Rep. Sara Hannan is moving up in the world, or at least in the confines of the Alaska State Capitol, while fellow Juneau Rep. Andi Story is also eyeing a brighter situation in the building after the holidays.
Both will be higher in the office selection hierarchy as one of the perks of advancing from minority caucus to majority status during the coming legislative session. So the annual holiday open house hosted by Juneau’s legislative delegation on Friday was something of a farewell celebration at their current offices since the dozens of visitors will need to knock on different doors to find their representatives come January.
Office assignments in the six-story building — with a designated ground floor and then first through fifth floors — are largely a symbolic and scenic reflection of the Alaska Legislature’s power structure. During the coming session the House majority will switch from a mostly Republican coalition to one where Democrats hold most of the seats, while the Senate will continue to have a bipartisan majority where Democrats have a slim advantage in members.
That means Hannan, who was hosting her holiday reception at the fourth-floor office she was assigned two years ago as a member of the House Finance Committee, will be exchanging places with Republican members of the committee when moving day(s) arrive before the session starts.
“Traditionally the majority members on the Finance Committee all have fifth-floor offices,” she said. But “I don’t have my assignment yet, so I don’t want to jinx it, but everybody gets new offices every two years until you’re a really senior person and in the majority…and there are a few offices that are traditional to go with the chair of the education committee, for instance.”
State Rep. Andi Story talks with visitors outside her office at the Alaska State Capitol during the annual holiday open house hosted by Juneau’s legislative delegation on Friday. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Story, who during the past two years also had a fourth-floor office — but with a view of the Capitol parking lot in back of the building, rather than one overlooking downtown Juneau that she had prior to that assignment — will get a chance to reclaim her old office or another one on her priority list as the co-chair of the House Education Committee. She said what office she’ll seek and occupy is still to be determined, although she didn’t seem keen on moving into the first-floor office next to the committee’s meeting room that one of the two outgoing education co-chairs occupies.
Juneau state Sen. Jesse Kiehl could also put in a request for a new office, but since he is already a majority member with a fifth-floor office at the entrance of the Senate Finance Committee room that’s his plum assignment he said he’s not likely to seek a move.
The open house, in addition to offering a wide range of snacks at the delegation’s offices ranging from baked brie bread to Costco confectioneries, was a chance for visitors to bring up an equally wide range of issues they’re hoping will get attention during the coming months at the Capitol.
“I’ve been hearing about issues with infant learning (and) about the need for more elder care,” Story told a group of visitors in the hallway outside her office. “The whole spectrum of people.”
One of those people was Niamh Dardis, director of the Infant Learning Program for REACH Inc., who in an interview after visiting with the delegation members said she isn’t a regular at the open houses, but this year was motivated to visit by an extra sense of urgency for her program.
“This session we just really are feeling like the time has come, like our programs have been flat-funded for well over a decade and so we’re really operating with 25% less funds, essentially, just with the costs,” she said.
State Sen. Jesse Kiehl talks with Niamh Dardis, director of Infant Learning Program for REACH Inc., during the annual holiday open house hosted by Juneau’s legislative delegation on Friday. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Another legislative goal is expanding eligibility for the program, which offers services intended to help children’s development during the first three years of their lives, “so that we can capture more children earlier on with the hopes that they will catch up developmentally, that they’ll make big development gains so that when they do get to school age there may be a lot less of a need for special education intervention,” Dardis said.
Kiehl said many of the topics and requests are familiar, but a new one came from a constituent asking about improving the safety of some roads with obscured views of side streets cars are emerging from.
“Somebody came in with a suggestion for a safety improvement on some state roads in town that I’d never heard of before,” he said. “I thought, ‘What a great idea.’ So I’ll call DOT, and we’ll see what their safety and maintenance people think of adding some of those convex mirrors the city uses.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
