Alaska House and Senate announce bipartisan majority coalitions, with several races too close to call

Leaders of the Alaska House and Senate said Wednesday that they have formed bipartisan majority caucuses to govern both legislative chambers, even with tens of thousands of votes still to be tallied in Tuesday’s general election.

Tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted, with final results in some tight races not expected until Nov. 20, but several legislators said they had enough information to be confident that bipartisan coalitions would be possible.

The Senate has been governed by a bipartisan majority coalition for the past two years, and another coalition was widely predicted after early returns. In the House, members of the planned majority coalition said they were confident they had the 21 votes needed to form the majority — with the possibility of an even larger coalition coming together.

The Legislature has seen left-leaning and centrist bipartisan coalitions in at least one chamber several times in recent years, but there have not been bipartisan majority coalitions in both the House and Senate concurrently.

[Preliminary 2024 Alaska general election results]

According to a news release shared by Anchorage Democratic Rep. Zack Fields, key House leadership positions have already been decided:

• Dillingham independent Rep. Bryce Edgmon is set to serve a third term as House speaker.

• Kodiak Republican Rep. Louise Stutes is set to be chair of the House Rules Committee, which decides when legislation advances for a final vote.

• Former GOP Rep. Chuck Kopp, who is leading by 24 points in his bid against incumbent Republican Rep. Craig Johnson, is set to be House majority leader.

“Alaskans have spoken clearly and we will work together, representing residents of all regions, to stabilize public education funding, develop affordable energy, and fix Alaska’s workforce crisis,” Edgmon said in a written statement.

The House coalition also listed four priorities, including passing balanced budgets that do not overdraw the Permanent Fund; passing “stable public education funding”; adopting “retirement reform”; and advancing energy development to “drive investment, create jobs and lower costs.”

According to the news release from coalition leaders, “additional legislators supportive of these principles are welcome to join the majority.”

Two years ago, Senate leaders waited two weeks after the election to form a 17-member bipartisan supermajority that included nine Democrats and eight Republicans. This year, the Senate announced its majority on the day after Election Day, after early results indicated at least one of the current coalition members would lose his reelection bid.

Key leadership positions are set to be largely unchanged from the current Senate bipartisan majority:

• Kodiak Republican Sen. Gary Stevens is set to serve an unprecedented fourth term as Senate president.

• Anchorage GOP Sen. Cathy Giessel is slated again to be majority leader.

• Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, is set to again chair the Senate Rules Committee.

• Republican Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, and Democratic Sens. Lyman Hoffman of Bethel and Donny Olson of Golovin are set to chair the Senate Finance Committee. Hoffman is set to be in charge of the operating budget, which funds government departments and many state programs; Stedman is set to take lead on the capital budget, which funds infrastructure projects, and Olson will be in charge of legislation that comes before the committee.

Both the House and Senate coalition leaders said they would announce additional committee assignments after election results are finalized.

Wielechowski said Wednesday that the caucus had more than 11 members — the minimum number to form a majority in the Senate — but he declined to say exactly how many senators and candidates had joined.

“We’ve got invitations out to a lot of people. I expect it to be large, but we’re still working on exactly who’s going to come in at this point,” he said.

Palmer Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes, who is not currently in the majority, said she didn’t know who would be part of a new Senate minority caucus. Reading through the Senate majority’s media release, Hughes said some Republicans would now be “thinking hard about what they would like to do.”

Kopp also said he expected the House majority to be larger than it had been in recent years, and include some Republicans who had been members of a largely GOP majority in the current term.

“We’re not going to check your party card at the door,” said Kopp.

Wielechowski said the newly announced Senate majority did not decide its legislative priorities at the Wednesday meeting. He said he anticipated the new majority would have similar priorities to the current caucus: increasing education funding, and establishing a more generous retirement system for public-sector workers and teachers.

Bipartisan coalitions could form a significant counterweight to the leadership of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who earlier this year vetoed a bipartisan bill to increase public school spending and cast doubt on the need for public retirement system reform. But Kopp said the coalition would not be “contrarian.”

“Our purpose is to work with the governor’s office to find the solutions that I know we all really want for the state,” said Kopp.

Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, was excited by the prospects of bipartisan coalitions in both the House and Senate, which she argued showed the benefits of ranked choice voting and open primaries.

“I think it’s really great. I think it shows a cohesiveness in both bodies to getting things done,” she said.