Rep. Jennifer Johnston, R-Anchorage, concludes a speech against a failed amendment to Senate Bill 2002 on Sunday, July 21, 2019.
I served in the Legislature during one of the most dysfunctional periods in Alaska’s recent history, the 31st Legislature. It took 31 days for us to even organize, with 23 Republicans, 16 Democrats and one independent unable to come together. From 2006 until 2022, Alaska had 545 days of special sessions, costing about $14,000 per day. That’s about $7.5 million in public money. But the real cost goes beyond that. Missed deadlines meant school districts couldn’t budget properly and had to send out pink slips because the state budget almost failed to pass before the end of the fiscal year. That affected thousands of families.