Minimum wage bill moves to Senate

JUNEAU — A highly divisive minimum wage bill is headed to the Alaska Senate as the Legislature enters its final week of the current session with a docket already clogged with heavy-hitting items and a few new ones rising to the top of the agenda.

This bill proposes to boost the minimum wage to $9 an hour as of July 1, and if it passes would remove an initiative from the upcoming primary ballot, which advocated for a raise to $8.75 to begin next year. The bill also calls for a boost to $10 an hour the following year, with adjustments for inflation in coming years.

The legislation — House Bill 384 — gives initiative supporters pause because a legislative minimum wage boost voted on in 2002 to avert a similar voter initiative then was watered down by the Legislature the following year.

One of those legislators supporting the wage increase in 2002, then voting to change it the next year, was House Speaker Mike Chenault, a Nikiski Republican, who in pledging not to go back on the bill this time around, added that he’s “matured” since the Legislature last addressed this.

“Unfortunately, most of the debate was over that specific issue,” Chenault said. “I don’t think I heard anyone say they didn’t want minimum wage increase.

“All I heard was that we couldn’t guarantee it because we can’t bind the future Legislature — and look at the history of what they’ve done. I want my decision to be made trying to move forward from what has happened in the past.”

HB 384 passed the House, 21-19, with nine members of the Republican-led majority voting against it.

The bill includes a letter-of-intent not to make any changes for at least two years. Voter-approved initiatives can be changed after two years, too.

“We told the people tonight (Sunday) that we had intent that we would not touch this,” said Majority Leader Lance Pruitt, an Anchorage Republican. “I’m going to look forward to reading in two years in all of these publications how we held to what we told you what we were going to do.”

Senate President Charlie Huggins, from Wasilla, said the attached letter of intent gives the bill some heft.

“I’m confident you won’t see me doing anything,” said Huggins, who assigned the bill to the Senate Finance Committee Monday morning. “I’ve not talked to anyone else about that.”

Huggins said he’s also confident the minimum wage issue would get the right approval this year, either in Juneau or at the polls.

“I think it’s just a matter of whether the Legislature passes it or if the initiative passes,” Huggins said. “There are some who believe because it’s an initiative, you shouldn’t mess with it. If I get a chance to vote for a minimum wage bill, I’m going to vote for it.”

While meaty items remain on the docket — capital and operating budgets, an education bill, the LNG bill — several new bills, including HB 384, hit the floors last week, giving lawmakers doubt that they will adjourn on time.

Several weeks ago, some lawmakers, including Huggins, said they had hoped to be out by Friday, two days ahead of the final day, the Easter holiday.

But the chances of a Sunday adjournment are “miniscule,” said House Rules Craig Johnson.

When bills like HB 384 eat up three hours of floor debate, as it did Sunday night, Johnson’s points get underscored.

Chenault defended the late entry of the bill, which was introduced April 4, 16 days before the session is scheduled to end.

“It’s our job to try to pass legislation that benefits Alaskans, regardless of whether it’s in April or January,” Chenault said. “We would have preferred to do it a lot earlier. It just didn’t materialize because of the legislative process.”

Freelance reporter Steve Quinn is a veteran Alaska journalist who formerly covered state government for the Associated Press.