Mistaken vote advances key education bill in Alaska House, highlighting tight margin
Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, House Minority Leader Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, and House Rules Committee Chair Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, talk on the floor of the Alaska House on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
A voting error by one Alaska House of Representatives minority-caucus member on Wednesday moved a public-school funding increase one step closer to passage through the Alaska House of Representatives. But it also exposed the weakness of the House's majority caucus.
Rep. Mike Prax, R-North Pole, joined 20 members of the House majority in voting to move House Bill 69 from the House Education Committee to the House Finance Committee.
If signed into law, HB 69 would permanently increase the state's per-student public school funding formula. The finance committee is the final stop before a vote of the full House.
Prax opposes the bill and has said he wants to see broader changes to the state's public school system, but on Wednesday, he erroneously voted to advance the measure and did not change his vote when prompted by Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham.
Prax said afterward that he didn't realize he had voted to advance HB 69. After he realized his mistake, he made a motion to reverse the vote. That motion to rescind action failed, 19-20.
Under ordinary circumstances, Prax and the rest of the Alaska House wouldn't have had to consider HB 69 on Wednesday.
But for more than a week, Rep. Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks, has been absent from the Capitol, hospitalized for what her office called a 'respiratory issue.'
Dibert is a member of the House's education committee, and without her presence, the committee hasn't had the votes to advance HB 69.
While minority-caucus Republicans have said they didn't have enough of a chance to weigh in on the bill in committee, majority members say they had ample chances to do so before the bill was ready to move onward.
On Feb. 10, the committee paused its regular meeting, and Chair Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka and the author of HB 69, asked if one or more committee members from the minority caucus would be willing to help move the bill onward.
'I was there, and you did say, 'I'd like to move this bill today. Are you ready to move it?' And the minority said no. And so you held the bill,' said Rep. Andi Story, D-Fairbanks, speaking to reporters alongside Himschoot on Wednesday.
The issue wasn't brought up again.
'Nobody asked us again after the seriousness of her illness became apparent. We were not asked about whether we would move it out,' House Minority Leader Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, said on Wednesday.
HB 69 has been the top priority of the House's coalition majority, and lawmakers had been set on passing it through the House by mid-March.
That timing would allow the increased K-12 funding to be incorporated into the state budget, and school districts — whose budgets are generally finalized in the spring for the coming year — would have an early indication about the Legislature's intentions.
But Dibert's absence made that schedule impossible. For more than a week, HB 69 has been stalled in the education committee.
To break the impasse, the majority caucus used a technique normally employed by members of the minority caucus — they called for a 'discharge motion' on the House floor, effectively asking the whole House to vote on advancing the bill from one committee to the next.
There was no guarantee of success.
The Alaska House is split between a 19-member Republican minority caucus and a 21-member multipartisan majority that includes two Republicans, five independents and 14 Democrats.
With Dibert's absence, the majority had just 20 lawmakers present, one short of what was needed to advance the bill.
Nevertheless, Edgmon said afterward, the majority felt that it needed to take a vote.
The education committee had heard more than a month of testimony, overwhelmingly in favor of the bill.
'In deference to what we're being asked by our school districts to do, and by the majority of the state, we had to take action today,' he said.
Though the vote succeeded, it aggravated members of the minority, who spoke for more than an hour afterward on the House floor, objecting to the process and saying they felt unheard by the majority.
'I would hope that all of our members' voices are taken seriously,' Costello said later.
Wednesday's vote could foreshadow more to come in the closely divided House. As long as Dibert remains absent, the majority will have only 20 votes, one short of what is needed to pass legislation.
'Twenty-one is a challenging enough number, right?' Edgmon said. 'Like I've said from Day One, and I'll say it again: I think there's enough common ground. We just had a nice chat with the minority leader on the way out of the chamber, and you know, we know we need to work together, and there'll be other opportunities to work together.'
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
an hour ago
Trump admin live updates: Trump to meet with national security team on Monday
The president has warned Iran not to retaliate after Saturday's U.S. strikes. President Donald Trump on Sunday pushed Republicans to get behind his taxation bill that will fund his agenda as the self-imposed Fourth of July deadline approaches. "Great unity in the Republican Party, perhaps unity like we have never seen before. Now let's get the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill done," Trump wrote on social media. Trump addressed the nation on Saturday night after the U.S. carried out airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facility, which he called "a spectacular military success." 9 minutes ago Trump to meet with national security team on Monday President Donald Trump is scheduled to host a closed meeting with his national security team on Monday as the administration prepares for possible Iranian retaliation following this weekend's U.S. attacks on Tehran's nuclear network. The meeting will take place in the Oval Office at 1 p.m. ET, according to the president's public schedule. -ABC News Michelle Stoddart After Iran strike, Trump sets sights on his 'big, beautiful bill' Following the U.S. military strike on Iran, Trump publicly praised what he called "great unity" within the Republican Party and shifted his focus to the administration's next legislative priority. 'Great unity in the Republican Party, perhaps unity like we have never seen before. Now let's get the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill done,' Trump wrote on social media. 'Our Country is doing GREAT. MAGA!' The post was the president's first public comment since his address to the nation about the Iran attack on Saturday evening. The administration is aiming to pass the president's tax legislation ahead of the self-imposed July Fourth deadline. -ABC News' Kelsey Walsh
2 hours ago
GOP tax bill would ease regulations on gun silencers and some rifles and shotguns
WASHINGTON -- The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill. The guns provision was first requested in the House by Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican gun store owner who had initially opposed the larger tax package. The House bill would remove silencers — called 'suppressors' by the gun industry — from a 1930s law that regulates firearms that are considered the most dangerous, eliminating a $200 tax while removing a layer of background checks. The Senate kept the provision on silencers in its version of the bill and expanded upon it, adding short-barreled, or sawed-off, rifles and shotguns. Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on Second Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport. 'Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn't stand in the way of protecting American gun owners' hearing,' said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel. Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons. 'Parents don't want silencers on their streets, police don't want silencers on their streets,' said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants. Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools. Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades. Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called 'beautiful." 'I'm glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the Second Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill,' said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year. If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online. Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. 'All it's ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,' Keane says. Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from 'over 90 years of draconian taxes.' Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill 'with the purest of motive.' 'Who asked for it? I asked,' said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added. Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the 'mass shooting generation' and said the bill would help 'gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.' Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter. 'There's a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,' said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren't budget-related. 'Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we've got,' Schumer said earlier this month.
Washington Post
2 hours ago
- Washington Post
GOP tax bill would ease regulations on gun silencers and some rifles and shotguns
WASHINGTON — The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill.
