Now! Less Powerful than Before!

My scheme to become a major, major power in the legislature suffered a crippling setback on Wednesday, when Rep. Max Gruenberg returned to Juneau and resumed his seat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Since I was sitting in his seat at the time, I found myself being ushered out the door by the committee on committees. I’ll look back with fondness at my 198 hours and five minutes of being much more powerful than I am now, and the splendor of being a voting member of the powerful Judiciary committee for two full meetings.

I am, of course, still a powerful member of the powerful Transportation, Economic Development Trade and Tourism, Oil and Gas, and Legislative Budget and Audit Committees. But it’s just not the same as my glory days on Judiciary. All seven of them.

Budgets! Get Your Red Hot Budgets!

Have I told you about my schedule? Every day, my staff gives me a 3 by 5 card with that day’s doings on it: floor sessions and committee meetings I have to attend and appointments people have made to see me. And I follow that card around the building, doing what’s on it.

This week, the appointment list has gotten longer, thanks mostly to people who are in town looking for money. Since I’m not a powerful member of the ultra-powerful House Finance Committee, my ability to get money for people is roughly equal to my ability to run faster than a speeding bullet. But it’s always nice to find out what folks are up to.

My part of the budget process is being a member of the Finance subcommittees on the budgets for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. These subcommittees are not, you’ll notice, powerful. The real decisions are going to be made by the Finance Committee. On the subcommittees, you get a chance to be in the same room with an agency’s budget, and that’s about it. The rest is mostly formality.

Still, we did our part Thursday morning by passing the DMVA budget along. And that gives me a chance to say something about Craig Campbell – or, as I suppose I should say, Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, the department’s commissioner.

I first met Campbell years ago, when he was a budget hawk on the Anchorage Assembly. I’ve noticed over the years that people who go from overseeing budgets to actually writing them and trying to work with them tend to change their tunes on spending. Campbell hasn’t. As near as I can tell, he runs as tight a ship himself as he used to demand of others. I didn’t always agree with him on this, and probably still don’t, but I appreciate the fact that he walks his talk. And I thought I should say so.

What I’ve Been Doing

Going to a lot of bill hearings, actually.

On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on my bill to deal with children with sexual behavior problems. That was the second hearing.

On Wednesday, the Senate Special Committee on Education had a hearing on my bill to change the date school districts have to send pink slips to tenured teachers.

On Thursday, the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee passed out my bill to require the members of state boards and commissions to resign if they file for elective office. That bill moves on to the House State Affairs Committee.

Also on Thursday, my bill to allow legislators not to vote if they have a conflict of interest – along with several other bills on the same subject – was sent to a subcommittee of the House State Affairs Committee. Hopefully, the subcommittee can make quick work of deciding which of the several somewhat different approaches to the bill to send forward. I’m not dug in behind my bill; any of the bills is better than the current procedure, which in practice forces members to vote whether or not they have a conflict.

Odds and Ends

-- The United Way is staffing a new telephone number where you can get help with everything from parenting to veteran’s services. You can check out the new help line at www.alaska211.org.

-- My constituent party, in conjunction with Rep. Lindsey Holmes and Sen. Hollis French, is creeping closer. We’ll be at the Spenard Rec Center from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 1. The pizza’s free, and so is the political chatter.

-- We got two of our missing three House members back this week. As mentioned, Rep. Max Gruenberg is back, and so is Rep. Bob Lynn, who I sit next to on the floor. Good to have them both here, healthy and working. Rep. Richard Foster is still out, recuperating from a stroke.

More Later .