We have reached the halfway point of the 121-day legislative session. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R – Alaska) and Dan Sullivan (R – Alaska) both addressed joint sessions of the Alaska Legislature this week, though the tone of their speeches were very different. The Legislature narrowly rejected Governor Mike Dunleavy’s (R – Alaska) proposed Department of Agriculture. The operating budget hit a snag in the House Finance Committee when the majority was unable to muster the votes to adopt their second committee substitute. And a Taiwanese energy company signed a letter of intent with the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation to buy LNG from the long anticipated Alaska gasline. 

A friendly message and reminder to all our readers. The Landmine is made possible by myself and a team of awesome Alaskans. I have been covering the legislative session in Juneau for the last six years and am back now for my seventh session. If you enjoy the content we provide, please consider making a one time or recurring monthly donation. You can click here to donate. We have a system that makes it super easy. We would really appreciate it. And thanks to everyone who has been supportive.

A Tale of Two Senators

This week, both Senators Murkowski and Sullivan gave speeches to a joint session of the Legislature. Murkowski spoke on Tuesday and Sullivan spoke on Thursday. While they are both Republicans, the tone of their speeches were very different. Murkowski made a point to say while she supports the mission of DOGE and Elon Musk, she does not agree with the way they are going about it. She said she agreed with President Donald Trump on making NATO allies pay their fair share and his support for the gasline, but the general tone of her speech was critical of many of the actions of the Trump administration. 

A comment Murkowski made about Elon Musk during a press conference after her speech went viral on Twitter.

On the other hand, Sullivan’s speech was critical of actions the Biden administration took against Alaska. He even symbolically tore up a piece of paper that represented Biden locking up Alaska! This got big cheers from the Republicans. He spoke of Alaska’s energy potential and how Trump supports oil and gas development in Alaska, including the gasline. While no one was there to protest Murkowski, the hall outside the House chambers was lined with protestors when Sullivan spoke. 

Both took questions by legislators after their speeches. Several Democratic legislators were much more aggressive when they asked Sullivan questions about DOGE, Medicaid, and Trump in general. It resulted in House Republicans sending this bizarre apology letter to Sullivan. 

Budget Stall in House 

On Thursday (3/20/2025), the House Finance Committee was scheduled to roll out their second committee substitute (CS) for the operating budget. But that hit a snag.

When the committee rolled out its first CS, they kept in Governor Mike Dunleavy’s full dividend – at a cost of $2.5 billion. In past years, the committee has removed the dividend so it could be dealt with later and separately as it is a divisive issue. But Representative Andy Josephson (D – Anchorage), the operating budget co-chair, left it in the first CS. 

He has since come to regret that decision. He told the Juneau Empire:

“The full PFD is not going to remain in the next version of the budget,” Rep. Andy Josephson, an Anchorage Democrat who is one of the committee’s three co-chairs, said in an interview after public testimony on Friday. “It’s just that we were focused on some basic changes that were rather perfunctory in (our substitute for the governor’s proposal) and so we didn’t adopt every change we were going to make.”

When asked why such an obvious and prominent item wasn’t removed to avoid giving residents false hope about getting such a dividend, he said “I guess lesson learned — in the future we would do that.”

After the first CS, Republicans started spreading on social media that the Democrats left the full dividend in the budget. This spread to enough circles to spook Representatives Neal Foster (D – Nome) and Nellie Jimmie (D – Tooksok Bay) – both rural legislators who support a larger dividend. If it was stripped out or reduced in the second CS, they would likely be attacked for voting for that. 

The House majority has six members on the 11-member finance committee. This means they need all six votes to adopt a CS, assuming no Republicans vote for it. And the only way Republicans would help is if they get something out of it. The two most likely Republicans on the committee that could help out the majority are Representatives Will Stapp (R – Fairbanks) and Jeremy Bynum (R – Ketchikan). Both represent districts that don’t particularly care about the dividend. And as of now, the majority has not approached them for help.

The majority will have to find a way to get the budget out of their committee and onto the floor. They could stick with the first committee substitute and then the majority could run amendments to make the changes they want outside of the dividend. But they would still need to figure out the dividend problem.

It’s very unlikely they will send the Senate a budget with a full dividend. But unless they find a way to get Foster and Jimmie on board, or get Stapp and Bynum to play ball, they have a big problem. This week in the House Finance Committee will be telling. 

Other Happenings 

The Legislature voted 32-28 against Governor Dunleavy’s proposed Department of Agriculture. It failed by just two votes. It upset the House and Senate Republican minorities something awful. I was happy with the outcome as I don’t think we need more government. And it was laughable that Dunleavy and his people tried to make it appear a new department would not cost more money. Regardless, this outcome is another reason Dunleavy, and the Republican minorities to a lesser extent, could decide to blow up the budget process. 

This is very interesting. The CPC Corporation Taiwan, a state-owned oil and gas company in Taiwan, signed a letter of intent to buy Alaska LNG. With Trump’s support for this project, and if Japan and Korea get on board like this, the stars could align for this project to finally happen. There are many reasons to still be skeptical, especially because Alaska can’t seem to build anything, but things are definitely moving in the right direction. 

Richard Best may be on of the Loosest Units in Alaska. 

Congrats to former Representative Sara Rasmussen on the birth of her third child!

This is the race we all need! Representative Julie Coulombe (R – Anchorage) might not even run if she has to run against Bob Griffin.  

Anything is possible but this is the only outcome that makes sense. However, House and Senate leadership are telling their people to secure housing in June for a special session. So you know things are bad as we are only halfway into the session. 

This Week’s Loose Unit 

This was one of those easy weeks. This week’s Loose Unit is Representative Andy Josephson and House majority leadership. First, Josephson made the very loose decision to leave the full dividend in the first operating budget CS. Then, he and the House majority just let it sit there for more than a week while Republicans ran a social media campaign telling people the Democrat-led House majority supports a full dividend. Maximum loose. 

But the looseness started months ago when the 21-member House majority decided to put not one, but two large dividend people on the finance committee. Anyone who pays attention knew this day was coming. In addition to the dividend problem, they passed the education bill (approximately $250 million a year) but have offered no cuts or revenue measures. As loose as things are now, they are about to get really loose as session proceeds. Buckle up!

If you have a nomination for this week’s Loose Unit, or if you have any political news, stories or gossip (or any old pics of politicians or public officials) please email me at jeff@alaskalandmine.com.