Legislature(2021 - 2022)
02/25/2021 02:00 PM House LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
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ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
FEBRUARY 25, 2021
2:00 PM
VIA TELECONFERENCE
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Sara Hannan, Chair
Senator Lora Reinbold, Vice Chair
Representative Matt Claman
Representative Bryce Edgmon
Representative Kevin McCabe
Representative Louise Stutes
Representative Cathy Tilton
Representative Chris Tuck
Senator Click Bishop
Senator Shelley Hughes (alternate)
Senator Peter Micciche
Senator Mike Shower
Senator Bert Stedman
Senator Gary Stevens
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Lyman Hoffman
OTHER MEMBERS PRESENT
AGENDA
COMMITTEE ORGANIZATION
COMMITTEE POLICIES
COMMITTEE BUSINESS
SPEAKER REGISTER
Jessica Geary, Executive Director, Legislative Affairs
Agency (LAA)
Megan Wallace, Director of Legal Services, LAA
2:02:35 PM
I. CALL TO ORDER
SPEAKER STUTES called the Legislative Council meeting to
order at 2:02 pm. Present at the call were:
Representatives Claman, Edgmon, Hannan, McCabe, Stutes,
Tilton, Tuck; Senators Bishop, Micciche, Hughes
(alternate), Shower, Stedman, Stevens, Reinbold.
Senator Hoffman was absent.
13 members present.
II. COMMITTEE ORGANIZATION
A. Election of the Chair
2:03:58 PM
REPRESENTATIVE EDGMON nominated and elected
Representative Sara Hannan as the Chair of Legislative
Council and asked for unanimous consent and that
nominations be closed.
SPEAKER STUTES said without objection Representative
Hannan is the Chair and turned the gavel over to her.
B. Election of the Vice Chair
2:04:31 PM
SENATOR STEVENS nominated and elected Senator Lora
Reinbold as the Vice Chair of Legislative Council and
asked for unanimous consent and that nominations be
closed.
CHAIR HANNAN said hearing no objection, Senator Reinbold
is the Vice Chair.
III. COMMITTEE POLICIES
A. Quorum and Voting Requirements
CHAIR HANNAN said it is a long-standing policy of the
Council to have a requirement of eight members for a
quorum and eight members to approve a motion. Because
there are seven members of the House and seven members of
the Senate, this standard ensures at least one member of
the other body approves a motion or satisfies a quorum to
do the Council's business. Chair Hannan continued that
unless there is objection, she would like to maintain the
existing policy. Hearing no objection, that policy is
approved.
IV. COMMITTEE BUSINESS
A. Motion to authorize Chair to give direction to Legal
Services
2:05:41 PM
SENATOR REINBOLD moved that Legislative Council authorize
the Chair to give direction to Legal Services in any
pending legal matters.
There was an objection [speaker did not identify
themselves].
CHAIR HANNAN noted the objection and asked Megan Wallace,
Director of Legal Services to please speak to the motion
and take questions.
MEGAN WALLACE, Legal Services Director, explained that as
members are aware there are several pending lawsuits that
Legislative Council previously authorized. Those include
pending appeals in the Alaska Supreme Court on issues
related to the forward funding of education and the
Governor's appointment and Legislative confirmation of
the Governor's appointees. This pending motion will be
consistent with the motions that authorize those lawsuits
which allow for the Chair to give direction to Legal
Services as to how to proceed with those pending legal
matters. Ms. Wallace said she is available for questions.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN asked, this motion would not allow
the Legislative Council Chair to make a decision to bring
a lawsuit, that is left with Legislative Council, this
just means that on the matters that have come up during
the course of the lawsuit, the Legislative Legal Director
can contact the Legislative Council Chair who can give
directions following through on the earlier decision to
bring the lawsuit?
MEGAN WALLACE replied that is correct. The statutory
authority to bring a lawsuit by Legislative Council
requires the consent of the Council, not just the Chair.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN thanked Ms. Wallace.
REPRESENTATIVE TUCK asked if there was an objection to
the motion.
CHAIR HANNAN replied yes, there was an objection for
purposes of discussion.
REPRESENTATIVE MCCABE said he had an objection, not just
for purposes of discussion and asked to speak to his
objection.
CHAIR HANNAN asked Representative McCabe to please speak
to his objection.
REPRESENTATIVE MCCABE thanked the Chair and said he
appreciated the opportunity to speak. He believed in
certain legal matters such this, the sense of Legislative
Council needs to be given to the Chair before the Chair
is allowed to make decisions such as this one on the
expedited hearing and the pleadings before Ms. Wallace at
this time. He said he would like to amend that motion to
say, "In certain circumstances, the Legislative Council
Chair can be given carte blanche to give direction to
Megan Wallace, but the Council would have to determine
what those circumstances were." This seems to be a very
big pleading and a big decision, too big to rest on the
shoulders of just the Chair with no discussion from the
Council. He said it is divisive and it is important to
the State that the correct decision is made as a Council.
