Senate Bill 332 "An Act relating to a poll of legislators on the question of calling a special session"
Click for PDF: http://www.akdemocrats.org/sponsor/SB332_ss_sen_ellis.pdfSenate Bill 332 is about good government and making sure that legislative actions are transparent to the public we serve.
Senate Bill 332 clarifies the legislature's procedures for calling itself into special session. Under current law, "the legislature may call itself into special session if two-thirds of the membership responds in the affirmative to a poll conducted by the presiding officer of each house." (AS 24.05.100(a)(2)).
A poll is initiated upon the request of 25 percent of the membership of each house. (AS 24.05.100(a)(2)). Currently, there is no deadline for initiating and completing this process, so the presiding officers lack definitive guidelines for conducting this poll. Senate Bill 332 specifies that the poll shall be initiated within three days of receiving the request from 25 percent of the membership.
The bill also requires that, within three days after the poll is conducted, the presiding officers publicly announce the results of the poll and the vote of each legislator. The vote of each legislator must then be delivered to the Legislative Affairs Agency for inclusion in each legislator’s voting record.
This legislation was suggested by Seniors who were very upset that they had no way of knowing whether their legislator supported holding a special session for a veto override after Governor Murkowski’s veto of the Longevity Bonus Program. The refusal by the Republican leadership to release the votes of their caucus regarding their support is unacceptable. The Democratic Caucus requested, in a public document with signatures from all members of our caucus, a special session and to make the votes public.