SPECIAL SESSION COMMAND ATTENDANCE

Our Governor Murkowski called our legislature into yet another special session yesterday. We gaveled in at 6:00PM, said the invocation, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, assigned the governor’s oil/gas pipeline bills to committees - and adjoined until today for a hearing of the governor’s speech to the joint session of the House and Senate.

At 11AM today the governor read a twenty-three page, forty-five minute speech, that basically threatened the legislature with “hell, fire, and damnation” if the legislature didn’t do his bidding. He alleged that failure to act on his oil and gas proposals during this current special session could result in an income tax, or a statewide sales tax, or a lost permanent fund dividend – he may have also mentioned something about the sky falling. No applause, except at the conclusion of the speech. Backdrop for the governor’s speech? The House chambers graced by the Speaker of the House, President of the Senate, and the giant state seal – very impressive stuff for the current political season.

At the conclusion of the governor’s speech, the House adjoined until July 24th, and everybody caught the first available flight out of Juneau for home. The cost? Travel expenses for some sixty legislators, rental cars, session per diem times 60, plus costs for certain legislative staff. Was it worth the cost? We shall see.