Allows voters to preregister to vote at age 16 so they can be registered automatically when they turn 18.

- Rep. Hopkins

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Allows the use of electronic signatures for voter registration. Calls for the same early voting locations to be available during every election. Creates an option for permanent absentee voting for individuals that plan to vote by mail in every election. Requires the Division of Elections to provide a postage-paid return envelope with absentee ballots. (Eliminates the need for stamps to vote)

Clarifies terminology for early voting to remove confusion between early voting and absentee in-person voting. Requires election officials to notify a voter if their absentee ballot is rejected.

Requires the Division of Elections to offer a voter the option to fix a mailed-in absentee ballot if there are errors. Eliminates the witness requirement for absentee ballots. Increases the pay for poll workers from $12 per hour to $15 per hour. Clarifies that candidates and groups sponsoring ballot initiatives can have poll watchers. Allows absentee ballots to be counted as they are received instead of waiting until after the polls close on election day.

- Rep. Tuck

An Act relating to elections; requiring a risk-limiting audit of selected election results; requiring state elections and local elections conducted by the state to be conducted by mail; requiring certain vote-by-mail ballots and election materials to be provided in certain written languages other than English; establishing an online ballot tracking and registration verification system; establishing vote centers, ballot drop boxes, and ballot tabulation centers; eliminating the use of precincts, polling places, absentee ballots, and questioned ballots in certain elections; establishing new elections offenses; and providing for an effective date

- Rep. Kreiss-Tomkins

This bill establishes a process and a timeline under which a rejected absentee ballot can be cured by an Alaskan voter.  HB 267 seeks to allow voters to cure ballots immediately after they are rejected so that the vote can still count in the election.  Alaska is one of the few states that does not allow a voter to “cure” their ballot if a small mistake or discrepancy causes the ballot to be rejected. 

-Representative Schrage

If passed, HB 177, the “Balance of Powers Act” would prevent any Governor, without legislative approval, from unilaterally spending large sums of federal money should it flow into the state when the legislature is not in session.  As Alaska prepares to receive federal infrastructure funds, it is imperative that we fix this statutory blind spot now, both to uphold the Alaska Constitution, and to ensure that full appropriation power resides where it should, with the elected representatives of the people, and the Alaska state legislature.

-Representative Tuck

•  SB 14 would allow the Governor to fill judicial openings on these courts by appointing ANY lawyer who has practiced in Alaska for at least five years, eliminating the requirement to select the most qualified candidates.
• It would subject judicial appointees to legislative confirmation, a provision the Founders rejected by an overwhelming vote because it introduces politics into our system of judicial selection.  
• For the first time in state history, judges would have to pass a subjective ideological test. The legislation imposes a new and unenforceable obligation on the Alaska Judicial Council to determine that judicial candidates understand and commit to “strict constitutional interpretation of statutes and regulations and adhering to legislative intent.”

These changes that would politicize the judicial selection process, SB 14 would transfer the responsibility for providing voters with impartial information about judges in retention elections from the Alaska Judicial Council – which has competently performed these functions for years – to the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct, which has no experience in evaluating judges

- Senator Shower

This bill prohibits “severability” in a citizen's initiative - Severability is a feature of the law that allows the rest of a statute, contract, or proposed legislation to stand if a section of it is struck down by the courts.

A previous version of SB 23 was deemed to likely be an unconstitutional restriction on the people’s right to implement direct democracy through the initiative process.

- Senator Revak

SB 39 seeks to undermine local control of elections, suppress voting in Alaska, and take away the legal mechanism that adds thousands of new voters annually rolls through Alaska's Permanent Fund dividend - automatic voter registration statute. It will increase barriers to voting by adding additional hurdles to vote by gutting the successful automatic voter registration system, which was passed overwhelmingly by Alaskans. SB 39 will strip municipalities and rural communities of the option to control their own election process.SB 39 is a "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist. Alaska's elections are safe and secure, and there was no evidence of voter fraud this last election cycle. SB 39 limits our right to act as a community and care for our elders, neighbors, and friends by making it illegal to deliver a ballot for a friend or neighbor. 

- Senator Revak

This bill proposes changes to new campaign disclosure reporting requirements enacted through the passage of Ballot Measure 2 in the 2020 general election. The measure will go into effect during the upcoming April 2021 Anchorage municipal election cycle and requires independent expenditure groups involved in candidate election activities to report to the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) within 24 hours of receiving a contribution. It also requires the contributor to report within 24 hours of contributing to a group. Provisions of the proposed bill would extend these same reporting requirements to independent expenditure groups and their contributors involved in ballot measure campaign activities. The Alaska Center supports increased transparency in election financing, though we are opposing this legislation pending further legal analysis of its impacts.

- Senator Hughes

Permits the Attorney General to investigate alleged election violations identified by the director of the Division of Elections, a member of the public, or the Attorney General. Provides an avenue for people to build a narrative about election instability and fraud when there has been no evidence of either, further undermining people’s faith in the election process and disenfranchising voters from all walks of life.

