In a 22-17 vote, the drama ended and the Committee assignments have been made for the Alaska House of Representatives.
The report has been amended.
Some changes were made to the report. Rep. Tom McKay is now on Resources and Rep. Kevin McCabe is now on Community and Regional Affairs.
Although last-minute vote-hostage-taking took place by Rep. Geran Tarr, who was withholding her vote on the committee assignments, the procedure went smoothly Thursday morning. Three Republicans are aligned with the Democrat-majority coalition: Speaker Louise Stutes, Rep. Kelly Merrick, and nominally Rep. Sara Rasmussen, who says she is not part of the coalition, but voted with them to approve the committee assignments. Rasmussen, representing South Anchorage, was awarded a coveted seat on Finance.
The minority caucus of Republicans is comprised of 18 members, with Rep. Cathy Tilton as minority leader and Rep. Laddie Shaw as minority whip.
With committees established, over 100 bills were read across the floor and assigned to those committees.
The House Minority Caucus is now made up of Ben Carpenter, Mike Cronk, David Eastman, Ron Gillham, DeLena Johnson, James Kaufman, Chris Kurka, Bart LeBon, Kevin McCabe, Ken McCarty, Tom McKay, David Nelson, Mike Prax, George Rauscher, Laddie Shaw, Steve Thompson, Cathy Tilton, and Sarah Vance.
The majority caucus has Matt Claman, Harriet Drummond, Bryce Edgmon, Zack Fields, Neal Foster, Sara Hannan, Grier Hopkins, Andy Josephson, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, Daniel Ortiz, Josiah Patkotak, Calvn Schrage, Liz Snyder, Ivy Spohnholz, Andi Story, Chris Tuck, Adam Wool, Tiffany Zulkosky, all of whom are reliable Democrats or pretend undeclareds, and Republicans Louise Stutes and Kelly Merrick.
Sarah Rasmussen, also a Republican, has insisted she is a member of neither caucus.
In watching the committee on committees vote Sara was the 21st vote. I recall a post where she stated she would NOT be the 21st vote. She got her seat on HFin like she wanted, at a cost.
So…is the committee on committees a bit like the Department of Redundancy Department?
It’s more like the phrase “the king of kings.” It’s the committee that decides who is on all of the other committees. As usual, it’s all controlled by the Dems
I wish the Majority and Minority House Members lots of luck.
It will take everyone to hold hands and “jump in the water together” to get anything done. Let’s hope they all know how to swim!
A note to Representatives Merrick and Rasmussen, and quoting J.R. Ewing from the “Dallas” series: “Once you’ve lost your integrity — the rest is easy.”
I’m not joining the democrats but yeah I’ll sure vote with them by the way can I get one of those good committee position like Merrick, my district has to see how useful I can be. You caucus with the democrats, you vote with the democrats, sorry to tell you Sara but you’re a democrat. Nothing wrong with being a democrat but just stop taking slots from actual republicans who could have won those seat and stayed republican.
I have been a registered Republican since March, 1983, my wife calls me a democrat also. I support the candidate and Sara represents District 22.
Whatever happened to the concept that legislators represent ALL the people?
Whether it is taking a bribe, or purposefully (fraudulently) deceiving your constituents into thinking you are something you are clearly not is corruption. it’s plain and simple and something that should be dug out of our government and destroyed immediately regardless of the cost or short term consequences. If you want functioning governance that the governed can and will again trust.and support irrespective of their political preferences, there is no other alternative but to act decisively to resolve the matter.
I’m reminded of a joke when a rat was seen swimming in a swimming pool and so no one wanted to go in the water. My daughter asked my wife “What is that??” To which my wife responded “I think it’s the backstroke”.
Here too we are dealing with a couple of turncoat rats who are doing the backstroke. But in this case it’s their own backs they are stroking.
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