The Alaska House Majority has unveiled a new way for Alaskans to offer their advice to the Legislature. On Friday, members of the House\u2019s Republican-led majority urged state residents to call 1-844-414-5949 to leave anonymous suggestions of ways to save money.<\/p>\n
While the number has the unfortunate mnemonic of 1-UGH-4145-WHY, the system has a serious purpose, said Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Anchorage. \u201cOne of the groups we\u2019re reaching out to are current state employees or retired state employees,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes these folks might not feel comfortable speaking on the record \u2026 this guarantees total anonymity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone who calls the number is greeted by the voice of Tom Wright, chief of staff to Rep. Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski and Speaker of the House, who explains why the phone system was set up and that the message will be anonymous unless the caller leaves their name or phone number for a response.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people hold back on expressing themselves on social media,\u201d said Rep. Bryce Edgemon, D-Dillingham and a member of the majority. \u201cThat\u2019s really the beauty of Idea Line. You don\u2019t have to identify yourself or leave a callback number.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messages will be checked by legislative staff and transcribed into emails for members of the majority, who can read them into the record as official comments if they wish.<\/p>\n
Since it\u2019s anonymous, there\u2019s the potential for, well, some impolite comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m assuming we\u2019ll get some of those comments, but those are constructive sometimes,\u201d said Rep. Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage and the majority leader.<\/p>\n
Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, said he thinks the phone line will be worth it. \u201cIt may be like a blog where you\u2019ve got some very nonproductive comments,\u201d he said, \u201cbut every once in a while, you\u2019ll find a gem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Alaska House Majority has unveiled a new way for Alaskans to offer their advice to the Legislature. On Friday, members of the House\u2019s Republican-led majority urged state residents to call 1-844-414-5949 to leave anonymous suggestions of ways to save money. While the number has the unfortunate mnemonic of 1-UGH-4145-WHY, the system has a serious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":19049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19048"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}