Legislature should provide lobbyists with key fobs to bypass new Capitol security screening
April 25, 2025
Let me start by saying I totally disagree with the recent decision by Legislative Council to require visitors to the Capitol to go through...
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The Sunday Minefield – May 4, 2025
Jeff Landfield May 4, 2025
May the Fourth be with you! Only 17 days remain until the end of the regular session, and things finally look like they are starting to come together. First, after a small hiccup, the Legislature passed a new education bill and transmitted it to Governor Mike Dunleavy (R – Alaska). A veto seems likely, but the Legislature has the…
Brad Keithley’s Chart of the Week: Why the adoption of a one-account Permanent Fund would favor the current generation at the expense of future ones
Brad Keithley April 25, 2025
As some readers of this column may recall, we have...
Speaker Edgmon told Minority Leader Costello about controversial PFD amendment hours before it was offered
Jeff Landfield April 23, 2025
On Friday, April 11, the House passed a floor amendment to the budget that lowered the...
The Sunday Minefield – April 20, 2025
Jeff Landfield April 20, 2025
I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend! It was a short week in Juneau as many people headed home for Easter. Tomorrow is…
Brad Keithley’s Chart of the Week: The badly unbalanced “balanced budget”
Brad Keithley April 18, 2025
Fiscal analysts use multiple lenses to evaluate whether a government budget is “balanced.” One is in an accounting sense of whether overall revenues equal...
The Sunday Minefield – April 13, 2025
Jeff Landfield April 13, 2025
It was a loose and eventful week in Juneau. First, the House majority and minority held strange, dueling press conferences. Second, the House Finance…
Loose email exchange shows new legislative staffer’s inexperience and cockiness
Jeff Landfield April 9, 2025
Twenty-five-year-old Ryan Sheldon is new to the Capitol. He's been working for Representative Julie Coulombe (R - Anchorage) for the last few months. His...
HEX/Furie royalty relief approved by DNR includes $2 million credit for future royalty payments
Jeff Landfield April 7, 2025
In February, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) approved a 76% decrease in royalty payments for HEX/Furie, owned by John Hendrix. This applies...
The Sunday Minefield – April 6, 2025
Jeff Landfield April 6, 2025
It’s day 75 of the 121-day legislative session, and there is no clear path to get out of town. The House Finance Committee finished…
Sen. Lyman Hoffman drops hammer on budget, takes vote on committee he is not on
Jeff Landfield April 3, 2025
Senator Lyman Hoffman (D - Bethel) is soft spoken and usually doesn't say much. But he veered from that persona this week with two...
The Roys Are Back in Town: A review of Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice”
Jacob Hersh March 31, 2025
There are, conservatively, at least thirty million different Donald Trump impersonators worldwide, and fewer than .01 percent of them can do a decent job....
The Sunday Minefield – March 30, 2025
Jeff Landfield March 30, 2025
It’s day 68 of the 121-day session (the 90-day statutory session has been a joke for a while) and the budget is stalling in…
Brad Keithley’s Chart of the Week: SB 21 is broken
Brad Keithley March 28, 2025
The typical flurry of legislative session op-eds warning against changes to oil taxes began the week before last. True to form, the season kicked…
Alaska’s leaders should pass the common sense Credit Card Competition Act
Korey Ferguson March 26, 2025
Alaskans are no stranger to high prices given our geography and the many logistical challenges associated with getting goods to market as compared to...
House and Senate finance leadership refuse to share budget agreement and calendar
Jeff Landfield March 24, 2025
House and Senate leadership are refusing to share a budget agreement and calendar that they both agreed to follow this session. The agreement lays...