Representative
JONATHAN
KREISS-TOMKINS
 
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Contact my office:
State Capitol Bldg.
4th Floor, Room 426
Juneau, AK 99801
(907) 465-3732

Contact my interim office:
Sitka LIO
201 Katlian St., #103
Sitka, AK 99835
(907) 747-4665

July 8, 2013 (Issue 6)

What Happened?! (The Sequel)

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

The Alaska Legislature does two things: we write the budget and we write the law. I'm trying to break down the recent legislative session: last time I focused on the budget; this time I'll focus on the law. Just what kind of legislation are those yahoos over in Juneau passing?!

What Happened?

The first session of the 28th Alaska Legislature was prodigious. We passed bills the way Oompa Loompas make Wonka Bars. Not all of our legislation is necessarily quite as palatable, however. Here's a grab bag of bills, either important or interesting:

• A huge oil tax cut (about $4.3 billion over six years). The Alaska Legislature's magnum opus of 2013, Senate Bill 21 has quickly assumed fame or infamy, depending on your perspective. You know mine!

• Weakening cruise ship wastewater standards. The legislature passed a bill (HB 80) that exempts cruise ships from meeting Water Quality Standards at the point they discharge wastewater. Cruise ships are doing increasingly well with their discharge technology (especially for treating fecal bacteria), but they are failing to meet standards for copper, nickel, ammonia, and zinc. HB 80 effectively exempts cruise ships from those standards. (I voted against HB 80.) 

• Jay Hammond Day. Governor Hammond was a statesman; to me, he's a role model. His passing in 2005 was Alaska's profound loss. Jay Hammond Day (HB 130; I'm a cosponsor) is a small but deserved gesture to a great man.

• HB 186. A bill that we wrote! It's a non-controversial "housekeeping" bill, but we made a law, and our legislative office is unabashedly proud. Governor Parnell signed HB 186 into law this Wednesday in Anchorage. I'll was there, and greatly enjoyed the moment.

• There was also a scrum of bills that were more Railbelt-specific (natural gas trucking for Fairbanks; authorizing a small-diameter natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Railbelt) and hundreds of millions of dollars in scope. I'll skip them for this newsletter because they don't directly affect Southeast (besides vacuuming up tremendous sums of money).

What Did Not Happen?

More than one battle-hardened legislator has counseled me it's more important to stop bad bills than pass good bills. You too might find validity in this wisdom after considering the following list, of stuff that did NOT happen:

• School vouchers. School voucher advocates, who would like to allow public money to flow to private and religious k-12 schools, were not able to muster the votes to pass their constitutional amendment (SJR 9). (The Alaska Constitution expressly forbids the appropriation of public money to private education.) As a believer in the institution of public education, I am pleased SJR 9 is going nowhere fast.

• Voter photo ID. House Bill 1 would require voters to present government-issued photo ID in order to vote. Not so easy if you're an elder in Angoon (or Kipnuk) and the closest DMV is in Juneau (or Bethel). Keep in mind, also, that the Director of the Division of Elections has plainly stated that there is no history of voter fraud in Alaska. HB 1 — a solution searching for a problem — has stalled in the Judiciary Committee.

• Omnibus permitting bill. Governor Parnell's HB 77 basically makes it a whole lot easier to cut, dig, and drill — that is, the bill makes it easier for industry to get permits to develop resources. Conversely, HB 77 limits citizens' say in how resources are developed, especially if the development affects watersheds. HB 77 has implications on the Pebble Mine (I'm not a fan), and for salmon streams statewide. HB 77 passed the House (I voted against it), and is stalled in the Senate, where it doesn't have the votes to pass.

Stat Line 

I loved collecting baseball cards as a kid. I've come to wonder if one could do the same for legislators; there are all sorts of tantalizing stats: voting record, attendance, total minutes speechifying on the floor (I'd love to know which legislator is tops, and I certainly have a few guesses), cups of coffee consumed per committee hearing, press releases per month, and much more.

Here's your 28th Alaska Legislature by a few rudimentary numbers: Legislators introduced 306 pieces of legislation; 73 passed both the House and Senate. Thus far, Governor Parnell has kept his veto pen in its holster (0 vetos to date), a testament to lovey-dovey legislative-executive branch harmony.

My personal stat line: 84 bills came to the House floor. I voted for 72; I voted against 9; I was excused absent for 3 votes.

The Alaska Legislature did a lot of stuff this session, more than most people can remember ever before. Some of it was good. Some of it — including some monumentally big decisions — was less than good. 

Nothing piques my appetite for old fashioned hard work between the legislative sessions quite like “less than good.” We’ll be chomping on big legislative projects for the next six months here in Sitka!

Sincerely,

Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
State Capitol, Room 426
Phone: 907-465-3732
rep.jonathan.kreiss-tomkins@akleg.gov

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