Alaska's lawmakers heard from an array of disgruntled constituents during public testimony Friday about the Legislature's halting progress toward a budget deal that's now a month overdue.
After failing to agree on a spending plan during their 90-day session in Juneau, legislators have now changed their venue to their Anchorage offices, where a lone neon-vested protester marched outside Thursday with a sign that read: "You should be in Juneau doing your damn job!"
One open question, however, is whether and how the public's frustration will translate into action in 18 months, when all 40 members of the state House and 10 of the state's 20 senators stand for re-election. Will voters even remember the gridlock of this year's legislative session? And if they do, who gets blamed?
The Legislature's Republican-led majorities in the House and Senate are currently stuck in budget negotiations with the Democratic-led minority in the House, whose support is needed to reach a constitutional three-quarters voting threshold required to spend billions of dollars in the state's main savings account. Without a deal, Gov. Bill Walker has warned, the unfunded portion of the budget will force a government shutdown and massive layoffs of state employees.
The three groups of legislators have different positions over how deeply to cut the budget and close a multibillion-dollar deficit stemming from a crash in oil prices. The Republican-led Senate majority favors the deepest cuts, while the House Democratic minority is resisting proposed reductions to the state's per-student education funding formula and to compensation for state workers.
Taylor Bickford, a political consultant based in Anchorage, said he expected voters to focus less on lawmakers' partisan affiliations and more on how the whole Legislature resolves the impasse.
Don't expect voters to throw out incumbents, Bickford said, as long as the three caucuses can agree on a deal before state government operations are actually affected -- which would need to happen before the end of the fiscal year, June 30. Past political disputes and brinkmanship in Alaska and at the national level have somewhat desensitized the electorate, he said.
"People just expect these kinds of fights to be part of the political process," Bickford said in a phone interview. But, he added: "If it gets to that point and the government in Alaska does shut down for any period of time or at any level, I think that's going to carry huge risk for any incumbent regardless of party or caucus."
A pair of Republican lawmakers agreed that the risk to the Legislature was general, rather than specific to individual members or caucuses.
Asked who would be blamed at the polls for the current impasse, Wasilla Sen. Charlie Huggins responded: "I think everybody will." Anchorage Sen. Lesil McGuire said that "what the public is saying now is, we're all to blame."
"There's time to turn this around," she said in an interview. "But if you were to take a vote today, I think the House and the Senate and the governor might not be looking so good."
Officials with the state's Republican and Democratic parties, however, each said voters were more likely to hold the other party responsible for the gridlock.
"Right now, Republicans are blaming Democrats; Democrats are complaining about the Republicans," Peter Goldberg, the Alaska Republican Party chairman, said in a phone interview. "I don't worry about it, because the average Republican and probably a greater proportion of those that are independent understand that you can't spend money we don't have.
"Among the voting population, there's greater support for the legislators that are trying to hold out and keep spending down," Goldberg said.
He also noted that a similar budget battle could unfold next year, and what happens then "will have far more of an impact."
Alaska Democratic Party Executive Director Kay Brown, meanwhile, said the Republican-controlled majorities in the House and Senate made a mistake by proposing cuts to the state's education system. And she added that Democrats weren't the ones getting in the way of a compromise.
"Voters do have the ability to discern these things -- who has been working constructively versus who has just been acting in an obstructionist manner," she said in a phone interview.
Another thing to consider, Brown added, is last year's election of Walker and his lieutenant governor, Democrat Byron Mallott. Walker is a longtime Republican who dropped his party registration when he joined forces with Mallott's campaign and got the Democratic Party's endorsement; the pair then knocked off the Republican incumbent governor, Sean Parnell.
"I believe Alaskans wanted to have a change, and that's why they elected a unity-ticket administration," Brown said. "But right now, rather than having more unity, we have the Republicans doubling down on their obstructionist behavior."
The Republican-led majorities in the House and Senate tried to thwart many of Walker's legislative priorities this year -- and if the governor himself gets involved in the 2016 elections, he could have a significant impact on some races, said Forrest Nabors, a political science professor at University of Alaska Anchorage.
Though legislative districts provide relative safety for most incumbents, Walker has been building up political capital with the public, Nabors said. And a poll taken this spring by the House majority caucus showed Walker with higher approval ratings than the Legislature as a whole.
Walker's spokeswoman declined to comment directly when asked about Walker's potential role in the 2016 election.
"The governor's going to be working with whoever gets elected," said the spokeswoman, Grace Jang.
But one of the governor's prominent political supporters, Malcolm Roberts, said many of Walker's allies are hoping that he and Mallott get involved during campaign season.
"Many of the Alaskans who worked hard to elect them in 2014 hope that they will lead an effort to inspire others to run for office who reflect their values and their vision," Roberts, a longtime aide to former Gov. Wally Hickel, said in a phone interview. "I'll definitely help -- I think it's absolutely critical that we get a positive Legislature to work with an outstanding administration."
A big shift is unlikely, however, given the composition of most districts and the degree of safety they provide to incumbents, Nabors said. In 54 state legislative races last year, only eight candidates won by margins smaller than 10 percent.
Rather than pushing legislators toward the middle, Nabors added, it's more likely that this year's fiscal battle will drive further polarization, since lawmakers in safe districts open themselves up to primary challenges if they compromise.
"The political effect of this budget battle, I think, is for the parties to square off even more, philosophically," he said. "Because the right isn't going to say, 'Oh, gee, we're wrong, we're sorry -- we're going home.' They're going to double down. They're already doubling down."
A final budget deal this year will nonetheless require concessions, said McGuire, the Anchorage Republican senator.
Government is about negotiation, she added.
"I think that it's important we pull together an agreement as soon as possible," she said. "In my 15 years, I have never seen us get out of a special session without a compromise."