Tag Archive for: leg with louie

That’s All Folks!

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The first round of the 33rd Alaska State Legislature is neatly wrapped up, and our lawmakers and their staff are integrating back into the civilian world for the summer. The drama, bruised sentiments, blather, tweets, accusatory statements, pointed fingers, shouts, and slammed doors of the winter session grow less poignant by the day. Alaska Spring has a way of interceding in human affairs. The anger a lawmaker may carry about a bill not getting its due treatment in committee is sure to be unsettled by the ancient cry of a sandhill crane, the smell of cottonwood buds on the wind, or the moose calf ambling across the highway ahead. (Watch out!)

There is a lot that these folks should be proud of as they fade out of the spotlight and into the summer fray. The legislature passed a significant investment into public education – the largest ever in state history. They passed legislation establishing the month of October as Filipino American History Month; they passed legislation to regulate the use and disposal of the “forever chemical” PFAS found in firefighting foams; they began work on a state Renewable Portfolio Standard to have utilities sell 80% renewable generated electricity by 2040; a Community Solar bill was introduced to allow more Alaskans the benefits of low-cost solar power; an omnibus election bill was heard which would allow greater access to the voting process; the state’s Renewable Energy Grant fund was extended indefinitely, and numerous clean energy projects were funded. Necessary for our salmon habitat, the legislature did not allow a state take-over of wetland development permitting duties, which would have led to decreased oversight.

The design of our Democracy serves to slow-roll, often for the best, so we are not surprised that few bills passed this spring. The process is messy, and the 33rd Alaska State Legislature is a completely imperfect and exhausting bundle of humanity, and we love it. It may not be the most remarkable legislature, but Ranked Choice Voting has produced a huge crop of freshmen and moderates, which benefits the state’s health. Alaska has enormous problems, from suicide rates to climate change, and getting away from partisan divisions is crucial. What the 33rd does next session hopefully will be a step toward the betterment of Alaska. It is time that the Governor, the Senate Bi-Partisan Majority, and the House Mish-Mash-Maybe-Majority put their collective shoulder to the wheel and work on a plan.
Whether the legislature is in session or not, our plan at The Alaska Center is to continue advocating for increased voting rights and voting access, increased renewable energy production, and increased equity and justice – in schools, workplaces, homes, and everywhere else. We will fight to protect salmon from habitat loss, climate change, and bycatch.

We will keep our eyes on the horizon for a special session on some broad-based tax proposal, rumored to be scheduled for September or October. We truly appreciate all of the support and feedback you have provided and the work you have put in this session reaching out to lawmakers on issues important to you. Constituent contact is vital to an elected official, even if they don’t give you the answer you may want to hear or any answer at all.

Never ever, ever give up.

Herein follows a brief note from the author (who is headed out to Bristol Bay for gillnetting soon and will be departing The Alaska Center for future pursuits):

“I appreciate you all, and have learned more over the past eight years at The AK Center than I have space to put in words right here in this email/blog. There is no easy way to define the work of this organization. What I can say is this is a non-profit that seeks to empower youth to fight for things that will help them live lives of abundance.
You can always reach out to me directly at louieflora@hotmail.com.
Be excellent to each other,”

Louie Flora/The Alaska Center

Hot Takes In A Cold Place: The Legislative Session Rides Off

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[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][cs_element_text _id=”4″ ][cs_content_seo]Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who advocated on bills and budget items this past legislative session. Through your phenomenal effort, we stopped numerous bad bills, settled on a budget that promotes public education and put the brakes on Dunleavy’s move to take over development permitting in sensitive wetland habitats from the EPA.
To recap. Due to your advocacy via letter writing, emails, phone calls, social media pressure, and direct grassroots citizen lobbying, the following bills passed the Legislature and are headed to the Governor’s desk:

Tribal Recognition! HB 123 by Rep. Tiffany Zulkosky passed and will require the State of Alaska to recognize Alaska’s federally recognized tribes. The federal government has a special and unique relationship with tribes that the State formally acknowledges. HB 123 will codify in Alaska law that federally recognized tribes are sovereign governments. It does not change any legal relationship. State recognition of Tribes will honor the first peoples of this land and the historical, economic, and cultural value they bring to the State.
Update to Alaska Sexual Consent Law: HB 325 by Rep. Sara Rasmussen was amended to include HB 5 by Rep. Geran Tarr and changes Alaska’s 40-year-old sexual consent statutes to change how sexual assault can be prosecuted by modernizing the definition of consent.
CPACE expansion: HB 227 legislation by Rep. Calvin Schrage to expand the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy statute to include upgrades that improve the climate resiliency of commercial properties.
Broadband Expansion: HB 363 by Rep. Bryce Edgmon establishes the Office of Broadband to prioritize the expansion of high-quality, affordable broadband access to unserved and underserved communities and positions Alaska to receive unprecedented amounts of federal funding for broadband expansion statewide.

On the other side of the coin, you helped stop a slew of bad bills:

SB 39 worked to undermine local control of elections, suppress voting in Alaska, and take away the legal mechanism that adds thousands of new voters annually through Alaska’s Permanent Fund dividend – the automatic voter registration statute.
HB 398 would have made it impossible for Alaskans to protect waters of high ecological value as Tier III waters under the Clean Water Act.
SB 97 sought to give the Department of Natural Resources the power to authorize commercial development on any state land regardless of its status in an area land use plan and 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.
HB 82, a bill to authorize subsurface natural gas drilling and development in Kachemak Bay, which is currently off-limits to oil and gas development.
HB 98 was legislation to decrease citizen participation in the Forest Land Use Plan process for timber sales.

