Rep. Sam Kito III will head the powerful Legislative Council when the Alaska Legislature convenes in January.<\/p>\n
One day after announcing its creation, the new bipartisan Alaska House Majority revealed who will head each of the House\u2019s standing committees. Committee chairmen are powerful figures in the the Legislature: they can kill bills assigned to their committees.<\/p>\n
The Legislative Council controls the functioning of the Legislature itself and can make decisions when the Legislature isn\u2019t in normal session.<\/p>\n
In the 29th Legislature, the Juneau Democrat Kito was a minority member of the Legislative Council and voted \u2018no\u2019 on several actions associated with the controversial Anchorage Legislative Information Office building.<\/p>\n
Now, Kito will be chairman of that same committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on my experience on the committee, I believe it is very important for the district and for the state,\u201d he said by text message.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cI will be looking for efficiencies in operations and interested in looking into the existing procurement processes to make sure we are making decisions in the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kito was also named chairman of the House Labor and Commerce Committee.<\/p>\n
Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau, will be co-chairman of the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee alongside Rep. Zach Fansler, D-Bethel.<\/p>\n
By text, Parish said it\u2019s an important committee for Juneau, and he looks forward to working with Fansler.<\/p>\n
Other chairmanships:<\/p>\n
House Resources: Rep. Geran Tarr, D-Anchorage and Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage<\/p>\n
House Judiciary: Rep. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage<\/p>\n
House Labor and Commerce: Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau<\/p>\n
House State Affairs: Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, D-Sitka<\/p>\n
House Community and Regional Affairs: Rep. Zach Fansler, D-Bethel and Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau<\/p>\n
House Education: Rep. Harriet Drummond, D-Anchorage<\/p>\n
House Transportation: Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak and Rep. Adam Wool, D-Fairbanks<\/p>\n
Legislative Budget and Audit: Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage (vice chairman)<\/p>\n
Legislative Council: Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau<\/p>\n
Legislative Ethics: Rep. Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage<\/p>\n
Armed Services: Rep. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks (vice chairman)<\/p>\n
Energy: Rep. Adam Wool, D-Fairbanks<\/p>\n
Fisheries: Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak<\/p>\n
Military and Veterans Affairs: Rep. Jason Grenn, I-Anchorage<\/p>\n
Economic Development, Tourism and Arctic Policy: Rep. Dean Westlake, D-Kotzebue<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the five-member Alaska Senate minority also announced its committee assignments. Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, remains in the minority and will serve on the transportation and labor\/commerce committees in the Senate.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at 523-2258 or james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Sam Kito III will head the powerful Legislative Council when the Alaska Legislature convenes in January. One day after announcing its creation, the new bipartisan Alaska House Majority revealed who will head each of the House\u2019s standing committees. Committee chairmen are powerful figures in the the Legislature: they can kill bills assigned to their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":2600,"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-2599","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\/2599","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=2599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}