Last week the House and Senate both voted to table a motion to de-fund the Legislature’s appeal of their lawsuit over Gov. Bill Walker’s authorization of Medicaid expansion. By doing so, they’ve shirked their responsibility to decide as a body whether the appeal is in the state’s best interest. It now seems they’ll hide behind the Legislative Council, like they did for the illegally negotiated lease extension of the Legislative Information Office (LIO) in Anchorage.
Anyone who has followed Medicaid expansion story knows it’s been one of Walker’s highest priorities. But he didn’t take unilateral action to expand the program after being sworn into office in December 2014. He made sincere attempts to fulfill his campaign promise by working with the Legislature.
First he included funds for expansion in his budget proposal, but they were removed by the House. He then asked the Legislature to consider a bill put forth by the House Democrats; instead they requested he submit his own. When he did they refused to consider it. He asked again in a special session he called immediately after the Legislature adjourned. And they ignored him once more.
So in July, after the special session ended without action on it, Walker took matters into his own hands. A legal opinion supported that decision. But the 14-member Legislative Council voted to sue him. The dispute was heard by Alaska Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner and he dismissed the Legislature’s complaint last month.
As Rep. Sam Kito, D-Juneau, pointed out in a speech on the House floor Saturday, if the Legislature wants to appeal Pfiffner’s ruling they should make that decision as an entire body while they’re in session. It shouldn’t be given back to the Legislative Council because, according to Chapter 20 of the Alaska State Statutes, it’s only intended to have the authority “to sue in the name of the Legislature during the interim between sessions.”
If the legislative majority is truly convinced that Medicaid expansion is bad for Alaska, then they should have just held a vote on the merits of Walker’s proposal. But they don’t want to risk losing a battle of political ideology. And they likely would because, as Sen. John Coghill, R-North Pole, said last year, they believe most members of the Senate “probably generally support the Medicaid expansion.”
That’s why the majority in both houses voted to table the motion to de-fund the appeal of Pfiffner’s ruling. That lets them push the issue back over to the Legislative Council.
The public was barred from the Legislative Council’s deliberations last July and that will likely be again. Plus, deferring to the council allows most lawmakers to hide from the public whether they support or oppose the decision to spend additional funds pursuing this case.
Clearly this isn’t the transparent government Alaskans deserve.
Ironically, that’s what Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, claimed Alaskans would get when he signed the 10-year lease extension for the Anchorage LIO. Referring to the glass-enclosed building design, he said “folks will come by, take a look in the windows and keep an eye on their government.”
But neither the public, the Legislature, nor the Legislative Council was keeping an eye on Hawker while he negotiated the non-competitive extension that increased annual lease costs from $685,000 to more than $4 million.
Now the state is stuck with two rotten choices.
They could walk away from the lease and move into the state-owned Atwood Building. But it needs $3.5 million for renovations and wouldn’t be ready until January 2018. And there’s likely to be settlement costs owed to the developer for breaking the lease.
The second option, endorsed by the Legislative Council this month, is to purchase the building for $32 million.
The one option not available is carrying the unaffordable luxury of the lease through to its 10-year term. That’s because the state was sued on the legality of the extension and lost.
The LIO disaster may never have happened if the lease negotiations had been transparent. The entire affair should serve as a warning that the Legislative Council isn’t up to the task of deciding whether or not to appeal the Medicaid expansion case.
It may have been technically legal, but every legislator, including Juneau Rep. Cathy Muñoz, who chose to table a vote on funding that appeal has violated the spirit of state law. And like many decisions actually made behind closed doors, this one also was an act of political cowardice.
• Rich Moniak lives in Juneau and is a retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.
