Stand-Off in the Legislature, Tragic Spring for Fairbanks Eateries, and More
We come to the last day of the regular state legislative session with a continued schism between the budgets championed by the Senate and House. They have until midnight before the session automatically ends, with no clear path forward. While anything is certainly possible, we’re unlikely to have a budget both the House and Senate agree upon tonight.
As Jeff Landfield of The Alaska Landmine wrote yesterday:
So, technically, a budget deal could still be reached by tomorrow through a House concurrence vote. But this is not likely. The House majority wants a larger dividend and the Senate majority does not want to dip into savings to pay for it. It’s that simple.
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The Legislature does have the option to extend 10 days with a two-thirds vote of each body. But it’s unlikely the House has the votes to do that, and the Senate has said they won’t do that. A lot of legislators are scheduled to leave town after session ends tomorrow night. The Legislature can also call themselves into a special session at a later date, but that also requires a two-thirds vote and, like extending 10 days, the votes are not there.
The last option is Governor Mike Dunleavy (R – Alaska) calls a special session. He has one hour after adjournment to call a special session that is not subject to the normal 30-day notice requirement. But he’s been radio silent on this. Today, the Landmine finally got a response from his press office asking if he will call a special session and when it will start. Here is the response:
Governor Dunleavy has been meeting with legislators on both sides of the aisle, and he hopes they will come up with a resolution between now and tomorrow. The Governor has always advocated for a budget that funds core services and provides a fair dividend.
The statement did not indicate what he plans to do. There’s been some talk that he won’t do anything and force the Legislature to work it out. There’s also been talk that he will call a special session starting on Thursday or on June 1. No one really seems to know. The advantage for him when he calls a specials session is he gets to set the agenda.
Pink slips to state workers and teachers will start going out soon. If a budget isn’t passed and enacted by July 1 – the start of the new fiscal year – there will be a government shutdown. This is never happened before in Alaska, so it’s not exactly clear what would happen. But government functions would definitely be disrupted.
Here’s a photo of House rep McCabe wearing a “Fuck Around & Find Out” pin last week, if that tells you anything.
I’ll be following both Jeff and Matt Buxton on Twitter today to keep up with last minute developments in the legislature, though no one really seems to be in a hurry.
Here’s an excerpt from Matt’s Fahrenkamp Lunch chat last Friday (transcribed with AI and lightly edited for clarity, so forgive any quirks):
Question: Matt, can you talk about the dynamics of the end of the session? And this one compared with ones in the past?
Yeah, I think the really big thing to keep in mind right now, and a lot of people told me this back early in the session, is that how you organize really determines how things go. And so in the Senate right now is the 17 member, super-majority of Democrats and Republicans, actually very similar to what I came saw when I moved to Alaska in 2011.
The 2012 session was the first one I covered and that was the last year of that bipartisan coalition. I think the kind of thinking [with that kind of supermajority] is: we all kind of agree on 90% of things anyway, so let's put aside the 10% and find some sort of middle ground. It's a pretty centrist sort of viewpoint. I think their thinking, really, is “don't burn the house down”.
That all said, they have a lot of old hands on the Senate side at the budget. A lot of people that are very experienced; you have Bert Steadman, Lyman Hoffman, people who know how to get things done, and also are pretty good at getting their way.
On the other side of things, you have the House, which came into session as basically a 20/20 split, and then sort of settled when a group of four Bush Caucus legislators came over to form a majority.
I kind of said at the time, too….. how long, really, is this going to be able to hold together? Because you have a lot of factions within that party. The Republicans, especially over the last decade, probably longer I'm sure, have been really internally fractured. And I think that you have the handful of moderates who are kind of pro-business kind of people. And then you have a pretty strong bloc of hardline ideologues.
That was all just to say they're not all that organized, I think. And they're not really all necessarily pulling in the same direction right now. In the years before, I think you had a Senate and a House that were kind of on similar-ish playing fields that had an ability to sort of go back and forth. But right now, it's interesting because they’re fighting over the budget, and it kind of comes down to the size of the dividend.
The House Republicans are really arguing that they want to get the big dividend, but it requires a draw out of savings to pay for. The big problem with that is that the Senate doesn't want to do that. The Senate isn't going to be convinced to do it. And the House really doesn't have the votes. So the House, they need to get to 30 votes. That means that they need to work with some of the Democrats to get some of the votes there. And they don't have it.
That really puts the Senate in a very strong drivers seat right now. The disorganization in the House is obvious to anybody who has any experience. And so the Senate is really in the driver's seat, and they know that the House has very little leverage.
It still doesn't mean that the house is necessarily going to go along with the Senate’s plan. But what I'm seeing right now is that the House is sort of on its back heel, almost “off balance” and unable to really keep up with the Senate's maneuvering.
What that means within the session, though, is that I think it could really quickly become a big mess. Although really big messages aren't necessarily a new thing for the legislature.
That said, I think that there's this kind of interesting possibility that some of the people in the house majority might split off and might say this isn't worth it for us, we're going to cut a deal that is sort of this moderate-ish, middle of the road deal that we can all kind of live with, and just sort of live to fight another day.
I think that's really kind of scary for some of those hard-right Republicans. I hear a decent amount of frustration down there right now from some Republicans who think that because they got in power, they should be able to do everything that they wanted to.
I that they’re coming to a reality that having to negotiate for a Majority means you don't don't get everything you want and whether or not they're going to buy that and play fair and accept the reality of the situation is yet to be seen. I guess the track record is probably not particularly encouraging that they will see it that way.
We have recorded that talk and are hoping to launch a website soon to house all of the recordings going forward for the Fahrenkamp series. The next talk will be at noon on Friday, June 9.
The conservative majority of our FNSB Assembly bet big on a theoretical increase to education funding from the State, and reduced the local funding contribution by $9 million dollars from the districts ask.
If that money does not come through, there were mumblings about making up part of the difference, somehow, but no clear path forward on that, and conservative majority members were unwilling to promise on the record to make that happen.
More on the Borough budget soon.
Food in Fairbanks
It’s been a terrible spring for Fairbanks eateries and our culinary community. Monica Yoder Bartolatz-Sawyer, owner of Just the Tips, passed away suddenly in March. Earlier this week, Pita Place officially announced they are closing down their business and returning to serving pre-made food at the Farmers Market. Last night, I found out that Spice It Up had burned down.
Some good news, at least:
Local legend Lizzie Hartman will be representing Alaska and the West on the next season of Master Chef. The series premiers next Wednesday, May 24 on Fox.
Hug your chefs tightly.
Around the Corner
I’ve been busy!
Regionals for track and field, our final local meet, is this Friday and Saturday. Huuuge thank you for everyone who’s been able to help!
My grandma officially had her ESTA application approved: she’ll be visiting Fairbanks from Poland for a few months, starting in June!
Last weeks Fireweed Collective People Power Party at Venue went really well, and we’re continuing to build off of that energy into the summer and local elections this fall.
There is a Platting Board Meeting tonight.
In leu of these and a couple other projects (including my full-time job!), I am ratcheting down to 2 posts a week for the foreseeable future. I’ll also no longer be sticking to a schedule of set topics each week, or certain days and times, at least for now.
I want to keep these informative, high quality, and interesting! More freedom around the form and function of each post will help make that happen.
Appreciate you reading, and hope you’re enjoying our beautiful spring! Leaves are starting to pop off.
Here’s a Tiny Desk concert I can’t get enough of:
House looks great! Glad to see winter finally decided to skip town for a bit