The House chambers are seen on Friday, May 13, 2022, at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Funding Alaska schools in a stable way, addressing energy needs, reforming public employee retirements and balancing the state budget are the top priorities for the state House of Representatives majority caucus, incoming leaders said.
The majority filled out its leadership team and committee chairs on Saturday, three days after the unofficial election results were released on Nov. 20.
The caucus currently has 21 members, which is the bare minimum to form a majority in the 40-member House. It includes 14 Democrats, five independents and two Republicans. The 19 members who are not in the majority are all Republicans.
Incoming majority leader Chuck Kopp of Anchorage is one of the two majority Republicans. In an interview, he said the caucus priorities crossed party lines. He said the education, energy, employment and budget issues relate to attracting and retaining young Alaskans.
“They’re not a Republican-Democrat thing. They’re an Alaskan-first thing, and that is what we organized around,” Kopp said. “And our caucus is open to anyone who recognizes that those are priority items that have to be addressed, and it is such a priority that they’re willing to subordinate their partisan fear, to look at the issues honestly and say, ‘I’m going to work on this with my whole heart and mind to do what’s best for Alaska, and to make sure that our focus is on the next generation moving our state, you know, in such a way that our young people stay here.’”
Previous narrow majorities have struggled, and Kopp expressed hope that more representatives will join the caucus.
“It is not the number that we will end up at,” Kopp said of the 21 members. “We have active conversations going with many members, and I expect that that will not be what our organization looks like.”
Kopp said the outgoing majority was “ungovernable,” due to divisions over the size of the budget and whether to draw down savings to pay larger Permanent Fund dividends. He also noted that a consensus in favor of increasing school funding fell apart after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a change to the formula used to set state school funding.
“When it was vetoed, that consensus fell off to below the three quarter threshold, and it really threw the state into severe instability, instability as far as planning for an education budget and and we know what the outfall of that was,” Kopp said.
School district leaders and teachers said coworkers are leaving due to uncertainty.
The majority leadership team includes three co-chairs of the powerful finance committee: Reps. Neal Foster, D-Nome, who will oversees all bills other than the major annual budget bills; Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, who will oversee the operating budget that pays for state agency operations; and Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, who will oversee the capital budget, which pays for infrastructure like roads and bridges as well as for maintenance.
They join the three previously announced leaders: Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, who will be speaker; Kopp; and Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, who will chair the rules committee, which determines when bills are scheduled for votes by the full chamber.
In a statement announcing the caucus released on Saturday, caucus members said they have set four priorities: education, energy, retirement reform and balanced budgets.
“We have heard loud and clear from Alaskans that we need stable education funding for great schools with small class sizes,” said Edgmon and Reps. Andi Story, D-Juneau, and Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, in a joint statement. Story and Himschoot will co-chair the education committee.
Other committee chairs working on the caucus priorities include: Rep. Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks, and Rep.-elect Robyn Burke, D-Utqiagvik, resource committee co-chairs; and Rep. Donna Mears, D-Anchorage, and Rep.-elect Ky Holland, I-Anchorage, energy committee co-chairs, according to the news release.
The rest of the committee chairs will be: Rep. Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks, state affairs; Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, health and social services; Rep. Zack Fields and Rep.-elect Carolyn Hall, both D-Anchorage, labor and commerce co-chairs; Mears and Himschoot, community and regional affairs co-chairs; Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, judiciary; Rep.-elect Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage, and Carrick, transportation co-chairs; Eischeid, military and veteran affairs; Gray, joint armed services; Stutes, fisheries; and Edgmon and Dibert, tribal affairs co-chairs.
Along with the three co-chairs, the three other majority members of the finance committee are Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau; Rep. Alyse Galvin, I-Anchorage; and Rep.-elect Nellie Jimmie, D-Toksook Bay.
Edgmon and Foster are switching caucuses, two years after joining the current majority, which is predominantly Republican.
The Republican caucus, now headed into the minority, hasn’t announced its leadership yet. Speaker Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, was quoted in a pair of news releases last week congratulating former Rep. David Nelson, R-Anchorage, on his win over Rep. Cliff Groh, D-Anchorage, and discussing the importance of addressing energy issues for House Republicans. Tilton did not immediately respond to an interview request late Monday afternoon.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.