Thank you.
CHAIR HANNAN said she did not hear that stated as a
motion so would rule Representative McCabe's statement is
not a motion to take action on. She asked if there were
other members who would like to speak to the objection
and the motion.
SENATOR REINBOLD said she only had fifteen minutes, but
wanted to say no one discussed this ahead of time, so she
was not sure the scope of what this entails or how much
authority this gives the Chair and thought it should be
discussed. She is very supportive of moving forward on
the Governor's appointees, but does not want to give
blanket authority to the Chair, especially as the Vice
Chair because she represents the Senate and there are a
lot of Senators online. She said she did not know how
much leeway this gives the Chair.
CHAIR HANNAN asked Senator Stevens, outgoing Council Chair,
or Megan Wallace to speak to the parameters that this
motion grants the Chair.
SENATOR STEVENS said he would like to hear what Ms. Wallace
has to say but did want to comment. He said this is not an
unusual thing Council is doing and, as Ms. Wallace said
before, this is only pending litigation approved during the
last session by that Legislative Council. This does not
give carte blanche approval for the Chair to have lawsuits.
If a new lawsuit were to occur during session, it would
have to be approved by both the House and the Senate, but
if it were to occur during the interim, it would have to be
approved by the entire Legislative Council.
He said he is certain that our Chair will do as previous
Chairs have done and ensure Legislative Council is fully
aware of what is going on and not take independent action
without tacit approval of the Council. He sees no reason
why this is necessary as the business of the State must be
run, sometimes quickly. He knows that is the case and often
when he was Chair had to work with Ms. Wallace on very
short notice to get things done, so he does not think it
will be abused and would not be comfortable with an
amendment that would change this motion.
SENATOR REINBOLD said she would like, with respect, to have
all members say this is not carte blanche, she just wants
the intent. She said she is not going to vote against this,
however wants the intent to be clear.
CHAIR HANNAN asked if there were other members of the
Committee who would like to address the motion.
SENATOR HUGHES asked Ms. Wallace, or perhaps Senator
Stevens, if any direction that the Chair would give would
incur any additional cost, and whether any direction that
the Chair could give would make a policy call without the
agreement of the Council.
SENATOR STEVENS said he did not believe there would be any
policy issues or change of policy established by
Legislative Council or by the House and the Senate during
session. Additional costs are entirely possible as happens
in lawsuits sometimes. When he was Council Chair several
years ago, there was a large lawsuit against the owners of
the downtown building in Anchorage which took a lot of
effort. Legislative attorneys, himself, his staff were
involved often in Anchorage on long, involved issues and in
that case, the Chair needs the support of the Council to
accomplish their goals. He could not answer the issue about
costs, but sometimes there may be additional costs by
giving this authority to the Chair, but there would be no
change in the policy of the Council.
CHAIR HANNAN asked Senator Hughes if that answered her
question or if she would like to hear from Megan Wallace as
well.
SENATOR HUGHES asked to please hear from Ms. Wallace.
MS. WALLACE said she will largely echo the statements made
by Senator Stevens. With respect to the policy decisions,
the policy decision to pursue the lawsuit was already made
by a previous Legislative Council and any effort that moves
forward is likely to be consistent with the positions taken
by the Legislature already. With respect to cost, the
matters that are currently pending have been handled
entirely in-house by herself and members of her team and if
any costs have been incurred, they have been modest and
within the Legal Services approved budget. At this time,
she does not expect there to be any additional cost
associated with the ongoing appeal.
SENATOR STEVENS said he appreciates what Ms. Wallace said,
but to underline, the Chair has a limit of $35,000, unless
approved by Council. That is a lot of money but can be
spent quickly in lawsuits. There is a limit on any Chair of
a $35,000 obligation.
REPRESENTATIVE MCCABE said this meeting was scheduled so
tightly because it is focused on one underlying motion and
the fact that the judge wants a response from the
Legislative Council today. We have a new Legislative
Council that has recently been empaneled, not the old
Legislative Council, and he does not believe we have had
enough time to meet for the Chair to get a sense of what
the Legislative Council actually wants. While he
appreciates all the comments, he believes that this
particular motion was put forth to give the Chair the
ability to direct Ms. Wallace to respond to this pleading
and the judge's requirement that she have a response in by
this afternoon and he believes that doing so without the
sense of the Council is incorrect. He appreciates the
opportunity to speak on that.
CHAIR HANNAN asked Ms. Wallace to clarify the timeframe and
the motion that she has been asked by the court to respond
to.