There is a lot to unpack as a legislative session ends. This Memorial Day Weekend, we urge you to take the time to reflect on the positive outcomes of this past session and take heart in the true power of citizen advocacy in our beloved Democracy.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”5″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”6″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_button _id=”8″ ][cs_content_seo]More Bills This Session\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

Entering the Rapids

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[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][cs_element_text _id=”4″ ][cs_content_seo]The 32nd Alaska State Legislature is careening toward its grand finale, which will likely be on or around May 18th, the constitutional 120-day limit to session. On or around May 18th, the House and Senate will reconcile their versions of the operating and capital budget, pass any remaining bills, and drop the gavel, ending the second regular session Sine-Die.
The high price of oil, healthy returns on Permanent Fund investments, and the federal infrastructure spending package have lawmakers swooning, many of them revved up to spend vast amounts on the Governor’s holy grail: The ultimate, humongous, gigantic, supersized, great, grand, king-daddy, monumental, amazing and astonishing full statutory Permanent Fund Dividend ($4,200 per Alaskan) in addition to a payment to offset high fuel prices ($1,300) for a total of $5,500. It is a lot of money, it is a great campaign gambit, it is universal basic income wrapped up in a different package, it follows the statute, and it will plunge the state into a deficit. Most notably, it will come at the direct expense of education and other state services. As the final days of the session churn forward, expect this direct cash payment to take up most of the air in the room.
That is not to say that other hugely important issues are chopped liver. Legislation continues to move through committees, and the pace will increase rapidly should the House and Senate fail to agree on the budget and appoint a conference committee to work through the differences. Once a conference committee is announced, the schedule goes from a 7-day notice requirement to a 24-hour notice requirement for committee hearings, so bills can move quickly.
HB 123 to establish a policy for State recognition of Alaska Tribes has finally moved from the Senate State Affairs Committee and was passed quickly by the full Senate. HB 120, legislation by the Governor to increase the sale of state land for commercial purposes (circumventing state land management plans), advanced from House Resources and awaits a hearing in House Finance. HB 98, another Governor’s bill to weaken public engagement in the timber harvest process, sits in the House Finance Committee, and its companion bill – SB 85 – is in Senate Finance. These bills could move quickly to passage if the votes are there. Alaska’s railbelt utilities whittled down legislation to create a Renewable Portfolio Standard to something they are calling a “Clean Energy Standard Bill.” It aims to get utilities off coal, natural gas, and diesel generation. HB 301, in its current form, allows Nuclear and fossil fuel waste heat recovery as means to achieve benchmark goals. This bill is in House Finance and likely will not pass this session, but you never know. The Senate wisely removed a budget increment authorizing the State of Alaska to take over development permitting in wetlands from the federal government.
In a stinging vote, the House voted 23-17 to strip language from SB 174 that would have protected natural hairstyles from employer discrimination. The intent of SB 174 is to prohibit a school governing body or an employer from prohibiting a student or an employee from wearing a hairstyle historically associated with race. Natural hairstyle is defined to include braids, locks, twists, and tight coils. The language prohibiting workplace discrimination was struck while the prohibition on school discrimination passed. This bill was sent to the Governor.
Many other bills remain in play. At this point, aligning votes for or against the budget is priority #1 of House and Senate Leadership and the Governor. If a bill suddenly lurches out of committee, you can bet that they struck a deal on a budget vote. The end of the session can be like the swiftening of a river as it enters a turbulent gorge. We all must remain vigilant. Obstacles approach fast.
We are ready, buoyant and alert,
The Alaska Center

\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”5″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”6″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_button _id=”8″ ][cs_content_seo]More Bills This Session\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

Take Action in Support of Tribal Recognition

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This week we celebrated the life and accomplishments of Elizabeth Peratrovich, a leader in equality and justice not only in Alaska but nationwide. Through the efforts of Peratrovich and others, the legislature passed The Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, which was the first state or territorial anti-discrimination law in the United States. As we look back to our nation’s long and continuing struggle for equal rights, the efforts of Elizabeth Peratrovich mark a milestone and a beacon of hope.

On Elizabeth Peratrovich Day (February 16th – the day the Alaska Equal Rights Act was signed into law), we held a really great community event. Over 80 Alaskans came together online to watch “For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska,” a film that documents the struggles of Indigenous Alaskans to end racial discrimination laws in Alaska. At that event, we took time to draft public comments in support of HB 123/SB 108, the Tribal Recognition Bill currently in the Alaska House of Representatives, and heard from Waahlaal Giidaak Blake, a sponsor of Tribal Recognition Ballot Measure.

As we discussed in our email last week, the Tribal Recognition Bill is legislation that will require the State of Alaska to recognize Alaska’s federally recognized tribes. The federal government has a special and unique relationship with tribes that the State would formally acknowledge. This bill will codify in Alaska law that federally recognized tribes are sovereign governments. It does not change any legal relationship. State recognition of Tribes will honor the first peoples of this land and the historical, economic, and cultural value that they bring to the state. The Tribal Recognition Bill is substantially similar to a ballot initiative that will move forward should the legislature fail to pass the bill.

Tribal Recognition has a lot of bipartisan support. It is in its final committee of referral, The Senate State Affairs Committee (a further committee referral was removed earlier this week, so after it passes State Affairs, it goes to the Senate Floor for a vote). The voice of Alaskans in support of this bill is critical. Tribal Recognition is an act of respect and dignity between our state and Alaska Native Tribes. It is time to raise your voice in support of this act. Let your legislator know that you support the swift passage of the Tribal Recognition Bill and that you support formal recognition of Alaska Native Tribes.