-Governor Dunleavy

Permits the division director to conduct additional hand counts and to audit more precincts as appropriate. Adds voter signature and two identifier requirements on absentee ballot envelopes. Gives the division director more power to set the amount of money required to be put up on deposit prior to a recount - currently, this amount is established in statute. Allows communities with less than 750 population to conduct elections by mail.

-Governor Dunleavy

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This Bill seeks to undo the Permanent Fund Dividend Automatic Voter Registration initiative by creating an “opt-in” system instead of an automatic registration system.  It adds significant penalties for those who help community members who have mobility issues have their vote counted by gathering their ballots and delivering them.

-Governor Dunleavy

Building on the successes of the Alaska Sustainable Energy Act, SB 17 extends the energy efficiency retrofit program to schools and community centers that are eligible for the Power Cost Equalization Program. This creates incentives to reform retrofits for buildings that receive State support for their energy bills, which will save the State, school districts, and communities money. 

SB 17 will also provide rapid economic recovery by bringing in new investment to support an Alaska-based clean energy industry.

- Senator Begich

Legislation to expand the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy statute to include upgrades that improve the climate resiliency of commercial properties.  So far, Anchorage is the first community in Alaska to adopt a CPACE program though programs are under development in the Mat-Su and the City and Borough of Juneau. The specific added language is as follows: projects that “improve building resilience; resilience improvement projects  include projects for seismic improvements, stormwater management, flood mitigation and protection, fire hardening, fire or wind resistance, erosion management, microgrids for energy storage and backup power generation, water or wastewater efficiency including reuse and energy recovery, electric vehicle charging stations, retrofitting that improves the envelope, structure, or systems of the building, and any other improvement project approved by a municipality as a resilience improvement project.”

-Representative Schrage

HB 271 adds public accountability reforms to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.  It increases the terms of board members, and requires that the board pass legislative confirmation.  HB 271 doubles the amount of time for public notice of an action by AIDEA from 15 to 30 days.  It requires that AIDEA provide each member of the public who wishes to testify no less than two minutes, and requires that the Authority publish written responses to public comments as well as a written justification for actions.  Additionally HB 271 requires that AIDEA develop and report on performance metrics, and detail job creation and economic activity for the projects it supports.  HB 271 requires that, for projects that AIDEA spends over $10 million to support, public hearings, agency consultation, and other criteria must be met.  

-Representative Josephson

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This bill would direct regulated utilities to increase their proportion of net electricity production from renewable energy resources to meet discrete statutory targets, starting with 20 percent renewable energy resources by 2025 and 80 percent renewable energy resources by 2040. Benchmarks will be set every five years, beginning December 31, 2025, by dividing each utility's annual net sales to customers of generation derived from renewable energy resources by the same utility's total retail electricity sales each year.  

-Governor Dunleavy

This bill would allow Alaskan communities to pursue the use of nuclear microreactors in Alaska by excluding local microreactor projects from the legislative designation siting requirement, exempting microreactors from ongoing study requirements in recognition of the extensive research taking place both inside and    outside of Alaska, and adopting the federal definition of a  "microreactor."

-Governor Dunleavy

 Increases civil penalties and fines for oil spills.

 - Rep. Josephson

These bills would require greater protections for communities by preventing and addressing PFAS contamination, including setting of enforceable drinking water standards for a number of PFAS as well as requirements for polluters to pay for safe drinking water and blood tests for people affected by PFAS contamination.

 - Sen. Kiehl
-Rep Hannan

Federal law requires states to craft a process for citizens to nominate pristine high-value (fish spawning, culturally critical, etc.) top Tier or Tier III waters for protection from pollution. 

HB 398 would require that high-value water protection be determined by the state legislature instead of through DEC regulation. HB 398 seeks to make it impossible for Alaskans to protect waters of high ecological value as Tier III waters under the Clean Water Act.

-Governor Dunleavy

The bill seeks to give the Department of Natural Resources the power to authorize commercial development on any state land regardless of its status - refuge or park or otherwise - and to put a fine point on it, the bill proposes to repeal the Recreational River statutes that protect six popular and anadromous Mat-Su rivers: The Little Susitna River, The Deshka River, The Talkeetna River, Lake Creek, Alexander Creek, and The Talachulitna River.

- Governor Dunleavy

This bill seeks to authorize subsurface natural gas drilling and development in Kachemak Bay, which is currently off-limits to oil and gas development.  The drilling must occur from on-shore sites.  Rents and royalties from lease sales in subsurface Kachemak Bay would go to the State’s Renewable Energy Fund.

-Governor Dunleavy

This bill increases the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) power to offer state forest land for timber harvest. The state canceled a large timber sale due to an appeal to a Forest Land Use Plan in 2017 - Forest land use plans, also known as FLUPs, are one of the final steps before a harvest moves forward. FLUPs provide guidelines like harvest methods and mitigation measures and serve as a last opportunity for public comment and agency consultation. HB 98 would make FLUPs non-appealable or subject to reconsideration. In addition to Southeast, this bill would streamline vast timber production in the Mat-Su valley.

-Governor Dunleavy