Where bills go to die: House Community, Regional Affairs, the committee that refuses to meet

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The Legislature’s House Community and Regional Affairs Committee has not yet met this legislative session, and a logjam is growing as the committee holds up the progress of 23 bills — everything from protecting Alaskans from government vaccine mandates and firearms restrictions, to holding legislative sessions on the road system and the use of gold and silver as legal tender.

The committee has reported out — or moved out to the next committee of referral — just eight bills since January of 2021. Most of the bills that were moved were sponsored by people associated with the Democrat-led majority caucus.

Bills reported out in 2021:

Last year, the committee met just 12 times. But the committee now has so many bills from people who Co-Chair Sara Hannan considers political enemies, it appears she has slipped the schedule a Quaalude so that the legislation from her enemies will pass out during this second session of the 32nd Legislature. Bills that don’t progress by the end of this session would have to be reintroduced next year as new legislation and start the process all over.

The year before Hannan rose to power as co-chair, the committee processed over 20 bills through to the next committee of referral.

Co-chairs Hannan of Juneau and Calvin Schrage of Anchorage, both part of the Democrat-led majority, have not even scheduled the committee to meet next week, the third week of session.

Before Hannan became co-chair of CRA, the committee processed out 27 bills to the next committee of referral.

See the data on the 30th Community and Regional Affairs Committee at this link.

15 COMMENTS

  1. The Rules Committee makes House Community and Regional Affairs look like a spring chicken. The last meeting of the House Rules Committee was on May 18th 2020. It has been 620 days since this committee met. Currently 16 bills languish in the Rules Committee. I have served on the House Rules Committee since I first joined the legislature in 2017.

  2. Sara is doing what she does best. Nothing.
    I’m still not sure how she got elected since campaigning requires effort

    • That’s EXACTLY THE WRONG method. They’re over highly paid anyway..You use that method, NOTHING will get done in the coming legislatures..It’s a stupid bone to throw out to the non-competent people.

  3. Thank you Suzanne for your post. Therefore, I immediately called Sara Hannan’s office. She wasn’t there. So then i composed an email stating which HBs i wanted her and Mr Schrage to process. The email came back to me as undeliverable. I will now print out a letter to her, with a self-addressed, stamped post card ( 4 1/4 x 6) ( notarized) stating ” Sara Hannan has received my letter” If I do not receive that self addressed post card, we can assume that Sara Hannan is not at work in her office, and then I recommend that she be removed from the responsibility of Chair of the House Community and Regionsl Affairs office. I recommend that all 22,000 of us write to her. She does not respond to phone calls or to emails. If she receives concrete snail mail and does not respond, I can only judge her to be incompetent.
    [email protected]

    Rep. Sara Hannan ,
    State Capitol Rm 204,
    Juneau, AK 99801

  4. According to Rep Hannan;
    “The House Community and Regional Affairs Committee (HCNRA) has met every day of our regularly scheduled committee time since the session began. This committee is responsible for the budget oversight of two state departments: Public Safety and Corrections. (Most standing committees have oversight of one department budget.) Until those department budgets have been worked through, our committee time is spent as the budget sub-committee. Morning committees are more impacted by this process than afternoon committees as the full finance committee meets in the afternoon, thus the standing committee oversight must be done at a different time. CNRA is a 8am-10am committee timeslot. So, it is a matter of logistics.”

    Rep. Sara Hannan

    • I have no idea if that response from Hannan is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but, that’s her story and she is sticking to it…..

      While I am no Hannan Lover, IMHO the author should have asked the question I did and then refuted the answer.

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