SPECIAL YOU-CAN-SEE-THE-FINISH-LINE-FROM-HERE EDITION

So Many Bills, So Little Time

We’ve got 10 days left in the 90-day regular session, which I – and I think all other legislators – fervently hope will be the only legislative session this year. All we really have to pass is some budget bills – our own and the federal stimulus money. But lots of people have ideas about what should be in those bills, so there will be a fair amount of pushing and tugging before we are finished with them. And if anybody’s got a clue what Gov. Sarah Palin will do once the bills reach her desk, I haven’t heard it.

There is, of course, lots of other legislation that has been filed and heard and amended and sent from one committee to the next. Some of those bills will pass in the next 10 days. But there’s not make-or-break, do-or-die legislation this session, like the gas pipeline legislation or the oil tax rewrite in sessions past. And for each and every one of the 277 bills and resolutions in the House, there’s always next year.

Good thing. So far, only seven bills have passed both the House and Senate and gone to the governor this session

Malamute Bill Mushes On

After a short dog fight, Rep. Berta Gardner’s bill to make the Alaska Malamute the state dog passed the House on Monday. The Malamutes had to survive a couple of amendment attempts, and many bad puns like the ones above.

Gardner gives all the credit for the bill to a group of students at Polaris K-12. (I almost wrote K-9 there. There’s just something about the bill that brings out the bad jokes.)  The students did research and testified in committees and a few of them even came down to lobby in person. Hopefully the experience will mean more to them than just reading about civics in a textbook.

One more thing: The students were the best testifiers I’ve ever heard in the legislature. Their comments were short and well-focused, and they knew the proper forms of address and used them without fail. I was happy to be able to defend their bill on the floor and vote for it and I couldn’t help thinking that the state might be better off if they were the ones who got to vote on the House and Senate floor.

More Fallout From The Stevens Fiasco

I was the only House member to vote against a resolution praising former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and excoriating the government’s prosecution of him. The charges against Stevens were thrown out of federal court this week because of what looks to me like prosecutorial misconduct.

So I could have voted for a resolution on the subject. Just not this resolution. By including claims about possible Hatch Act violations, the resolution endorsed the idea that the prosecution was political in nature, and I haven’t seen a shred of evidence that’s true. That hasn’t stopped people – including 34 members of the state House and a guy who sent me an email headed “Democratic National Party Conspiracy” – from claiming it is.

We’ll see. And until we do, I’m happy with my vote on the resolution. I hope my colleagues are happy with theirs.

Odds & Ends

-- Newly minted U.S. Sen. Mark Begich was in Juneau on Tuesday to speak to the legislature, meet with the governor and so on. His speech was workmanlike and he showed all the signs of someone who is happy in his new job.

-- I sat through a couple of hours of discussion about whether shale gas is going to knock the economic pins out from under a North Slope gas pipeline. The answer, of course, is: maybe yes, maybe no. What came through most clearly is the national distribution system for natural gas needs a lot of work.

-- With the naming of a conference committee on the operating budget, we entered the realm of the 24-hour rule. That allows bills to be brought up for action on 24-hours notice rather than five days notice. In practice, it’s not even really 24 hours. You can give notice one day and pass the bill the next, no matter how many hours have elapsed.

-- The governor’s appointment of Wayne Anthony Ross as attorney general is drawing some flak from the public. So are her appointments to the boards of fisheries and game. The complaints about WAR have to do with his politics and personality. The complaints about the other appointments seem to be about which groups do or do no get represented on the boards. We’re supposed to meet Thursday, April 16, to confirm the appointments. Or not.

Best wishes,