OPINION: Alaska needs a common-sense Legislature

A broad range of business owners, community leaders and the ADN editorial board have urged voters to support forward-looking legislators who will work together to get Alaska’s economy moving. If you’re a voter doing research on candidates, there’s one test for candidates that’s more important than any other: Will your legislator work across party lines and be a member of a bipartisan coalition?

Look at how productive the Alaska State Senate has been over the last two years: Under the leadership of Senate President Gary Stevens (R-Kodiak), the Senate assembled a 17-3 super-majority with Republicans and Democrats working together on common sense issues. From education to energy to the workforce, the Senate has been a model of efficiency and pro-growth policies.

Unfortunately, even the Senate couldn’t get several broadly supported bipartisan bills past the Alaska House, which has more partisan leadership and zero policy direction. Consider the extreme understaffing of our public safety agencies: We are down 75 Alaska State Troopers, and the Anchorage Police Department has more than 60 vacancies. Public safety leaders urged the Legislature to work on fixing these problems. The Senate listened, but House leadership caved to pressure from Lower 48 special interest groups and blocked the top legislative priority of local police. The contrast could not be more stark: The Senate Majority worked hard to fix Alaska’s most pressing public safety issues, and the House just got in the way.

Sadly, the House majority also failed on education: The Senate sent over a broadly supported bill to stabilize education funding after 10 years of uncertainty and cuts that are driving out-migration. Even though this bill attracted broad bipartisan support, most House majority members flip-flopped and upheld a veto of education. As long as education funding is volatile and unpredictable, we will fall further behind pro-growth states that are moving fast to solve workforce challenges.

The House majority didn’t just fail to pass common-sense policies. Many of its members put forward bizarre proposals that would further harm our economy. Rep. Ben Carpenter proposed and advanced numerous tax increases on wage-earners through his Ways and Means Committee. He paired tax increases on working families with tax cuts for corporations (through the state corporate income tax). Radically shifting the tax burden onto working families would be a recipe for disaster — fortunately, Carpenter’s proposals were so unpopular they didn’t even come to the House floor for a vote. Nonetheless, at a time when the Legislature needed to be working constructively on pro-growth policy, Carpenter’s proposals were both a massive waste of time and represented opportunity cost from productive work the Legislature otherwise could have gotten done.

People who have followed the Legislature for years were shocked at the dysfunction of the House leadership. Let’s leave the petty partisanship and dysfunction in the past. This election, vote for pro-growth candidates who are committed to working together in bipartisan majorities. The Senate Majority has provided a great example of how much legislators can get done when they focus on doing their job. Alaskans need a functional House of Representatives, too, so we can get our economy moving and reverse the last decade of outmigration.

Jake Metcalfe is a lifelong Alaskan. He recently retired after a career working as a district attorney, director of the Public Safety Employees Association and director of the Alaska State Employees Association. He served on the Bethel City Council and on the Anchorage School Board.

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