Wasilla lawmaker challenges child care tax credit and other policies over alleged rule violation

Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman has filed a lawsuit that could put in jeopardy provisions meant to alleviate the cost of child care for Alaska families.

Eastman is challenging a bill over what is called the “single-subject rule,” which requires that provisions adopted in a single bill all relate to one topic. He is suing Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state over Senate Bill 189, which was adopted by lawmakers earlier this year and became law without Dunleavy’s signature in October.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Juneau Superior Court, Eastman — represented by Juneau attorney Joe Geldhof — alleged the adoption of the bill violated the Alaska Constitution.

The bill extends the operations of several boards and commissions, including the Big Game Commercial Services Board, the Board of Massage Therapists and the Marijuana Control Board. On the final day of the session, however, the bill was amended to include a new state tax credit for certain corporations that contribute to the cost of child care or offer their employees child care, along with other changes to the state’s existing child care assistance programs.

The child care tax credit — which was estimated to cost the state millions of dollars per year — was endorsed by Dunleavy, who introduced it in a bill earlier this year. When Senate Bill 189 came to his desk last month, he quietly allowed it to become law without his signature.

Its passage was celebrated by child care advocates who said the provisions included in the bill would help address ballooning costs for families in the state.

The child care provisions almost failed to pass during the legislative session that concluded in May. In the waning hours of the session, as many bills were condensed into others in order for them to pass before they ran out the clock, legislators added the child care provisions into an already expansive bill. The bill ultimately passed 33-7 in the House and 17-3 in the Senate. The 10 lawmakers who voted against the measure were all Republicans.

At the time, a legislative attorney told lawmakers that the bill — even before the child care provisions were added — “may violate the constitutional provision that limits bills to one subject.”

“I cannot identify a single subject that would unite all these subjects in a way that would likely withstand a challenge,” attorney Allison Radford wrote in a May memo.

Article II, Section 13 of the Alaska Constitution states that “every bill shall be confined to one subject unless it is an appropriation bill or one codifying, revising, or rearranging existing laws.”

Lawmakers who supported the legislation said after it passed that they thought the bill either wouldn’t lead to a legal challenge because of the popularity of the child care provisions it included, or that it could withstand the challenge under a lenient interpretation of the single-subject rule.

In his lawsuit, Eastman asked the court to stop the Dunleavy administration from executing the legislation, meaning that the various provisions enacted in the bill could be axed. The lawsuit alleged that the bill should not be allowed to become law because “the multiple subjects contained in SB 189 do not fall under one general idea.”

In an interview Friday, Eastman said the lawsuit was not motivated by the content of the bill, but by the way it rolled multiple unrelated policies into a single measure.

“There’s no problem with combining bills that are similar in subject matter. The constitution only draws the line when it is different subject matters, and I think clearly in this case, there are different subject matters. You’ve got child care issues and marijuana issues. There’s no connection between those two things,” said Eastman.

Eastman said he thought that Dunleavy’s decision to allow the legislation to go into law without his signature indicated the governor was already aware that there could be a “straightforward” legal challenge to bill.

Spokespeople for the Alaska Department of Law did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit and the administration’s plan for defending the bill.

Eastman, who represents a Wasilla district, was defeated in the recent election and is not set to return to Juneau next year, marking the end of an era in which he was often rebuked for inflammatory remarks or otherwise causing friction among lawmakers. He drew repeated repudiations from his Republican colleagues, who refused to let him join the GOP caucus.

Eastman said he planned to continue to be involved in “the battles of freedom.”

“Whether we’re fighting for them in the Legislature or outside, I will keep fighting for those things,” he said.