Rep. Andy Josephson's Newsletter

Well we have officially gone over the 90-day threshold. It seemed all but a foregone conclusion that we would not finish on time, but the real question is, how long will we stay? There is still much to do. Both the Operating Budget and the Capital Budget have to be agreed upon by both bodies. The Legislature’s only constitutional requirement is that we pass a budget, but with the Governor signaling that he will call a special session to address Medicaid if the legislature fails to act I would prefer to just finish the job before going home. Below is a brief rundown of where the budget discussions are now as well as an update on the Governor’s appointments.

The main reason that the legislature has gone over the 90-day voter-mandated limit is due to the fact that there has not been an agreement reached on the budget. This year there has to be a draw from the Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR) that requires a ¾ majority vote (30 Yes and 10 No in the State House). On the Senate side the Majority Caucus has the votes, but on the House side the Majority has to get three members of our caucus to access those funds. This gives us a very rare bit of leverage. Indeed, huge leverage. In fact, for any readers that believe Democrats lack real power in Juneau—reconsider this view. At present, the Majorities cannot advance their bad operating and capital budgets without a permission slip from us. We don’t intend to give it out right now.

Among our requests are amendments to restore $32 million in forward funding that was promised to school districts last year and would help slow impending increases in class sizes, to partially restore the complete elimination of all Pre-K programs, to undue the $47 million cut to the Base Student Allocation (BSA), to honor the contracts that we made with our state employees, and to allow for the expansion of Medicaid.

Although these are large sums, it is important to bear in mind that we have a budget deficit of over $3.5 billion. The deficit is so massive that we could cut every single state employee and only save $1.5 billion. We cannot cut ourselves into prosperity. Fortunately, we have roughly $10 billion (arguably as much as $16 billion!) in savings intended for days like today which can give us time to form a sensible plan that doesn’t devastate children or send our economy into a tailspin. We instead support a sensible budget plan which gets us a fair share for our oil before we demand greater sacrifices from children, seniors, and hardworking Alaskans. I also am prepared to give my support to House Bill 191 (Corporate Income Taxes) which would change the calculation methodology from something called Worldwide Apportionment to Separate Accounting. The latter might bring us $300 million more, while being fair to industry. Bottom line: We need to have a statewide discussion about (1) what we want to fund in our government and (2) how we want to fund it.

Joint session for Governor Walker's appointees

Yesterday the House and Senate met in a Joint Session to vote on the appointments made by Governor Walker. In total we spent over five hours on the floor and voted on 89 appointments. Of those 89, only 5 were rejected by the legislature. Those rejections were Christopher Cooke to the Alaska Mental Health Trust Board Authority; Verne Rupright to the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission; Robert Ruffner to the State Board of Fisheries; Michael Gallagher to the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission; and Joe Paskvan to the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation.

There were a few other close votes, most notably the vote confirming Craig Richards as the Attorney General and Rick Halford to the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, but most were confirmed before the day was over. Relative to Mr. Richards there was a great deal of consternation about some of his views on tribal rights and gay marriage. As to the former, I think he is coming around. As to the latter, I am confident that the Supreme Court will resolve this—once and for all—in June, 2015. Additionally, Richards’ confirmation makes Gov. Walker stronger, and Richards is a stalwart voice on securing our sovereign interests on oil and gas issues.

Two key votes I cast last night: First, I challenged the appointment of John Harmon to the Board of Education. I felt that that “slot” should be filled by a public school advocate. Harmon had written in opposition to the Judicial Council, a signal he wants to change our public school system. Second, I opposed and argued against the confirmation of Teresa Sager Albaugh to the Board of Game. This Board lacks diversity and always sides with the killing of animals (predator and prey) before allowing non-consumptive users to actually watch wildlife from time to time. A radical concept, I know.

As always, please call or email with any thoughts, ideas, or concerns.

Representative Andy Josephson
State Capitol Bldg. Room 430
Phone: 907-465-4939