It’s Day 1 of the 33rd Legislative Session, Alaska!
Here’s five things to get you through the day in Alaska politics: It’s the first day of the legislative session and a full third of legislators are brand-new faces; the House is still without a majority, and we’ll find out where things stand at today’s floor session; today’s schedule is otherwise pretty light, but we get the long-awaited return of the legislative news conference; moderation is the name of the game for Gov. Dunleavy; and things just get worse in Anchorage.
Current mood: 🥳
Day one
It’s the first day of the legislative session and while the outcome of the House organization is what we’ll be watching for today, we shouldn’t forget that this is a pretty monumental day for a big collection of new faces who are making the plunge into the world of the Alaska Legislature. Some are bringing over years of experience in the Legislature as aides while others are starting from square one.
The Anchorage Daily News’ Sean Maguire has a lovely write-up previewing the legislative session that really captures the feeling of the start of session:
This is the largest freshman class of Alaska legislators since 2003, according to the Legislative Reference Library. Twenty legislators — or one-third of the total Legislature — will be brand-new lawmakers.
Intimidating. Overwhelming. Exciting. Those are some of the words they used to describe the feeling of standing on the precipice of becoming a state legislator.
The Legislature feels like drinking from a fire hose in those early days, but there’s an enormous amount of knowledge and experience in the building that can make the transition easy. Personally, I’m thrilled for the slate of new legislators—particularly the younger legislators who should bring a fresh perspective to old problems.
The House, unorganized
The name of the game with House organization seems to be caginess.
Everyone’s signaling strength going forward, but it’s seemed to be more bluster than substance so far as all the talk has not yet yielded a majority. With margins as close as they are, it makes negotiations difficult particularly for Republicans who’ve fostered a zealous uncompromising streak on their bench. For every choice committee appointment given to a moderate from the bipartisan coalition is one not going to a hardline Republican, and you can’t really afford to lose any hardline Republican’s vote possible if you want to maintain a mostly Republican majority.
Frankly, anything short of a comfortable majority is going to make for particularly tough sledding for any majority moving forward. With contentious votes ahead on things like the budget, the PFD and education spending, a single unhappy vote could bring things to a standstill. It really starts to make the case for a broad bipartisan majority akin to what the Senate has established, but that’d take considerable concessions from everyone to make a reality.
While I think the betting money is probably leaning toward Republicans, I would have also said things were probably leaning toward a U.S. Rep. Sarah Palin and probably leaning to an outright majority of Republicans in the House. As one legislator told me: We’ll know once the votes are cast.
Read more: Holding the majority comes with a price
Today’s schedule
Watch on Gavel Alaska/Akl.tv and follow it on Twitter.
The Senate is set to gavel in at 1 p.m., elect Senate President Gary Stevens at the head of a 17-member bipartisan supermajority and get to work.
The House is set to gavel in at 2 p.m., hold what could be the first of many votes to elect a House Speaker and, barring a breakthrough, will get ready to do the same thing tomorrow. They can’t do anything as long as they don’t have a speaker.
The Senate Majority will hold a good ol’ fashioned news conference at 3:30 p.m. It’s a welcome return after years of fewer and fewer news conferences.
The 39th Annual Community Welcome Reception for legislators and staff (and everyone else) is at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall tonight from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Moderation is the name of the game for Dunleavy
Gov. Mike Dunleavy appears to be trying his best to play nice with legislators as he gets underway with his second term. The roughly 90 minute meeting he had with the bipartisan Senate majority during their pre-session retreat was apparently “productive.” And on Monday, he was seen walking from office to office to meet with legislators. If Dunleavy hopes of getting much of anything done for the next two years, he needs a better relationship with legislators.
It’s really hard to overstate just how much repetitional damage Dunleavy and his administration have done to themselves over the past four years. Things got off to a terrible start when Dunleavy let Donna Arduin loose on the budget. The cuts alone incensed many legislators, but it was Arduin’s answers to the many iterations of “How could you possibly cut this?” of, basically, “My only goal here is to pay a big PFD without any new revenue, and your values don’t matter to me” that really soured everything. While the governor has put away the hacksaw, his administration hasn’t won over many legislators in recent years with shifty and generally noncommittal appearances in front of committees.
Still, I think there’s a fair bit of benefit-of-the-doubt giving heading into session.
It just gets worse in Anchorage
As the Anchorage Daily News’ reporters tend to do, they had a major follow-up on the allegations contained in former Anchorage city manager Amy Demboski’s shocking 11-page letter alleging just about every bit of impropriety you could imagine Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and his team could have been up to over the last 18 months in office.
The new report focused in on the worst of it: Allegations that Bronson and his allies—specifically Larry Baker—attempted to not only shield their friend, a man named Brandon Spoerhase, from domestic violence criminal charges against a city employee, but talked openly about the case and attempted to steer business in Spoerhase’s direction. From the report:
In interviews with the Daily News, current and former City Hall employees said Bronson was well aware of the criminal charges against Spoerhase at the time Hickel was hired. Bronson could be heard speaking openly about the cases at City Hall, employees said.
The employees said Bronson said he knew he might one day have to “choose” between Spoerhase, his adviser’s business partner, and Hickel, a high-level city employee. Tension over the situation began to suffuse City Hall, as some senior officials viewed the criminal cases against Spoerhase, and Hickel’s employment there, as a potential embarrassment for the mayor.
Yet Spoerhase was appointed, with Bronson’s awareness, to a city committee in the fall of 2021. In fact, Spoerhase remained on the Anchorage Community Development Authority advisory committee until the Daily News began asking questions about the selection on Tuesday.
Read the full report: From Mayor Bronson’s first day in office, a domestic violence case loomed over Anchorage City Hall
It seems like something’s gotta give.
AN* unorganized start
Just trying to keep in the spirit of the day!
Listening to the most recent Hello Alaska podcast, I was really feeling that part where you were talking about being burnt out and spending 10 hours trying to get something done, but getting very little done. I have been fighting that same battle, and its nice to know that I am not alone in that. It was a good reminder to not stay mired in it when I slow down, and to just go do something else.