Needs a title -- Is there a synonym for sucker-punch that also rhymes with flip-flop?
The budget has plenty to dislike. It mostly flat-funds state agencies regardless of what they actually need. It has a compromise dividend amount (I'll come back to that in a minute.) But at least it doesn’t overdraw the Permanent Fund.
As far as running the nuts and bolts of the state goes, it's basically the governor's budget. It has almost all the reductions he asked for. Even still, it took two tries to pass the Senate—by a single vote. The House didn’t have any votes to spare either. But it passed.
If you watch the Legislature's floor sessions much, you need a real hobby. But also, you will have noticed a lot of bills need a separate vote for the effective dates. An effective date is just what it sounds like: it says when a law will take effect. If a bill doesn't have one, it takes effect 90 days after the governor signs it. When you want a date other than the default, you need a 2/3 vote, instead of a simple majority.
The budget works a little differently. Because the regular session ends about two months before the next fiscal year starts, we always tack on a pair of suspenders to the effective date: a retroactivity provision. That way if the effective date doesn't get its supermajority vote, or the budget doesn't get signed until late, government doesn't have to shut down. It's a good thing we do that, because this year the effective dates passed in the Senate, but failed in the House.
Attorneys General since the 1970s have analyzed the law and given retroactivity for spending bills a green light. The legislature's nonpartisan Legal Services team agreed. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled decades ago that retroactivity doesn't need 2/3 to pass. (If you want an example of how governors rely on retroactivity to spend money before they have a bill passed, just look at Governor Dunleavy's supplemental budget bill he sent us this February.)
So on Wednesday the budget passed. Legislators piled into planes and flew home, knowing they'd headed off a shutdown. Until on Thursday, Gov. Dunleavy announced that everyone for 40+ years has been wrong and his February proposal was wrong and the budget is utterly un-signable because the effective dates failed. (OK, he didn't say the part about how he himself proposed retroactivity. Maybe he forgot?) His press conference implied heavily that only a fool could read the constitution any other way.
Even if he's right about that, why keep it a secret until after the voting was done? If he had mentioned his novel read before the House voted, legislators could have worked accordingly. After all, knowing the consequences is a big part of any negotiation. I'm told the governor had his team evaluating the move for at least a week.
I'll resist the temptation to guess at why he kept his colossal surprise a secret, but I can tell you the effect. Roughly 20,000 state employees got pink slips they don't deserve. Alaskans who serve our state called their legislators, afraid they'd lose their pending mortgages. Others ended up in tears over how they'd pay for ongoing chemotherapy or insulin next month.
Legislators don't particularly suffer from pink slips, so his sucker punch didn't really stagger the pols. No, the governor punched down at the people who worked for him. It was a low blow.
So what's the fix? I think a grand bargain on the most contentious parts of the budget (that's pronounced "PFD") is unlikely before July 1. But a deal that passes the effective dates for the coming year by 2/3 is within the realm of possibility.
The current special session ends tonight at midnight. But legislative leaders and the governor agreed he should call the next special session on Wednesday, and he has. We should be able to get this fixed before anyone gets laid off, and services to Alaskans get interrupted. As long as there are no more surprises.
