Corrupt process by Dunleavy, Legislature to bestow big raises will be a 2024 campaign issue
One of the big issues in the 2024 state elections will be the corrupt process used by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the Legislature to give themselves pay raises.
Every incumbent legislator will be called upon to try to defend the scam, which climaxed Tuesday when the state House pretended to oppose a 67 percent pay raise, knowing the 29-11 vote was meaningless because the deadline for action had passed. All in the interests of hypocrisy by the House majority.
Some of the 29 members who voted against raises did so because of the appalling process. Others because they really oppose a pay hike. Others because they want to tell the voters they did all they could, even though they did not.
This will be the 2024 equivalent of Gov. Frank Murkowski’s decision to buy a jet more than 20 years ago, a grievance that campaign challengers will mention early and often. As they should.
More than two months ago Dunleavy got rid of the salary commission members because the group refused to approve pay raises for legislators, only for top state officials, which guaranteed the Legislature would kill the raises Dunleavy wanted for his staff. Here is a refresher on what happened in March.
Dunleavy lined up new members who had a secret and prearranged plan for a 67 percent raise for legislators and a 20 percent boost for key executive branch personnel. They did this in an illegal meeting, violating a law that requires 20-day public notice of meetings.
It’s been clear for months that the Legislature needed to openly debate the pay raise plan, defend or revise its specifics, denounce the attempt to rig the process and take a public vote with no gimmicks.
But that never happened.
The state Senate has refused to vote on the matter at all, while the state House majority went all in for political posturing and delay.
Legislative salaries will rise to $84,000 per year, which is half as much as the new higher pay for leaders of state agencies—$168,000. Legislators also qualify for about $37,000 in per diem payments for the regular session.
I think that we might get a better crop of legislators with better pay. The same applies to state commissioners.
It’s not the salary increases that are objectionable, but the failure to set them with an honest and open process that the public can trust. At every step, state officials have failed, rewarding subterfuge.
The bill to reject the pay raises reached the House floor on April 3, but House Speaker Cathy Tilton returned it to the House Rules Committee, chaired by Anchorage Rep. Craig Johnson, who sponsored the bill.
It remained stuck in Johnson’s committee for six weeks, emerging Monday, the last day on which the Legislature could vote to reject the raises, according to the rules now in state law.
But one or more House members objected to a final vote Monday on procedural grounds, so the bill was delayed until Tuesday, after the deadline.
Even had the House acted Monday—and if the Senate majority had the desire to deal with the topic, which it doesn’t—there was not enough time for the entire Legislature to meet the deadline for rejecting the plan. All because of the schedule chosen by Republicans who control the state House, many of whom gave sanctimonious speeches about raises they say they don’t want, but will accept.
Johnson, who for many years filed state financial disclosure forms on which he claimed he didn’t know how much money his wife made, said the vote was a matter of conscience even if it didn’t mean anything.
“At this point I think this bill may just be a statement, that in light of the federal government shutdown on July 1st, in light of the potential we don’t have a budget, in light of the budget not being here, we don’t know where we are, I think for my conscience, I have to at least make a statement that: Don’t cut the PFD, don’t shut down government, don’t overspend—and give me a raise. It doesn’t suit well with me,” said Johnson.
We don’t know the federal government will shut down on July 1 over the debt crisis triggered by Republicans in the U.S, House. We do know that Alaska legislators will get a 67 percent raise.
Johnson said he didn’t bring the bill to the floor until the end of the session because “three or four weeks ago,” he asked every member how they would vote. The 40-member House was divided equally, he said.
“To scapegoat it now and say, ‘Well it’s last minute, I can’t vote,’ I believe everyone in the body was approached and asked to sign a chit sheet. For those outside, before I pass a bill I want to make, before I put a bill on the floor, I want to make sure I’ve got enough votes. Quite frankly, it was tied.”
“I wasn’t gonna put it on the floor with that number. That’s just not how I am. So don’t, you can’t hide from this. Everyone had a chance to sign onto this the day it was introduced, I started the chit sheet. This boils down to, do you think you want a raise or not? Great reasons for. Great reasons not. I’m not going to affix motive to anyone. And no, you will not be able to see the chit sheet. I will not share it. But don’t let anybody kid you, everyone had an opportunity, when this bill was introduced, to say yeah or nay. Roughly half this body said, not sign it. So vote how you will. I agree with everything that everyone said. Everyone’s right. There’s no good guy in this, the system was flawed. Vote your conscience.”
Despite the pleas about conscience, stalling on the bill and bringing it to the floor this late in the session guaranteed it would never pass the Legislature and the raises would be approved.
Had Johnson and the other “opponents” been serious, they would have acted weeks ago, whether or not he knew what the vote would be in advance.
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