GREAT COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS

The new 26th Alaska Legislature gavels in Juneau on January 20th, and sixty legislators will be sworn in (and possibly “sworn at” the next day).

The House Republican Majority held its second Organization Meeting today, December 1st, in Anchorage and our majority members received committee assignments.

I will again Chair the House State Affairs Committee. I’m a six year veteran of the State Affairs Committee, and served the last two years as Chair. I’ll also be returning to membership on the House Judiciary Committee, where I’ve served for the last two years.

Once again I’ll be a member of the House Labor and Commerce Committee. I served previously on that committee in 2003-2004.

I’ll be a first time member of the House Health and Social Services Committee, but will return to the House Special Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, where I served as Chair in 2003 and part of 2004. This time I’ll be Vice-Chair.

I’ll also soon be receiving assignment to some Finance Sub-Committees, where the “nuts and bolts” of the budget is put together.

As of this date, the minority membership have not announced their committee assignments.

All the standing committees are very important, and carry large workloads. It’s unusual a legislator to be on such a large number of major committees. In practical terms, it means I’ll be working and voting in committee on almost all the bills and resolution that will be coming through the House of Representatives enroute to the Floor vote. In fact, I’ll be seeing some of the same bills more than once as they pass through the different committees. I’m looking forward to the coming legislative session.