The House Democratic Caucus is offering what they say can be a solution to a budget deadlock that has the Alaska Legislature 12 days into a special session with no end in sight.
The plan calls for the Senate to give up its budgetary attempts to protect energy project from a veto by Gov. Sean Parnell, while at the same time calling on Parnell to back off his threat to veto projects made during oil tax negotiations.
Senate President Gary Stevens said Gov. Sean Parnell has “removed himself” from efforts to reach a compromise on the capital budget, leaving it up to the House and Senate to do so on their own.
Stevens said Thursday that he was basing this largely on Parnell’s decision not to address the Senate majority directly. Stevens asked Parnell to address the bipartisan caucus and provide the same assurances, perhaps in greater detail, that he’d given Stevens and Senate Finance Committee co-chairs Bert Stedman and Lyman Hoffman on Wednesday.
It’s no surprise, but there are a tangle of issues in the disagreements that are keeping legislators in Juneau in the special session that continues in Juneau. It’s not just the budgets.
Don’t rule out additional funding for the governor’s merit scholarship program.
On the table in budget talks between Senate and House leaders is the potential to put at least $200 million aside as a long-term funding source for the program
Three Alaska House Democrats have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking for an investigation into the state’s gas prices.
Anchorage Reps. Chris Tuck and Pete Petersen and Fairbanks Rep. Scott Kawasaki say in the letter the $4.10 average price per gallon of gasoline is harming businesses and families.
Gov. Sean Parnell told key senators Wednesday that he would fairly evaluate capital spending projects and not abuse his veto authority, assurances seen as positive as he and lawmakers try to untangle a budget mess.
Sen. Bert Stedman described the phone call — the first time he’d spoken with Parnell in over a week — as recognition of some of the fears that senators have that their projects could be cut for failing to pass Parnell’s oil tax-reduction bill.
The House Finance Committee will move its deliberations to Anchorage, hoping to get more favorable media coverage in ongoing budget battles.
“I think that sets a horrible precedent,” said Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau.
Alaska attorney general says contingency language included in the proposed state capital budget is unconstitutional.
John J. Burns says the language and non-severability clause, intended to make a roughly $400 million package of energy projects an as-is, all-or-nothing deal, violates the governor’s line item veto authority.
The debate over contingency language in the Senate’s proposed capital budget hit a new level Tuesday, with the attorney general calling the language unconstitutional and one of the lawmakers who included it in the bill showing no signs of backing down.
With only a few legislators involved in ongoing budget negotiations, members of the Juneau delegation took the opportunity to round up a dozen or so of their colleagues for a guided tour of the Alaska State Museum, one of the City and Borough of Juneau’s top priorities for improvement.
