OPINION: Legislators only have themselves to blame for end-of-session bill fiasco

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes on July 30 blocked five bills from becoming law that the state House passed after the constitutional adjournment deadline. But supporters of the legislation should not blame the governor for stopping the new laws — the House is the guilty party.

The 40-member House, overseen the past two years by a splintered and often disorganized 23-member Republican-led majority, couldn’t manage to get its work done before the clock struck midnight. The governor did not hold them up; no power outage set them back; there was no IT meltdown or online hack; nothing slowed them down but their own self-inflicted chronic illness of making political speeches and mismanaging right up to the deadline.

The problem started far earlier than the last night of the session in May. The House majority wasted days during the session on conservative causes that had no chance of passing. Several members could not let go of their personal agendas — they were as rigid as the calendar.

No surprise, the calendar won.

On the last day of session, with a lot of work still to do, the House went past the adjournment deadline. They continued to vote and approve legislation.

The Alaska Supreme Court has affirmed that the constitutional 121-day limit is the law. The 121st day this year was May 15. Contrary to that, and contrary to the clock on the wall and the time on the electronic displays all around the Capitol, House leadership continued to bring bills to the floor for a vote, as if the clock and calendar and march of time had walked out of the building.

In his veto message, the governor said he canned the legislation because the House action violated the constitution. If he had signed the measures into law, lawsuits would have ensued and the courts would have nullified the laws. It would have been a waste of time and legal costs to pretend the clock said 11:59 p.m. May 15, when it clearly was May 16.

Some House members have argued they had another hour that night — if they ignored daylight saving time. But why stop at trying to cheat just an hour when they could have argued that the leap year added a whole extra 24 hours to the 121-day limit?

The five bills that the governor correctly vetoed were not monumental, nor will the vetoes ruin anyone’s life. And one bill was downright silly.

House Bill 29 would have prohibited insurance companies from charging higher premiums to lawmakers and other political figures or canceling their policies “solely because of a person’s status as an elected official,” as if elected officials need some special protected status from insurance premiums more than any other Alaskan.

The governor said legislators could try again next year to pass the same bills if they want. They will have 121 days to get it done. It should be plenty of time for an easy rerun.

Or maybe they could buy an insurance policy to protect themselves from any legal expense of missing the deadline.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.