Two members of the Alaska Senate majority have tested positive for COVID-19, Senate President Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, told reporters Tuesday and a third was feeling ill and awaiting test results.<\/p>\n
Micciche said he could not say which Senators were involved but said he had no reason not to expect a full recovery.<\/p>\n
The Senate held a technical floor session Tuesday and has a full session scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday. Micciche told reporters he believed Senators should work remotely during this special session, and only return to Juneau for a vote.<\/p>\n
On the first day of the special session Oct. 4, House members passed a resolution extending the amount of time needed between floor sessions, allowing lawmakers to return home and hold meetings remotely. But a similar resolution in the Senate ran into problems when some members of the Senate majority caucus protested the proposed schedule for the session.<\/p>\n
But Micciche said he was hopeful some kind of progress would be made toward a fiscal resolution. The fiscal policy working group had drafted good recommendations, Micciche said, and he suggested creating a special committee that could draft legislation from those proposals.<\/p>\n
“The working group did not produce legislation, it produced a menu of options,” Micciche said. “We have to get to the next step and produce legislation.”<\/p>\n
House starts to move<\/strong><\/p>\n After a slow start to the Alaska State Legislature’s fourth special session of the year, members of the House of Representatives have committee meetings scheduled for this week.<\/p>\n No committee meetings were held in the first week of the session and the only floor meetings were technical sessions where no business is conducted. But Tuesday many lawmakers were in Juneau and bills were scheduled to be heard through the end of the week.<\/p>\n This week the House Ways and Means Committee is meeting Wednesday and Thursday at 10 a.m., the State Affairs Committee Thursday at 1 p.m. and the Judiciary Committee will meet Friday at noon.<\/p>\n The House met briefly Tuesday afternoon to introduce new bills aimed at resolving the state’s fiscal deficit.<\/p>\n Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Ivy Sponholz, D-Anchorage, told the Empire Tuesday no meetings were held last week due to staffing issues and waiting on members to be ready.<\/p>\n Members of the House majority coalition had previously submitted bills aimed at resolving the fiscal deficit and members of the House minority submitted new bills Tuesday with their own proposals.<\/p>\n “The fact we now have members of the minority introducing (Permanent Fund Dividend) bills, it shows we’re starting to agree on what the elements of the solution are,” Sponholz said.<\/p>\n