Let’s drop the pretense that the state legislature will ever get business done in 90 days. The idea was questionable to begin with. Concocted by business-owner legislators who wanted the legislature to run with more efficiency so they could dispatch with budgets and get back home to their burger joints, hotels, fishing operations etc. An admirable goal in the abstract, …
Leg With Louie: A Green Bank in a Bill Made Better
HB 170 proposes to create an Energy Independence Program and Fund administered by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. This bill, and its Senate companion, SB 123, would be Alaska’s first attempt at forming a Green Bank. In general terms, a Green Bank is a public, quasi-public or non-profit entity explicitly established to facilitate private investment into domestic low-carbon, …
Leg With Louie: Next Week Reviewed, with Editorial Comments – April 16
For certain dorks, like myself, 4:00 p.m. on Thursday afternoon can be fraught with expectation. That is when the upcoming week’s schedule comes out. Under legislative rules, all committee hearing notices must be at the legislative Clerk’s office by 4 p.m. at the latest to be noticed for the next week. If you miss this cut-off time, you are, as …
Leg with Louie: Springtime in the Legislature – April 9
It is an open question whether the winter will end this year out in the peaks and valleys and burbs and burgs and bays and straits and streams and swales of Alaska. Bills that resemble spring are few and far between in the Alaska State Legislature: buds that bring hope for a new beginning, a strong future. One such bill, …
Leg With Louie: Building Alaska Better – April 2
After the intellectual, moral, racial, political, and physical trauma of 2020, this year is starting to look OK, like a new day and not a false dawn. The monumental federal investments proposed by the Biden-Harris Administration in Pittsburgh on Wednesday are smart and just and envision a modern America we might be OK sending our kids off into. The Thrive …
Leg With Louie: Recreational River Repeal – March 12
The Senate Resources Committee will hear SB 97 next week, legislation that 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 …
BLOG 03/05/21: Leg with Louie: Bonding for a headache
The Senate Transportation Committee dove this week into the Dunleavy Administration’s proposed General Obligation (G.O.) Bond package. To put out bonds to pay for a suite of shovel-ready projects, this idea has been under discussion for the past few years of flat capital budgets and has a level of bipartisan support. I would say that this Senate hearing is the …
BLOG 2/26/21: Leg With Louie: Sexual Harassment, Silence, and Supporting Women’s Leadership
On February 24th, Representative Sara Rasmussen of Anchorage gave a floor speech. This speech needs to be heard by Alaskan men and male leaders especially: “…I am excited to announce that the representative from east Anchorage and myself have restarted the Women’s Caucus. This is an incredible year for women leaders in Alaska. In fact, we have a female minority …
BLOG 02/19/21: Leg with Louie: Ways and Means to an Uncertain End
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 …
Leg With Louie: Part and Parcel of a National Voter Suppression Strategy
One clear sign that this voter suppression effort in the Alaska State Legislature is tied to the spirit of Trump’s false claims of election fraud is that Homer Representative Sarah Vance will likely file a new “election integrity” bill. In a recent constituent newsletter, she reported that she would soon file her Election Integrity Act (capitalized for increased legitimacy), which …
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