No excuse for legislative inaction

This editorial originally appeared in the Thursday edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

The past few days since the scheduled end of the legislative session have been busy ones for the members of the conference committees tasked with reconciling the operating and capital budgets passed by the Alaska House and Senate. For the other members of the Legislature, there hasn’t been a great deal to do.

Boxes line the hallways of the Capitol, waiting for the gavel that will send legislators and staffers to the airport. But despite their free time, legislators haven’t been keen to continue non-budget bills dealing with issues important to Alaskans. They should do so.

It’s not as if the budget is the only matter still left to settle in Juneau. The Interior Energy Project’s bills, House Bill 105 and Senate Bill 50, have yet to be reconciled and sent to Gov. Bill Walker for his signature. Unless the bill is passed, the project will likely languish for a year — another winter residents here in the Interior can ill afford to spend waiting for relief of high energy costs.

Also waiting on legislative action is Erin’s Law, which would help educate children and give them tools to report sexual abuse. House Bill 75, which would give municipalities tools for regulation of commercial marijuana, is also in limbo.

Bills relating to the reform and expansion of Medicaid in the state await legislative action. There are dozens more bills committees could still consider and at least forward onward, easing the body’s job next year in the second session of this Legislature.

Gov. Walker has already urged legislators not involved in budget discussions to do committee work on outstanding bills, seemingly to no avail. The excuse House leadership has given for the lack of action is that they don’t anticipate being in Juneau much longer, and committees would have little time to take action on bills before the Legislature gavels out for the year.

That’s well and good, but leadership likely also didn’t anticipate being in Juneau as long as the Legislature already has. Why not give members something to do — even if they don’t make substantive progress on bills, the state will at worst be in the same position as it will be if legislators sit on their hands until the gavel comes down.

There are important bills still waiting for legislative action, and Alaskans around the state are counting on their representatives in Juneau to make progress on them. Any progress legislators make on bills will be preserved, as bills not passed this session will carry over to next year.

Even if little can be done in the time remaining before a budget deal is reached, there’s no excuse for legislators not to do something productive with their time left in Juneau. The people are counting on the members of the Legislature to do their jobs, not treat the session’s overtime period as an unexpected paid vacation.

– newsminer.com