Dear Neighbors,
Yesterday at 5:26 pm the house adjourned from special session. With the passage of legislation toughening laws against sex trafficking and the Governor’s unprecedented withdrawal of his oil tax bill, the only issue remaining before the legislature was legislation promoting a small diameter gas pipeline from the North Slope to Nikiski.
Read More →Governor Pulls Oil Taxes, Senate Adjourns, What Will the House do?
The Third Special Session of the Alaska State Legislature has imploded. In this newsletter, I’ll tell you what happened and what is likely to happen next.
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Read More →Well, That Was Interesting
We watched the death of Sean Parnell’s latest attempt to hand $2 billion a year to his pals at British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and Exxon this week. Or maybe it was just badly wounded. Various lawyers have said different things about what happened – yeah, I know. But what can you do? They’re lawyers—but the smart bet is that Parnell killed his own bill. After calling us into special session just 10 days ago to get us to pass it.
All I can say is, gloriosky. I’ve been to two goat ropings and a county fair and I’ve never seen anything like this before.
Read More →Dear Friends and Neighbors,
It has been a wild 24 hours in the capitol. Last night Governor Sean Parnell announced he was withdrawing his oil tax giveaway bill, and this afternoon the Senate voted to adjourn the special session. It is unclear what will happen next. The House does not have a floor session scheduled until Monday, and if we do not vote to adjourn the Senate will be forced back into session. If that happens, then Alaska’s constitution allows either the House or Senate to pass a resolution which would allow the governor to end the special session.
Read More →Citing a legislative legal opinion that the Governor’s removal of his oil tax bill from the special session proclamation is unconstitutional and invalidates the entire document, the state senate has declared an end to special session.
At this time the state house is still in special session but it remains to be seen what will happen next. With the passage of legislation against sex trafficking and the Governor’s withdrawal of his oil tax bill the only remaining issue to be dealt with was the in-state gas line bill. This bill was in possession of the senate and appears to have died with the special session.
Read More →