Lawmakers consider lengthening session

JUNEAU --- Alaska lawmakers never liked the 90-day limit imposed by voters on how long the Legislature could be in session. Now the president of the Senate is leading the effort to overturn it.

Senate President Gary Stevens' bill was heard in committee on Thursday. It's one of the first bills lawmakers have chosen to take up this year.

The bill would extend the annual legislative sessions from 90 days to 120 days every other year. The rest of the time it would remain at 90 days.

Senate State Affairs Committee Chairman Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, held the bill in his committee, saying he wants to give more time for public input.

"This is one of the topics I hear a lot back from my constituents when I'm in Anchorage," he said.

Alaska voters in 2006 narrowly passed a ballot initiative reducing the length of the Legislature's annual regular session from 121 days to 90 days. The initiative was sponsored by three legislators who argued lawmakers wasted a lot of time in Juneau and shortening it would be more efficient.

But the shorter session has never been popular with their colleagues. "I've left a lot of people at the doorstep in my office because we don't have time to see them," said Angoon Democratic Sen. Albert Kookesh.

Rep. Mike Doogan said limiting the time to 90 days means the Legislature does a worse job or nothing at all.

"If we're passing legislation we ought to get it right the first time," said Doogan, an Anchorage Democrat.

WORK MORE SATURDAYS?

Not all lawmakers are pushing for longer sessions.

Anchorage Republican Sen. Kevin Meyer said he'd rather get back to his family after three months instead of four. "I also have a bias because I take very seriously what the voters voted for. ... They said they wanted to limit us to 90 days," he said.

All legislators get state per diem every day they are in session. It's $189 a day for legislators except those who live year-round in Juneau and $141.75 for Juneau lawmakers. Legislators used to be able to claim per diem for days they did work when the Legislature wasn't in session, but that stopped when their base salary increased to $50,400.

Meyer said legislators are getting the per diem for the entire three months of the session, so maybe they should have more meetings on Saturdays.

Gov. Sean Parnell also says legislators are in town long enough. He told the Anchorage Rotary earlier this month that there's nothing to stop legislators from holding committee hearings outside of the 90 day session, even if they can't pass bills. Parnell pushed for a 90-day session back when he was a legislator. He conceded that as governor he's got self-interested reasons for wanting legislators gone from town after three months.

"But from a public process standpoint I don't believe anything is lost, given that during the 120 day session I saw the first 30 days kind of frittered away ... even at the start of the session today that still occurs to some extent. They'll meet Monday to Thursday and then maybe they have a light day on Friday," Parnell said on Jan. 11.

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One of the reasons Kodiak Republican Sen. Stevens said he wants a longer session is because the governor has too much power when legislators are gone nine months of the year.

Stevens also argues the move to a shorter session has saved the state little, if any, money since lawmakers do more business the rest of the year.

Stevens aide Tim Lamkin said a shorter session hasn't increased competition by inspiring more people to run for office. He said the candidate pool has actually shrunken by 20 percent since the change.

Lamkin also said the workload is up. He said he and other staffers are already putting in at least 10 hours a day and the legislative session just got started.

Fairbanks Democratic Sen. Joe Paskvan said before coming to the Legislature he thought three months should be more than enough time. But Paskvan said he's grown concerned about how deeply legislators are able to dive into policy, especially those working on budgets and taxes.

"Ninety days for a young state is very dicey," he said.

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