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Leg With Louie: Who Benefits? – May 21

Conference committees established under Legislative Uniform Rule 42 are as natural to the legislative process as cottonwood buds are to spring. The state’s operating budget always goes to the conference committee, marking the closure of the regular session. These six-member (three-House, three-Senate) committees settle disagreements between bodies on big-ticket bills. The members seated on the committee generally are not there …

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Leg With Louie: “to hell with politics, just do what’s right for Alaska” – May 7

There are two resolutions under consideration in the legislature as the House and Senate wend their way toward what will be a messy and confused terminus of the regular session. The likely  special session will focus on the Permanent Fund Dividend and federal American Rescue Plan funds. The resolutions are SJR 13 and HJR 19. Both are designed to clarify …

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Leg With Louie: The Starting Gate

The 2021 Legislative Session starts today, with COVID precautions in place. It will be a different year (whatever that means anymore). For one thing, the introduction of visitors from around the state in the gallery to the ovation of House or Senate members – one of the great, humanizing formalities of legislative floor sessions, will be missing this year. Also, …

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Leg With Louie: Building the new economy starts now

Yours may be cowboys, Willie, but my heroes have always been journalists. Even today, in the middle of the daily whirlwind of sheep-dip and gibberish from our highest officer in the land, with uncertainty on all horizons and a pandemic at our door, journalists are out there asking questions, arranging facts, allowing citizens a foothold of logic in the world …

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Leg with Louie: Power-Play During a Pandemic

The Governor’s budget vetoes came through this week. The cuts were not as dramatic as some may have feared, but they were made in bad faith. The Legislature put together their budgets working tirelessly under the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, putting their health and safety at risk in doing so, while maintaining good communication with the Administration throughout the …

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ALASKA GOVERNOR PUTS CITIZENS AT RISK WITH RECENT BUDGET VETOES

Alaska leaders disagree with the handling of public health and safety by the Governor  ANCHORAGE, AK –– Governor Dunleavy has gambled with Alaskan lives by cutting $261 million in two budget bills and expecting $191 million in federal stimulus funds to alleviate his cuts. Using budget vetoes to push a political agenda when Alaskans are showing up for one another …

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Leg With Louie: COVID-19 Legislative Response update

By the time you receive this email, the Alaska State Legislature may be in recess, allowing them to leave Juneau and practice effective social distancing, which is not possible during floor sessions and hallway discussions. We should commend their efforts to date. A series of important bills have proceeded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its mounting impacts on …

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Leg with louie: The Condition our Condition is in

Our Governor does not look comfortable standing tall to the scrutiny of our 60 State Legislators. No, he looks short of breath and even nervous. I have met the man and shook his hand, and by gosh, he looks dashing when he smiles. If I were working in his office, I would find a way to employ a smile coach …

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Leg With Louie: hope for the future in the dim light of a dawning decade

Under a newly proposed Trump Administration rule, Environmental Impact Statements on major federal actions, say permitting a Pebble Mine or a transnational oil pipeline, would be limited to a maximum of two years of agency and public review and among other limitations, the analysis of cumulative impacts is not allowed. Trump’s new EIS rule change would institutionalize the same shoddy, …