The Alaska State House has organized with coastal and rural interests maintaining positions of leadership. Speaker Louise Stutes offers a calm presence at the dais, flanked by superb and imperturbable Chief Clerk and Sergeant At Arms staff. You get the sense that this former Kodiak Island bar owner will take in stride any legislator’s outbursts and all heated floor debate having faced worse from drunken crabbers, draggers, and longliners for 25 years.

Nearly drowned out by the coinciding dramas of House organization, Senator Lora Reinbold, and 94 illegitimate appointments to Boards and Commissions - came a prayer for normalcy. This took form in the re-establishment of the House Ways and Means Committee. This special committee is charged with the burdensome task of making sure “state government brings its spending and revenue into balance to ensure that essential services are provided and to protect the economic stability of the state.” Ways and Means was active in the mid-2000s and died a quick death when the oil price went above $100 per barrel.

The resurrection of a House Ways and Means Committee has likely been under discussion for some time in certain circles as our state savings accounts circle the drain. It seems like a funny idea to create a special committee to develop solutions to a primarily political problem. The politics for a fiscal fix almost aligned under the previous administration, but ran into a Senate wall. Under the current administration, the route is unclear though the Senate is more likely in its current form to take revenue generation seriously.

Creating substantive revenue for state government will require all hands on deck and a cleared deck. When oil taxes were modified in 2006, and again in 2007, the whole capital building got sucked up in a blurry vortex of numbers and acronyms (PPT! ACES!) - every legislator carried a binder with hundreds of pages of powerpoints and studies, the Finance rooms burst to overcapacity daily. Bribes and scandals and jail sentences and steak dinners with lobbyists and consultants with foreign accents and on and on. A true revenue-raising effort in Juneau is more of a cultural touchstone, like a war that is looked back on with terror and fondness.

In comparison, the House Ways and Means Committee historically has been a lonesome backwater for smart people to discuss numbers. Over the course of its recent three iterations, 2003-2004, 2005-2006, and 2007-2008, four bills became law through Ways and Means, including legislation to provide for a passenger vehicle rental tax and to establish tax credits for contributions to vocational education programs - fine bills but hardly the key to surmounting our potential $2.4 billion deficit.

The House Republican minority is actively poo-pooing the creation of a Ways and Means Committee as a waste of time. These same critics need to be brought along on any revenue-generating journey somehow, and so does the Governor. The whole legislature right now needs to become a gigantic ways and means committee. However, it would be a stretch to assume the Alaska State Legislature, with its long history of theoretical fiscal solutions, fiscal task forces, and special committee discussions would find the political will to quickly implement these studied solutions absent an external force prodding them collectively into it. It doesn’t look like the steady attrition of state services is enough of a prod as of yet.  

Over and out, 

Bills/Hearings to Watch

Monday, Feb 22
1:00 p.m.
(H)RESOURCES
Overview: Dept. of Natural Resources

Wednesday, Feb 24
1:00 p.m.
(H)RESOURCES 
+Overview: Dept. of Fish & Game

3:30 p.m.
(S)RESOURCES
Presentation of Department of Law-Federal Issues
and Conflicts by:
- Cori Mills, DOL CIV-Deputy Attorney General
- Jessie Alloway, DOL CIV - Assistant Attorney
General
- Mary Gramling, DOL CIV - Attorney for Natural
Resources
- Ron Opsahl, DOL CIV - Attorney for Natural
Resources

Thursday, Feb 25

9:00 a.m.
(S)FINANCE
AIDEA - Update on Projects, Investments and Cash
Flow
Alaska Energy Authority - Update on Assets,
Projects, Grants & Loans

1:30 p.m.
(S)TRANSPORTATION
SB 74 G.O. BONDS: STATE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

3:30 p.m.
S)COMMUNITY & REGIONAL AFFAIRS
*+SB 15OPEN MEETINGS ACT; PENALTY
-- Testimony <Invitation Only> --
*+SB 13OIL AND GAS PROPERTY TAX
-- Testimony <Invitation Only> --
*+SB 17ENERGY EFFICIENCY & POLICY: PUB. BLDGS
-- Testimony <Invitation Only> --
**Streamed live on AKL.tv**

3:30 p.m.
S)STATE AFFAIRS
+=SB 25STATE GOV'T FINANCES: WEBSITE
-- Invited & Public Testimony --
Department of Administration
- Kelly Tshibaka, Commissioner
- Hans Zigman
+=SB 39BALLOT CUSTODY/TAMPERING; VOTER REG; MAIL
-- Testimony <Invitation Only><TBA> --
**Streamed live on AKL.tv**