Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott has approved two health care-related ballot measures, an act that allows backers to begin gathering signatures to put them on the ballot.
Mallott on Monday followed the advice of the Alaska Department of Law and ruled that the measures are constitutionally valid. In order to appear on the fall 2018 ballot, backers need the signatures of more than 32,000 registered voters before Jan. 17.
Jordyn Grant, campaign manager for the measures, said by email that signature-gathering is ready to begin.
The first measure, called Defend Alaska’s Care, would put expanded Medicaid coverage in state law. Currently, the state’s expanded coverage was extended under an executive order issued by Gov. Bill Walker in 2015.
That order survived a lawsuit challenging it, but it could be reversed by a future governor. Supporters of the measure want to make it more difficult to reverse Medicaid expansion.
Health care for Alaska, the other proposed initiative, adds some of the most popular portions of Obamacare into state law. Among those provisions is a measure that prohibits insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing medical problems.
Alaska’s constitution prohibits ballot measures that appropriate money or resources (such as land or fishing rights).
According to the Department of Law’s analyses, “Although these bills would maintain eligibility for one statutory entitlement and create a new statutory entitlement, they do not require the legislature to fund those entitlements.”
In other words, even if the ballot measures pass, the Legislature can effectively block them by not paying for the services they require.
To put their measures on the ballot, backers need 10 percent of the previous general election tally. In 2016, 321,271 Alaskans voted. That means each ballot initiative needs 32,127 signatures.
Those signatures have to be spread across the state: Signatures have to come from at least three-quarters of the state’s 40 House districts, and in each of those districts, the signatures have to represent at least 7 percent of the people who voted in 2016.
In the Mendenhall Valley, for example, 9,106 people cast ballots. That means ballot-measure supporters would need 637 signatures from House District 34.
If those signatures arrive before the start of the 2018 Legislative session (which begins Jan. 17), the measures will show up on the 2018 ballot. If they miss that deadline, they will not appear until the next general election, which takes place in 2020.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or call 523-2258.
