Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, speaks in favor of Senate Bill 48, the carbon credits bill, on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, in the Alaska House. At background is Department of Resources Commissioner John Boyle and staff supporting the bill. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska House of Representatives will be governed by a mostly Democratic coalition majority instead of the predominantly Republican one that has controlled it for the past two years.
Late Wednesday, members of the new coalition announced that it had secured more than 21 votes, the minimum needed to elect the speaker of the House and control the flow of legislation within the chamber.
The announcement came even though election results have not been finalized and could change before certification.
“We have taken that into account, and we’re very confident in the numbers we have,” said Rep.-elect Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage and the new coalition’s majority leader. “We’re not sitting back. Our intent is to grow into a caucus of 26-27 (members), and the invitation is open to any member that can ascribe to the principles of organization that we released.”
Those principles include not raising oil taxes, not overspending from the Alaska Permanent Fund, “stable public education funding,” “retirement reform,” and “energy development.”
Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham and the speaker of the House from 2017-2020, will again serve as speaker of the House.
Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, will act as chair of the rules committee, which influences which bills make it to floor votes.
Stutes and Edgmon previously had significant closed-door disagreements within the Capitol. Those are behind them, Stutes said Thursday.
“I feel totally confident and comfortable that whatever issues had arisen, we’ve talked about them, we’ve resolved them, and we’re moving on … and no hard feelings,” she said.
As a whole, Stutes said, the new majority intends to stay away from controversial social issues. Kopp said that’s by design.
“I’m definitely a social conservative, and I’m not interested in advancing any legislation that is perceived as hostile to that,” he said.
He referenced a prolonged spring debate in the House over legislation that would limit transgender girls on school sports teams. That debate took more than a day with just four days left in the session, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy ultimately vetoed several bills that passed the House after its adjournment deadline.
“Alaska right now does not need us to devolve into a partisan fight that stalls the Legislature for weeks, and then you end up having the governor be forced into vetoing bills because we got hijacked into social issues that had nothing to do with the governance of the state,” Kopp said.
Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage and minority leader for the past two years, said he’s happy to join the new majority group.
“I’m encouraged that we’ve been able to put together a bipartisan majority that’s ready to get to work. For Alaskans, the last two years have been pretty unproductive, in my view, or at least, certainly not as productive or functional as they could have been. And I’m looking forward to really getting to work,” he said.
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