Alaskans deserve better from their elected representatives than a special session budget stand-off in Juneau. The legislature ended the 90-day regular session gridlocked, without accomplishing our only real responsibility, passing the 2012 budgets. Blame is being thrown around about who is responsible. Senate members accuse the governor and his complicity with a House of Representatives that refuses to comply with Senate demands.
Now, a third of the way through this special session, we aren't much closer to final budgets. That's because the Senate refuses to pass the capital budget to the House until the House guarantees to not change contingency language that our Attorney General and the Department of Law say is unconstitutional -- and that many House members believe compromises our sovereign responsibilities.
Squabbling does not make good government. Alaskans rightfully expect statesmanship from their elected officials. It is time to set aside political rhetoric, fix the problem, and move forward.
Sadly, today's political gridlock is not about the merits of a weighty policy issue. It is about an attempt by the Senate to fence off more than 100 capital budget items. Their scheme makes the passage of any one item contingent upon the passage of every item, without consideration of an individual expenditure's relative merits. Millions in new projects have not been fully vetted by legislative committees before the public, but are fenced in with other popular expenditures like the AHFC Weatherization and Home Energy Rebate programs. The Senate scheme is a blatant attempt to usurp the governor's constitutionally established line-item veto authority, despite the legislature's own constitutional last word -- a veto override.
But it is more than that. Not only does the Senate's scheme take away the governor's rightful role in the process, it also denies the same to the House. Our members are frustrated by the Senate's refusal to transmit the capital budget without the guarantee we will not change their potentially unconstitutional contingency language. Nearly two weeks past the end of the regular session, the Senate still refuses to relinquish the capital budget without this promise. As a result, the House has not yet had the opportunity to consider the Senate's scheme in our deliberative process, and to express our independent voice on what projects may or may not be best for the state.
One of the greatest concerns with fencing projects is the precedent it sets for future legislatures. If we allow this Senate language to stand, we can only presume that more budgets will contain questionable bulk expenditure lists that must be accepted on an all-or-none basis. This is clearly not what our Constitution's writers had in mind when they crafted the foundations for Alaska's fiscal management, and for the bicameral institution that is the Legislature
It has been suggested that the House simply pass the Senate budget and let the governor file a lawsuit over its constitutionality. This capitulation would be a poor exhibit of statecraft, delegating the legislature's responsibility for sound decision-making to the court system. No legislator should be willing to consider such a dereliction of duty.
Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, has served in the House since 2003.
By MIKE HAWKER