MS. WALLACE replied that the motion we have been speaking
about is that the Governor's Office has filed an appeal
stemming from the decision issued by Judge Pallenberg last
week in Juneau Superior Court and has filed an emergency
motion seeking expedited consideration from the Supreme
Court on that appeal and asking for that decision from the
Supreme Court to be rendered by April 12, 2021. We received
notice yesterday that the court was requesting our response
by close of business February 25, 2021. Without knowing
whether or not the committee would have the ability to hold
a meeting so expeditiously, we did seek relief from the
court and request some additional time to respond to that
motion. We just recently received confirmation that the
court has granted that request, but that request for an
extension of time was not approved until after this meeting
had been scheduled.
CHAIR HANNAN asked if there were other questions.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN commented that the motion Ms. Wallace
earlier indicatedthere are actually two pending appeals
before the Supreme Court: one involving education forward
funding, that was one of the matters she described, and the
other involving the appointments topic. He wanted to echo
the comments made earlier by Senator Stevens to the effect
that the kinds of questions that will be asked for the
Legislative Council Chair are consistent with past practice
of the Legislature and that the decision to bring the
lawsuit has already been made. He does not think this is
just one motion, this is actually allowing us to continue
doing business when we have matters before the court, such
as has been the Legislature's practice for many years.
SENATOR SHOWER apologized for missing approximately the
first six minutes of this meeting and the motion. He asked
to please get a very brief synopsis of the motion, as he
has only heard the debate since.
CHAIR HANNAN said the motion was, "I move that the
Legislative Council authorize the Chair to give direction
to Legal Services in any pending legal matters."
SENATOR SHOWER thanked the Chair.
REPRESENTATIVE TUCK said this is basically standard
operating procedure, not anything new. We granted these
powers once the decision was made to move forward on a
legal case, anything other than that would just slow the
process down. That is one thing that gives government a bad
name when we do not run as efficient as we should. He is in
total support with the original motion.
SENATOR SHOWER said his question pertains to a physical
quorum and so many people being on the phone. Our
understanding is that we were not able to pass a motion or
vote if we were not present. He would like to know from
Legislative Legal, unless there is a quorum physically
present, are we allowed to make these motions? We had some
confusion with that earlier today about committees with so
many people missing.
MS. WALLACE responded that yes, the Legislative Council can
operate remotely with telephonic participation including
voting to approve certain matters. The difference between
Legislative Council motions for approval and committees
which pass out a bill is that Uniform Rule 24a requires
that committee reports relating to actions on bills be
signed physically by committee members, there lies the
distinction and because there is no committee report that
requires signature, Legislative Council has historically
operated and conducted a large amount of business
telephonically with votes being taken by members who are
participating remotely.
SENATOR SHOWER said thank you and was grateful for that
being made clear and put on the record.
SENATOR STEVENS said he wanted to make clear that last
interim while under the threat of COVID and Council could
not meet physically in one location, it was pretty common
practice, as it has been for many years during the interim,
to not meet physically in one place, but to meet by
teleconference or video conference.
CHAIR HANNAN asked Representative McCabe if his objection
still stood.
REPRESENTATIVE MCCABE replied, yes, it does. Thank you.
CHAIR HANNAN requested a roll call vote.
2:24:18 PM
A roll call vote was taken.
YEAS: Representatives Claman, Edgmon, Hannan, Stutes,
Tuck; Senators Bishop, Micciche, Hoffman, Hughes, Shower,
Stedman, Stevens
NAYS: McCabe, Tilton
The motion passed 12-2.
CHAIR HANNAN asked if there were any questions.
SENATOR MICCICHE said he wanted to make it perfectly clear
and should have brought this up before, but thinks there is
a better path. The reason he supported this motion is the
legislature is in a legal proceeding now and must see it
through. He hopes that Council finds a better way to deal
with this issue going forward. He is not supportive of the
initial lawsuit, but the Legislature is in the middle of it
now and will actually need some legal representation to
deal with it, even if it backs out gracefully. Thank you.
SENATOR HUGHES said she is not supportive of the lawsuit
either, but when things take longer the costs go up and
that is why she voted yes.
REPRESENTATIVE MCCABE said for him, it is not about giving
the Chair power or not or the ability to make a decision,
it is specifically about this motion. He thinks there is a
better way and that we are in a crossroads now with this
injunction, where we could find a way to back out
gracefully and do what we want to do with the legislation
instead of with the cost, expense, and divisiveness of a
lawsuit. He thinks the injunction accomplished our goals
and that we need to find a better path, if we can, as a
Council. Hence his no vote. It was not directed at the
Chair in any way.
REPRESENTATIVE STUTES said Chair Hannan did a stupendous
job chairing the first meeting and thanked Madam Chair.
CHAIR HANNAN thanked Speaker Stutes and all members and
staff who, in this fire drill to meet a court deadline that
we believed to be today, made yourselves available on short
notice, in challenging times, on a complex issue. She
assured members this will not be her practice to call
meetings at the last minute, and we will have an organized,
well-advertised in advance Legislative Council meeting in
the very near future.
V. ADJOURN
CHAIR HANNAN said if there is nothing further to come
before the Council, we are adjourned.
2:29:30 PM
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