Alaska House majority members have bit their tongues with one of their freshman members, CJ McCormick, who is a Democrat and part of the rural Bush caucus included in the Republican-led majority. Those bit tongues are just about bleeding, with the various acting out episodes by McCormick in recent days.
McCormick, as a member of the majority has the privilege of chairing the Community and Regional Affairs Committee. But he has committed a few serious gaffes lately. Among them, he’s screamed at fellow caucus members in committee. He’s made disparaging remarks about women. And he keeps apologizing for white people in general.
In Community and Regional Affairs, he brought in the ACLU to talk about prisoners dying in the custody of the Alaska Department of Corrections. McCormick’s fellow caucus members had to stop him because the ACLU has an active lawsuit against the state and it’s against protocol to allow groups to litigate their active cases in front of a legislative committee. McCormick’s decision to host the ACLU was overturned by his own committee after Rep. Kevin McCabe objected to the presentation.
The ACLU went on social media to complain about being excused from their testimony.
Then, McCormick wore an oversized pin on his lapel to the House Education Committee. The pin demanded an increase to education funding formula, known as the BSA. He was asked by the chair, Rep. Jamie Allard to remove that pin during the committee. He refused and Allard said that since the button was propaganda, she would call in the legislature’s legal team to help understand that extraneous political advocacy pins are not allowed to be worn during the committee meetings. He was wearing the pin on the day that the Commissioner of Education Deena Bishop was testifying.
McCormick has also become close to the farthest left member of the Democrat minority, Rep. Zack Fields, and is believed by many to be leaving the majority caucus meetings and passing information to the minority caucus through Fields.
McCormick has vehemently opposed House Bill 183, the proposed law that protects girls’ sports.
At this point, it seems that each time McCormick speaks, he apologizes for the inadequacy of the world or loses his temper at Republicans. He is on the frontlines of the culture wars.
McCormick is now facing a challenge from his former girlfriend, Victoria Sosa, a fellow Democrat who filed in February to take him out. That has also caused him a lot of stress, according to several legislative aides.
The House Majority is a fragile thing this session. Rep. David Eastman, Wasilla Republican, is not part of it, and the rural Democrats bring it to barely 21. But McCormick has proven to be the most difficult member, having not learned yet that the only thing legislators really have in currency in the Capitol Building is their word, and that to get things done in Juneau, a legislator has to work with 59 other members who have different opinions and who represent different areas of the state.
