent tax on grocery and other plastic bags, with proceeds to go into a litter and ocean trash cleanup and recycling fund.

• Senate Bill 273: Would make staging dog or other animal fights a crime.

• House Bill 330: Would appoint a state coordinator to fight invasive plants and "noxious weeds."

• House Bill 367: Would legalize the sale of raw milk.

• House Bill 269: Would require state agencies and public schools to display only American-made Alaska and U.S. flags.

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