The Alaska Senate pulled together a 13-member Republican majority on the first day of the new session (January 19, 2021).
Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman will once again co-chair the Senate Finance Committee. As of press time today (January 26), Sitka’s representative in the Alaska House, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, is still in organizational limbo.
KCAW’s Robert Woolsey reports on why the composition of the legislature makes a difference for big issues like the Permanent Fund and a state income tax.
Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins doesn’t yet know if he’ll be part of a coalition majority made up of fellow Democrats and moderate Republicans, or whether there will be a straight Republican majority like the Senate. The Republican party lately has shown signs of fracturing between its moderate and extreme right wings — so much so that they might be unable to forge a unified caucus in the House.
What Kreiss-Tomkins does know is that, with the new Republican majority in the senate, Alaska residents won’t see any statewide sales tax or income tax proposals this year. Instead, the debate will likely revolve around how deeply the state will dip into the Permanent Fund to make ends meet. Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman — a champion of protecting the Permanent Fund — is likely to be in the forefront of that debate.
Kreiss-Tomkins shared his views on legislative organization and its impact on taxes during a recent town hall meeting (1-13-21) with the Sitka Education Association.
“I would guess that any form of revenue, including an income tax, is probably DOA if a Republican majority aligned with Gov. Dunleavy forms in the House or the Senate,” said Kreiss-Tomkins. “And even if a coalition is formed, it might be hard to see revenue get play, because the governor has made pretty clear in explicit terms that he’ll veto any tax that reaches his desk.”
Kreiss-Tomkins restated his argument that balancing the state’s budget is mathematically impossible without some form of tax — a position that many in the legislature understand, but are unwilling to advocate for. This year is the first time that a governor has proposed dipping into the Permanent Fund proper to pay the state’s bills — a strategy the governor believes is more palatable to voters than restoring the state’s income tax.
But Kreiss-Tomkins says the gambit doesn’t provide much cover for legislators of both parties who want a more sustainable revenue plan.
“There are a number of legislators, especially from more conservative districts, where taxes are a bad word,” said Kreiss-Tomkins, “and it feels politically dangerous to talk about one or support one or vote for one, who say ‘I realize that a tax is mathematically necessary in Alaska, that we’re never going to balance our budget without one, but Gov. Dunleavy says he’s going to veto it so why make me vote on it — why bring it to the floor — if we know it’s going to die anyway?’”
Kreiss-Tomkins told Sitka educators that he favors an income tax because 20-percent of Alaska’s gross payroll goes to nonresident workers, on the North Slope, in mining, and in fishing. And “that money just grows legs and walks out of the state and leaves nothing behind.”
The Alaska House of Representatives in 2017 passed an income tax bill which then-Gov. Bill Walker said that he would sign. But it was defeated by a near unanimous vote in the Alaska Senate, one of whose members at the time was current Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
