A Permanent Fund dividend and energy assistance check that started at $5,500 in the Senate two weeks ago was whittled down to $3,200 late Wednesday night at the close of the Legislative session.
Lawmakers needed a three-quarters vote to access some funds from the Constitutional Budget Reserve to pay for the compromise that came out of the conference committee, which was $3,850.
Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chair of the Conference Committee, put a poison pill in the compromise. An opponent of the statutory dividend, Stedman counted on the House not being able to come up with the three-quarters vote to access the CBR, and he was right.
Late at night, just before the House was required to adjourn for the year, the political knives came out by the Democrats who oppose the reelection of Gov. Mike Dunleavy and wanted to try to take away a win from him. Of the 11 Democrat House members who voted against the $3,850 dividend (by voting against the CBR), six of them are deeply aligned with the campaign for governor of former Gov. Bill Walker, who started the tradition of cutting the dividend in 2016 and who was booted from office in 2018.
Those House members are Reps. Brice Edgmon, Tiffany Zulkosky, Andy Josephson, Adam Wool, and Daniel Ortiz — all who have signed on as co-chairs of the Walker-Drygas campaign.
The sixth, Rep. Grier Hopkins, is a defacto Walker surrogate, with close family ties to the former governor: He is related by marriage to Scott Kendall, Walker’s former chief of staff and who has been deeply involved in his current campaign for governor. Kendall also led the failed push to try to recall Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Even though it is smaller than proposed in the compromise by the conference committee, the dividend is the largest in history, and it’s unlikely the governor will veto it and hold out for the extra $650 for every Alaskan. He has won most of what he set out to get, which was a full statutory dividend for Alaskans and an even-up for what was taken from them last year by the Legislature. He’ll likely turn his political sights on getting new legislators elected who will support using the statutory formula, rather than keeping Alaskans entrenched in PFD warfare year after year.
What was practically unthinkable in January has somehow made it through the legislative process in what is an election year for nearly all of the members of the Legislature. The final number is: $2,550 Permanent Fund dividend and a $650 relief assistance bonus on that dividend for every eligible Alaskan.
