Alaska News • • 144 min
House Floor Session, 3/23/26, 10:30am
video • Alaska News
behind us, but are still to come. In Jesus'
name I pray. Amen.
Representative Costello,
will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Representative Story.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move and ask unanimous consent that the prayer be spread across the journal.
Hearing no objection,
the prayer will be spread across the journal.
Will the clerk please certify the journal for the previous legislative days.
I certify as to the correctness of the journal for the 60th through the 62nd legislative days.
Mr. Majority Leader.
Mr. Speaker,
I move and ask unanimous consent that the journal of the previous days be approved as certified by the chief clerk.
Hearing no objection,
the journal stands approved.
Are there guests for introduction this morning?
Representative Hannan?
Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
I have two different guests for introduction today,
and I'm going to start with in the Prader-Vitch Gallery is a constituent of mine that is familiar to some of you,
but those of you who are new,
Katie Boats.
Katie grew up partially in Kodiak before she moved to Juneau where she graduated from high school, and yes, she was a former student, but Katie is a familiar face around the Capitol building.
For her decade-long advocacy in reforms of sexual assault laws and an advocate as a recovering and surviving victim of sexual assault.
And in fact, in the 2019 State of the State address by the governor,
Governor Dunleavy,
excuse me, the governor acknowledged her advocacy and work on behalf of victims. She has worked as a commercial.
with a commercial driver's license as a school bus driver for 17 years.
She also did a few summers working in tourism.
She's taking a break from that right now because believe it or not driving a school bus is a pretty challenging and especially in a really hard winter year.
It's a tough job and so she's waiting till spring gets here to get another job in either
their commercial driving or something else that puts her in contact with people and advocacy.
But if you would help me welcome her before I introduce our guest page.
And then if Seven Jeffries, who is a guest page today.
Seven is a freshman at Junodouglas High School where she is a dancer and she is very involved in the Juno Dance Theater and she trains and rehearses for the Nutcracker year round.
She has just been accepted into a very prestigious program called Ballet West.
Salt Lake City where she will attend school next year.
Depending on how that goes we may have lost her to a private ballet focused dance focused high school for the remainder of her academic career but it is her true passion she hopes to become a professional dancer but
Eventually, your knees give out as a dancer and she will then become a dental therapist and attend Pacific University in Oregon.
But we hope that you can see her dancing spryly and jumping around and keep her busy today as a guest page.
So if you will help me welcome Seven Jeffries.
Representative Fields.
Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
And the Pratravic Gallery, please join me in welcoming Maria Williams, who is Klinket and a professor of Alaskan studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
She helped grow the Alaskan studies program since her arrival in Anchorage in 2011.
She teaches Alaskan perspectives,
music of Alaskan natives and indigenous people in northern regions,
world indigenous music.
cultural knowledge of Native elders and other courses and she's been my neighbor in House Sister 17 for over a decade thank you
Thank you. And I was waiting for your mic to be raised,
Representative Foster.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Good morning.
In the Taylor Gallery behind me is Iris Magnel,
if she could please stand.
She's no stranger to this building.
She's been coming to Juneau since the 1950s when her father,
Willie,
was in the other body when the state was still a territory.
And her father also served in the other body shortly after Alaska became a state in 1959.
Iris has also visited the state capital during most of the 21 years that her brother Richard was...
In this body from 1988 until 2009,
Mr.
Speaker,
Iris Foster Magnel visited some 50 villages with me.
She grew up in Nome, both mining and leading a subsistence lifestyle.
She comes back almost every year to Nome to pick blueberries and to eat seal oil and dry fish with her friends.
And so, Mr.
Speaker, please join me in welcoming my aunt.
Ants, Iris, uh Maynell Foster.
Iris, it's great to see you as always.
And seeing no additional mics raised Madam Clerk, are there messages from the governor?
I have no messages from the governor this morning, Mr.
Speaker.
Are there any messages from the other body?
Messages dated March 20 stating the Senate passed committee substitute for House Joint Resolution No. 29,
Fisheries Amended,
with the following amendments:
Senate committee substitute for committee substitute for House Joint Resolution No. 29,
resources ban on Russian seafood, and it is returned for consideration.
The President granted limited powers of free conference to the Senate conferees considering Senate committee substitute for committee substitute for House Bill number 289 finance amended Senate and committee substitute for House Bill number 289 finance budget reserve fund supermajority failed.
On the following points, the appropriations and language that are not identical in the House and Senate versions of HB 289.
And the Senate has passed and is transmitting the following for consideration Senate bill number 158 amended by Senators Bjorkman and Dunbar entitled an act relating to administrative areas for regulation of certain commercial set net entry permits and providing for an effective date.
Our special committee on fisheries and resources committee
Senate Bill number 181 by the Senate Rules Committee by request of the Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska's Seafood Industry,
entitled "An Act Relating to Disclosure of Information Obtained by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to Other State Agencies.
Education and Labor and Commerce Committees.
I have no further messages from the other body.
Are there any communications?
There are no communications this morning.
Any reports of standing committees?
The Judiciary Committee considered House Joint Resolution No. 23,
Constitutional Amendment,
Excuse
Governor's
me.
proposed budget,
recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Joint Resolution No. 23 Judiciary with the new title,
Attached 1 previously published zero fiscal note. Signing the report due pass,
Representatives Underwood,
Eishite,
Cobb, Costello,
and Chair Gray. No recommendation,
Vance and Mina.
The resolution has a further referral to the Finance Committee.
The Finance Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill Number 64,
Finance Amended Elections, recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 64,
Finance,
with a new title,
HCR Forthcoming.
Attached one new fiscal note, one new indeterminate fiscal note, and one new zero fiscal note. Signing the report due pass,
Representatives Jimmy,
Galvin,
Hannon, and co-chairs Josephson, Foster,
and Schrage do not pass Allard,
amend Tomoszewski,
Stapp,
Moore,
and Bynum. The bill is on today's calendar.
The Health and Social Services Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number eighty three, Health and Social Services, telehealth coverage reimbursement rates, recommends it be replaced with House Committee substitute for committee substitute for Senate Bill eighty three, Health and Social Services with the same title attached to new zero fiscal notes,
signing the report do pass, representatives Props, Fields,
Meares and Chair Mina,
no recommendation, Gray and Schwaneke. The bill has a
has a further referral to the Labor and Commerce Committee.
The Health and Social Services Committee also considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number 89,
2D LNC, Physician Assistant Scope of Practice,
recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 89.