It’s that time of year when I feel like my head is being repeatedly slammed in a car door.
The Alaska Legislature is in session.
Oh, no! We’re all going to die!
Totally Out of Touch
The last I looked, we elect representatives to represent OUR INTERESTS, so I’m a little confused that the Alaska Legislature seems unfamiliar with what the public wants.
The Alaska House of Representatives opened debate on the state operating budget Tuesday April 9. The operating budget, which pays for state services for 12 months starting July 1, is currently at $6 billion, not including federally-funded and fee-funded programs. The state capital budget, which covers construction and renovation projects, is expected to add $550 million to the total. Other legislature, such as labor contracts which are currently under negotiation, will probably add at least $100 million.
Keeping track? That’s $6.6 billion — in a state with about 750,000 people.
Meanwhile, financial experts outside of the State of Alaska system calculate the draft spending plan may not be affordable, primarily because the total is more than the state’s expected general-purpose revenue from investments, oil and taxes.
Where’s that money going to come from? Without added revenue, it’s probably going to come from the PFD. Rep. Dan Otiz (I) Ketchikan
On Tuesday, legislators — under pressure from the people who elected them — declined to make any changes to their draft plan for the 2024 Permanent Fund dividend — a $2,270 payout that would be the largest single item in the budget. They voted down amendments from Ortiz and Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, that would have reduced the planned payout.
Legislators also declined to make significant additions to the budget, voting down amendments that would have increased a $175 million funding bonus for K-12 public schools. Legislators explained Gov. Mike Dunleavy would use his line-item veto powers to reduce or eliminate any bonus, just as he vetoed a multipart education bill that included a permanent funding increase. Aware that Dunleavy has finally rediscovered his veto pen, the legislators rejected the education amendments as well as requests for additional funding to the state’s seafood-marketing and tourism-marketing organizations. They did however approve an additional $300,000 for Alaska’s team to the Arctic Winter Games and a cost-free amendment requiring an Anchorage homeless shelter be placed at the center of a drug-free zone (which seems only sensible until you realize the homeless will just bring their drugs with them).
Unlike prior years when the budget impass has caused a very expensive Special Session, legislators from both House and Senate agreed to a strict timeline for budget work this year. Under that timeline, they set the amount of this year’s capital budget at $550 million last week, before the House began amendment work on the operating budget.
The capital budget pays for construction and renovation projects statewide. The budget figure hasn’t been publicly announced but legislators and staff have told Alaskan journalists that this is the amount. The main problem with this is that it is more than the state expects to receive in revenue during the upcoming fiscal year.
This wouldn’t be much of a problem if Alaska still had $14 billion in the Constitutional Budgetary Reserve, but the Legislature spent that, which means every time the Legislature goes over on the budget, they now take it out of the Permanent Fund Dividend.
This is like a for-profit company running over its annual budget by renovating corporate headquarters and then telling the shareholders that they’ll get half their dividend, or possibly none of their dividend. The shareholders would fire them and replace them with competant leadership.
Why Don’t We Do That?
We tried to. For the last two election cycles, Alaskans have elected larger Republican majorities because the Republicans keep promising to reduce spending.
But a funny thing happened on the road to fiscal stability….
Alaska operates under a coalition government. It’s a little complicated. Let me start on familiar territory and then move to the weird part.
Alaska’s Senate has nine Democrats and eleven Republicans. Before the votes from the 2022 were certified, all nine Democrats and eight of the 11 Republicans formed a bipartisan majority coalition, leave three “right-wing” Republicans in the minority.
So though the voters of Alaska elected a more Republican-controlled Senate than we did in 2019, we ended up with a more Democratic Senate. Bipartisan coalitions are uncommon in most states, but they’ve become a staple of the Alaska Legislature in recent years because in the 20-person Senate, 11 votes are needed to elect a leader and conduct business.
Prior Senate Majority Leader Shelley Hughes, Republican from Palmer, is now one of three senators relegated to a small minority. At the start of session in January 2023, she proposed forming a Republican controlled majority, but her Republican colleagues refused to do so.
The majority of Alaskans voted for a Republican candidate — electing a right-of-center majority, but the members of the Democratically-led coalition insist they heard a different message from voters.
“All the members of this caucus are responding to what we heard from Alaskans,” said Sen.-elect Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, who serves as majority leader. “The one message that came through loud and clear is that Alaskans are looking for people in the Legislature who will work together to get something done — to get those important things done that Alaskans are waiting to have accomplished.”
To be a member of the bipartisan majority, you have to agree to vote for the budget sight-unseen. It could be double what it is today, but you will agree to vote for it. The three members of the minority — Shelley Hughes, Mike Shower of Wasilla and Rob Myers of North Pole — have all voted against the budget in the past.
Gary Stevens of Kodiak insists the bipartisan caucus works in the middle - not on far-left or far-right issues. But they overspend and they cut the PFD in half, consistantly most years. They also refuse to look at needed reform measures that Alaskans are begging for. I don’t know who this mythical middle is, but it’s no one I know.
Nobody but far-leftists in Alaska wants Ranked Choice Voting. If you ask 100 people if they voted for RCV, you’ll get 98 who say they didn’t. It passed on the strength of the overseas military vote — people who have already moved onto other duty stations. And yet the Legislature refuses to set aside RCV. They insist it isn’t a “bipartisan” issue. They won’t even put it on the ballot for another up or down vote. So we’re stuck with this system that favors Democrats — that “gifted” us with Mary Peltola and gained Lisa Muskowski (who may be a member of the Republican Party, but is very far from being a conservative) yet another term against the clear will of the Alaska people (more of whom voted for Kelly Tsaibaka before RCV manipulated the vote tabulation in favor of Lisa). It also gave us Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, who lost her seat because the voters rejected her in a traditional election, but now reigns supreme in the Senate because of RCV.
So what this coalition has done is put Democrats in the cat-bird’s seat. Democrats head the Rules and Legislative committees - critical committees to bringing any bills to the floor for a hearing. They control the Judiciary Committee as well, making needed reform of judgeships impossible. The same for the Education Committee.
Stevens promised the majority caucis in the Senate would work with House leadership. But last spring the Senate gave the House the budget, then gaveled out and refused to form a compromise committee. Essentially, the Republican-controlled House had no choice but to vote for the budget or take the Legislature into a special session that the Senate might refuse to attend.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy won reelection handily, but his only power is the veto pen and at least he’s now willing to use it, but in the meantime Alaskans say they want fiscal balance returned to Juneau and we also want the PFD paid out according to statute as it is our compensation for our stolen mineral rights.
But we know we’re not going to get that because of who is actually in charge in the Legislature. Instead, we’ve got about three more years of current spending trends before the dividend will no longer be paid — meaning we’ll be completely defrauded of our land value — and we’ll be forced to pay an income tax. You do the math. There are about 400,000 workers in Alaska. If we just covered the spending that isn’t covered by oil revenue, we’d be paying the State of Alaska
Lela Markham is an Alaska-based novelist and commentator who believes government at all levels should reflect the values of a majority of its constituents.