HB 6-REMOVING A REGENT  CHAIR DICK announced that the final order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 6, "An Act authorizing the governor to remove or suspend a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Alaska for good cause; and establishing a procedure for the removal or suspension of a regent." 9:35:46 AM REPRESENTATIVE MAX GRUENBERG, Alaska State Legislature, introduced HB 6 paraphrasing from the sponsor statement which read [original punctuation provided]: This bill creates a statutory due process procedure under which the governor may suspend or remove a University of Alaska regent for good cause. This bill is in response to a 2007 incident in which a regent was federally indicted on multiple counts of fraud. He refused to resign his position until impeachment proceedings began. The boards of regents' by-laws do not set forth a procedure to remove a regent. The legislative legal counsel has concluded that regents serve at the pleasure of the governor and thus can be removed. An informal attorney general's opinion states that the governor does not have the authority to remove a regent without cause. That AG opinion concluded that the governor does have the authority to remove a regent so long as cause is established and due process granted. It should be noted that during the 25th legislature letters were sent to the board of regents asking that it, under the authority of 14.40.170(b)(1), adopt procedures for the removal and/or suspension of a regent, but it has not done so. It is important to acknowledge that the constitution does bear upon this bill due to the governor's powers being enumerated in Article III of the Alaska Constitution while the board of regents is established in Article VII, section 6. The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that the UA is subject to a degree of legislative control. For example, the legislature can, without approval of the regents, dispose of UA land. Additionally, the legislature has, through law, provided the UA with a broad degree of autonomy; however, this implies the UA is still subject to laws enacted by the legislature. The legislature has been given broad authority under the constitution, indeed the only constitutional constraints on the power of the legislature to make laws regarding other agencies of the State of Alaska deal with the rules of court and the repeal of initiatives. In effect this legislation provides a check upon the powers of the university. This bill secures the state's interest and the university's interest. This legislation will keep a cloud from hovering over the UA in a future scenario in which a regent must be removed or suspended for cause. 9:38:45 AM REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG explained that the procedure, presented in the bill, is modeled on the worker's compensation appeals board legislation, and other statutory framework in the state. The procedure is designed to be above reproach, and handled through the governor's office. 9:40:44 AM REPRESENTATIVE P. WILSON moved to have committee substitute (CS) HB 6, 27-LS0027\D, Mischel, 2/9/11, before the committee as the working draft. There being no objection, Version D was before the committee. The committee took an at-ease from 9:40 a.m. to 9:42 a.m. 9:41:57 AM REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG stressed the need to have a process in place to remove a regent. REPRESENTATIVE SEATON asked to have the CS explained. 9:43:47 AM TED MADSEN, Staff, Representative Max Gruenberg, Alaska State Legislature, explained the changes in version D, paraphrasing from a prepared statement, which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: There are a number of changes between the "A" and "D" versions, including minor grammatical and stylistic changes, and substantive changes. There was one major change to Section 1 of the bill. Subsection (a) paragraph (3) of the "A" version (page 2 lines 2-7) was deleted and subsection (a) paragraph (2) of the "D" version (page1 lines 12-13) was added. The effect of this change is to show that the legislature has legislative authority over the University of Alaska. There were a few changes to Section 2 of the bill. Subsection (e) of the "A" version (page 3lines 7-10) was deleted, as with the addition of new subsections and language in the "D" version it was unnecessary. Specifically, with designation that the proceedings in this section fall under the guidelines of the Administrative Procedures Act, the language in subsection (e) was not needed. The other major change to Section 2 of the "A" version was a reordering of the subsections to better reflect the flow of the proceedings. 9:46:34 AM REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG interjected that precedent can be cited for the legislative authority over the University of Alaska. Further, with respect to the removal of sec. E lines 7-10, the language was redundant and new language established the administrative adjudication procedures, modeled on the federal adjudication act. 9:48:13 AM