The state House and Senate will continue to be governed by bipartisan coalitions following Tuesday's midterm elections, but they'll have some new leaders.
Moderate Republican Anchorage Sen. Cathy Giessel will take over as Senate president for the retiring Republican Sen. Gary Stevens. In the House, independent Anchorage Rep. Calvin Schrage will take over as speaker with current Speaker Bryce Edgmon seeking a Senate seat.
The Alaska Beacon's James Brooks joined Alaska Public Media's Casey Grove to talk over what to expect from the 35th Alaska Legislature when it begins under a new governor in January.
Listen to the interview at the link above. The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Casey Grove: So Alaska will continue to be the only state with bipartisan coalitions leading each chamber, and a Democrat who was once part of bipartisan coalitions, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, is on track to win the governor's race, though I should say, that race has not been called by the AP. Considering all that, what are you expecting out of the Capitol next year if we do wind up with a coalition trifecta? Can we call it a coalition trifecta?
James Brooks: I think we can call it something pretty close to it. I mean, this is something Alaska hasn't seen since Gov. Steve Cowper in the late '80s, early 1990s, and maybe not even before that. These groups are going to be not in total alignment, but in more alignment than we've seen between the Legislature and the governor in a long time.
And so, in terms of policies, a big one to watch for is what will happen with education funding. These coalitions and the governor-elect have said that they're interested in forward-funding education. And what that will likely mean is a separate education budget done early, and then a change in policy as well, possibly in a separate bill, possibly as part of this separate budget bill, to inflation adjust education funding each year, because if you recall, there's been big fights over the amount to fund public schools, because they're not adjusted for inflation regularly. So, as funding's been held flat, it's lost its real value over time.
And we'd also look at a pension bill to revive a state pension for public employees and teachers in Alaska. That passed the Legislature this year but was vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. We'll also look for some kind of elections reform, and really, there's just pent-up demand on a large swath of things. I mean, you look at all the bills that were vetoed by the governor this year, those could return and would have a lot easier path to passage.
CG: And I want to ask you more about a couple of those things, but first, how big are you expecting these majorities to be?
JB: So right now, the Senate (majority) is at 11. That's the bare minimum they need to create a majority. There's a group of moderate-to-conservative Republicans in the Senate who have said they want to negotiate together. So we'll see if that Senate coalition can grow, and it's possible it ends up being very large. If there's some kind of agreement between that group of Republicans and the nascent coalition in the Senate, you could end up with a majority of 16 or 17 people, and if they're aligned, that's enough to potentially advance constitutional amendments, big fundamental changes in the way the state operates.
In the House, it looks like the majority right now stands at 22 or 23, depending on the results of some pending elections, and that's just with Democrats and Independents. If you start getting moderate Republicans added to that, that could grow very quickly as well, and potentially get to 24 or 25 even.
And what's going to be happening in the next few weeks behind the scenes is that in order to entice people to join these coalitions, legislators are going to have to offer them something in terms of promises to consider legislation that these Republicans are looking to consider. They could be positions in the management of the Legislature, putting them putting them in places that would allow them to dictate some of what bills advance and what don't.
CG: Interesting, yeah. Like you said, that's kind of playing out behind the scenes.
So oil prices are high, of course, and budget watchers are expecting a pretty big surplus for the coming year. How do you think these coalitions will approach things like the Permanent Fund Dividend and state spending? Have any of these, you know, leaders-to-be said anything about that?
JB: Yes. I was talking with Senate President-Elect Cathy Giessel, and she said one of the principles around the Senate Majority Coalition that's coming in is the idea of fiscal restraint, the idea that they're not going to spend all of this extra money that's come in from high oil prices. I expect them to put a fair amount away in savings, but there's also going to be a lot of requests for money, too. People want money for deferred maintenance projects. They want it for increased school funding, a bigger Permanent Fund Dividend, and so those arguments are going to play out over the next few months, starting in January.
CG: Gotcha. Now, you mentioned the idea of forward funding schools, and Kreiss-Tomkins has said he wants to pass a budget bill to fund schools by the end of March to help them plan better, to budget better. With the makeup that we're seeing forming in the Legislature now, how realistic is that timeline? And do you expect a big bump in state funding for schools next year?
JB: It is actually more realistic than it seemed before Election Day, with majorities in both the House and the Senate and majorities that support the idea of early school funding. That seems to be an idea that could advance. One thing I'm waiting to see, though, is the recommendations of a legislative task force on education funding. Sen. Löki Tobin, Democrat from Anchorage, has been chairing that and leading that task force. They're supposed to present their recommendations at the start of January, and that, I think, will give us a lot of insight in the way the first three months of the legislative session go.
CG: OK, so Cathy Giessel, as you mentioned, the Anchorage Republican who will be Senate President, she's been among the loudest skeptics of the Alaska LNG project and the tax breaks its developers are asking for. How big a priority do you think the gas pipeline will be for these majorities?
JB: I think it will be a big priority. I think they're going to be a lot more skeptical of the project than Gov. Mike Dunleavy was and is. And I think that when I was talking with her, she brought up the idea of an analysis, a feasibility analysis, that the government of South Korea is doing. If you remember, before the election, President Donald Trump brought up in the Oval Office the idea of South Korea investing as much as $50 billion in the Alaska gas line project. Of course, that came with a lot of caveats that weren't mentioned by the president at the time, one of which was that the project pans out fiscally and financially, and Giessel wants the state of Alaska to do a similar analysis.
CG: A lot of caveats, including that the president was saying it was a done deal, basically.
JB: And it was not.
CG: The next day, South Korea said, "No, it wasn't."
You mentioned this already, too, but last year we saw a pension bill for state and local government workers fail after Gov. Dunleavy vetoed it. Should we expect that to pass this year?
JB: Perhaps not this year, but I'm not saying no. But if it's not this year, it would be next year. It does seem like House, Senate and governor are aligned on that issue.
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