The Alaska Legislature is meeting in Juneau for the fourth special session of the year. Some legislators are trying to move the special session to Anchorage.
Sen. President Peter Micciche told KSRM that the PFD shouldn’t be an afterthought, but it boils down to per diem:
“Here we are in Juneau and we’ve seen some legislators that are high on the per diem list. I think it adds some incentive for people sort of not moving efficiently and quickly. I would like to move this session to the road system where two thirds of the legislature do not qualify for per diem. I’d also like to be on the road system for committee meetings this time so that Alaskans can engage, watch the process and influence the process by being able to communicate directly with legislators as they do their work. Those are my efforts right now is moving this special session, the committee work, to the road system. On Tuesday in our regular session, we are going to try to do that and we hope that it’ll bring legislators to southcentral where they can start checking off some of these boxes on a fiscal plan.”
Micciche said it’s more cost effective:
“I think we’ll find out Tuesday. I believe there’ll be the support. The House has already moved their committee work to Anchorage and they passed it handily. There were only 4 no votes that I remember in that vote. I believe that the senate wants to do the same thing. We’ll see. I certainly hope that legislators understand the wisdom in moving to a different, you know, doing the same thing all the time often delivers a similar result, so I hope that we will be able to move it to Anchorage and do our work where people live and I don’t mean that Juneau is not a wonderful place where people live, but I do think that moving around the state could be more effective on a different setting and hopefully delivering a different outcome at a much lower cost.”
The House and Senate do have technical sessions scheduled for Friday, but Micciche said he hopes to address that request on Tuesday in Juneau.