Dear Neighbors,

The second special session is again under way and hopefully this one will be more promising than the last one. As you may have seen in the news, the Governor’s office, with my encouragement, extended the call of this session to include SB 206. SB 206 is a material witness bill that I sponsored last session. It strongly passed both bodies, but died on the last night of session as the Senate focused on PPT. I believe it will be successful this time.

SB 206 (renumbered as SB 3007) provides local police with tools to fight gang violence. It was crafted with help of the Anchorage Police Department and has the support of the Anchorage Municipality and the Administration. SB 3007 allows police officers to gain information from material witnesses at the scene of a major felony crime (such as a homicide or felony misconduct involving a weapon). Currently, material witnesses often flee crime scenes where gang violence has occurred in order to avoid the police. SB 3007 would stop this and allow police officers to solve these crimes in a more expedited manner.

The gas line contract remains a complicated and challenging issue. We are working through a number of questions in our attempt to produce a contract that is in Alaska’s best long-term interests. There is an informal agreement for the House to focus on PPT, while the Senate focuses on the gas line contract. There are some new options for the PPT bill being discussed, but there is no new legislation at this point. I remain hopeful that the Senate will be able to vote on both of these issues before August 10th when the special session ends.

Stay in touch and enjoy your summer.

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