Note from Rep. Gara: Pre-Saturday Rapture?!?!, Post-Unspecial Session Newsletter
May 20, 2011
You were probably as surprised as I was to wake up and find out there’s a guy in Florida who says the rapture will be tomorrow. I guess I always thought I’d get more notice before the end of the world.
I owe you a post-session e-news, and given what might happen tomorrow, I don’t think I have any more time to procrastinate on this. Though it would be nice to get more notice next time if this guy is wrong, like he was in 1994. I’d like to have my house and chores in order before an apocalypse. But I guess, so would everyone else.
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Rep. Petersen’s Report from the Capitol: Special Session Continues - A Call for Compromise; Working for Lower Gas Prices
May 2, 2011
The special session is heading in to its third week, and the House and Senate Finance Committees are still at an impasse over the capital budget. The main point of contention is language the Senate has proposed linking millions of dollars worth of energy projects together in order to prevent the governor from vetoing some of those projects.
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Note from Rep. Gara: The Unspecial Session: A Solution Requires A Radical Political Concept - Talking Without Lines In The Sand. And An Engaged Governor.
May 2, 2011
I’ve done my best these past two weeks to share what I learned as an attorney who started my career on a very contentious case – representing the State in its civil prosecution of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill case. Sticking your heels in the mud and drawing lines in the sand doesn’t end disputes – this one’s over the budget. We settled the state’s case with Exxon for $1 billion in 1991 – though the major damages were suffered by individuals who brought their own cases – and by not talking Exxon used its obstinance and power to drag that case out for two decades.
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Rep. Doogan in Juneau: Special All Talk, No Process Edition
April 29, 2011
Government by Press Conference
There’s been a lot of talk about process in the Capitol the past two weeks. In case you’ve missed it, and you very well might have, legislators are still down in Juneau, trying to figure out if we’re going to have a budget next year. So far we’ve been at that for 12 days of special session, and we’re pretty much right where we started.
Maybe that’s because everybody is talking about process, mostly in dueling press conferences and interviews, but nobody seems to actually be applying a process.
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House Democrats Propose Common-Sense Solution to Budget Impasse
April 28, 2011
All parties should stand down and work together in good faith
JUNEAU - Today, Alaska House Democrats announced a simple, common-sense solution to the budget stand-off that has the Legislature locked into a special session.
“We have a way out of this mess. It isn’t all that complicated,” said Representative Beth Kerttula, House Minority Leader. “We say this without blame and in the spirit of being helpful.”
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