SCR 1-UNIFORM RULES: ABSTAIN FROM VOTING  4:16:14 PM CHAIR DUNLEAVY called the committee back to order and announced the consideration of SCR 1. 4:16:48 PM SENATOR BERTA GARDNER, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, sponsor of SCR 1, set forth that SCR 1 can be described by a quote from "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." She said the Legislature relies on Uniform Rule 34(b) when it comes to conflict of interest for legislators' voting. She summarized that Uniform Rule 34(b) says a member can ask for unanimous consent that he or she be excused from voting because they have a conflict of interest and then the member describes their conflict of interest. She explained that theoretically if nobody objects, the person is allowed not to vote. She pointed out that in her years in the Legislature, someone in the body has always objected and the presiding officer says the person must vote. She noted that the conflict of interest rule has regularly been an issue with the public. She disclosed that there have been 13 bills and resolutions that have tried to address the issue of conflict of interest in voting since 2007 and none have passed. She revealed that she has addressed a variety of ideas and talked to legislators, but she has not found a good solution. She said the bottom line is a person's conscious should be the guide. She explained that SCR 1 proposes to simply require that when a person stands up and asks to be excused for voting, describes the conflict of interest and somebody objects, all three parts become part of the record. She noted that she has claimed a conflict of interest on things that she knew were not really a conflict of interest; however, she pointed out that nobody wants to be accused of failing to disclose. She detailed that she has claimed a conflict of interest regarding real estate because her daughter sells real estate as well as claiming a conflict for her son-in-law because he works for an oil company. She opined that legislators tend to over-disclose to "cover our bases." SENATOR GARDNER set forth that she is trying to solve the conflict of interest problem so that when a person has a genuine conflict there ultimately is a path. She said she wants to change the culture because the culture is to always make people vote. She asserted that a person's conscious should hold if there really is a conflict of interest. She stated that SCR 1 is a clear proposal to just make a conflict of interest part of the record. She remarked that the resolution is a "sunshine measure" that is not complex or hard to understand. 4:20:13 PM SENATOR COGHILL thanked Senator Gardner for tackling the conflict of interest issue and stated that the subject has been a conundrum for many years. He agreed that putting a legislator's conflict of interest on the record is a good idea. He stated that the final sentence has some good parts and bad parts: Upon a member's request to be excused from voting, the clerk or secretary shall record in the journal the member requesting to be excused, the stated reason for the request, and, if an objection to the request is made, the member or members who objected. He said SCR 1 is one good way of saying that if a legislator is going to declare a conflict of interest, at least the declaration will be a matter of record. He expressed that he is grateful that Senator Gardner "wondered out into this territory." SENATOR GARDNER replied that her resolution is, "Just the toe into the deep water." SENATOR GIESSEL asked if the committee could hear from Mr. Anderson from Legislative Ethics and noted that she was interested in his opinion on the legislation. 4:21:29 PM JERRY ANDERSON, Administrator, The Select Committee on Legislative Ethics, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, explained that the SCR 1 is from the Uniform Rules and not from the Legislative Ethics Act itself. He detailed that the Legislative Ethics Act statute references the Uniform Rules and that is the only connection with the Legislative Ethics Act. 4:22:40 PM SAMANTHA HARRIS, Staff, Senator Berta Gardner, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, explained that Mr. Anderson was asked to be available if the committee's conversation entered the Legislature's ethics laws. She pointed out that there is some documentation that occurs when a legislator declares a conflict, but the nature of the conflict is not recorded, and the practice is that if multiple objections are made the record will just say, "objections were made." She added that if the Senate secretary or chief clerk can discern who the legislator was that objected, on occasion they will record who made the objection, but the act is not always the practice. She disclosed that legislative research was unable to determine any instance in the Alaska Legislature's history when unanimous consent was given for a declaration of a conflict of interest. She added that the National Conference of State Legislatures provided a summary of voting recusal provisions and in the end the summation was unable to identify any other state that dealt with conflict of interest declarations as Alaska where unanimous consent was required. MS. HARRIS summarized that SCR 1 seeks to put more conflict of interest declarations on the record as a matter of transparency. 4:25:00 PM CHAIR DUNLEAVY held SCR 1 in committee.