{"id":45584,"date":"2019-03-29T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/capitol-live-senators-seeing-sea-change-in-publics-view-of-pfd\/"},"modified":"2019-03-29T13:13:42","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T21:13:42","slug":"capitol-live-senators-seeing-sea-change-in-publics-view-of-pfd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/capitol-live-senators-seeing-sea-change-in-publics-view-of-pfd\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol Live: House approves fast-tracked funding for disaster relief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>1:10 p.m. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage, weighs in on Gov. Mike Dunleavy&rsquo;s Koch Brothers-backed speeches around the state:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am very alarmed about the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GovDunleavy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@GovDunleavy<\/a> town-hall&#39;s. In order to attend, Alaskans must provide information to Koch Brothers funded group. Melanie Bahnke spoke up for what was right in Nome, and showed the governor that Alaskans won&#39;t be silenced! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/akleg?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#akleg<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dp7jvFvsQj\">https:\/\/t.co\/dp7jvFvsQj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Senator Elvi (@ElviSenator) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ElviSenator\/status\/1111735350857068544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 29, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> &mdash; Alex McCarthy<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>1:05 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sen. Donny Olson, D-Golovin, introduced a bill that would establish March 12 as Ashley Johnson-Barr Day in honor of the Kotzebue girl who died last September in a suspected murder.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;People across the state wore purple on March 12, which would have been Ashley Johnson-Barr&rsquo;s 11th birthday to celebrate her life,&rdquo; Olson said in a release. &ldquo;Continuing that tradition and remembering her is one way we can bring attention to child safety, community involvement, and solidarity.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That bill, Senate Bill 101, was referred to the Senate State Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n<p><em> &mdash; Alex McCarthy<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>11:10 a.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The bill passes 32-0. Eight members are excused today.<\/p>\n<p><em> &mdash; Mollie Barnes<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>11 a.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The House is in a floor session. They&rsquo;re about to do a third reading of SB 38, the bill the Senate passed earlier this session approving emergency funds for the Southcentral earthquake.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/senate-approves-fast-tracked-disaster-relief-funds\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more about that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;These funds will be used for infrastructure repair and to aid lost income,&rdquo; Rep. Neal Foster says.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. David Eastman has some concerns that he says were brought up in committee.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We are sending a rather large amount of money to our disaster relief fund&#8230; we seem to be increasing the average amount of that fund. I hope we&rsquo;re not anticipating any additional 7.1 earthquakes in the very near future,&rdquo; Eastman says.<\/p>\n<p>He says some of his constituents say they would rather have the legislature pay out the dividend rather than put funds in an account that might not be used.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Tammie Wilson says the fund is not just for earthquakes and that the fund is at the lowest it&rsquo;s ever been.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It may seem like a large amount, but we&rsquo;ve had a lot of disasters the last few years. We want to make sure we&rsquo;re ready to take care of those issues,&rdquo; Wilson says.<\/p>\n<p><em> &mdash; Mollie Barnes<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>9:50 a.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a meeting with media members this morning, Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said he&rsquo;s seeing a &ldquo;sea change&rdquo; in the way his constituents view the Permanent Fund Dividend.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;When we came down here, people said, &lsquo;Three thousand dollars? Of course I&rsquo;d like $3,000,&rsquo; but as I&rsquo;ve gone back home, people have realized, &lsquo;What&rsquo;s it going to cost me? Am I going to lose education, the university?&rsquo; The whole system we have, the majority of my district are beginning to say, &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s be serious about this and let&rsquo;s find some compromise.&rsquo; I think we&rsquo;re seeing a big change in the public&rsquo;s point of view.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><em> &mdash; Alex McCarthy<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Live updates from the Capitol. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":45585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-45584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45584","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\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45584"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=45584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}