The Alaska State Senate voted Monday on the Senate Floor to remove Sen. Lora Reinbold as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The final vote was 17 to 1 with the lone no vote being from Sen. Reinbold. The vote comes after the Committee on Committees Report earlier recommended to remove the Eagle River Republican Senator as the committee chair.
Senate President Peter Micciche spoke to KSRM addressing what happened on the senate floor Monday, “So to be perfectly clear, this has nothing to do with masks or COVID policy. Throughout the session, the vast majority of caucus members have expressed concern about the way committees are run. About the lack of respect for others in the building, including members, staff, and testifiers. Until today, senate leadership has been resistant to making any changes. We believed that we could improve the situation through internal dialogue and discussion. The majority of the caucus finally, however, recently made it clear that the status quo could not continue and that something has to be done. In the end, every other senator in the senate agreed to the most modest compassionate adjustment possible to the committee assignments. The senator from District G is still a full valued member of the senate majority with her office and staff intact. We’re proud to have her on our team, but the decorum and the behavior has to change.
Micciche says that Reinbold is still a valued member of the Senate Majority, “For baseball fans, sometimes a star pitcher gets pulled from a game temporarily and the team looks forward to a time when the player is back on the mound. Essentially that’s where we’re at as a team. This is all up to Senator Reinbold. We hope this is a temporary situation that everyone back in the positions they held when we started this caucus working well together as a cohesive team.”
As a result of Reinbold being removed as Senate Judiciary Committee chair, she will be replaced by Republican Sen. Roger Holland.