The Daily Alaska Empire

PAGE EIGHT

NIGHT SESSION SEES SENATORS HIT TOP SPEED

Senators Let Down Bars to Receive Last-Minute Precautionary Act

In an unparalleled burst of activity, the Alaska Senate last evening cleaned up all nine bills on its immediate calendar. With the Basic Science Act passed during the forenoon and the gas tax rewrite, H.B. 64, and new H.J.R. 2 gaining passage in the afternoon session, that made a total of 12 measures passed upon by the Senators Monday.

Two of the measures acted upon by the Senate last evening met sudden death, via the indefinite postponement route. They were: Senate Bill 25, appropriating an additional $125,000 to the Department of Public Welfare, and H.B. 38, which would have permitted Territorial Officials to travel outside Alaska at Territorial expense with the consent of the Board of Administration.

Surviving an indefinite postponement motion, but killed on final vote was H.B. 62, to pay irregularly made claims for wolf and coyote bounties.

H.B. 35, another bounty measure, a $1,561 deficiency appropriation to pay for eagles killed before repeal of the eagle bounty, also survived an early threat-to table it-but was able to squeak through to passage.

Also passed last evening, all by substantial margins, were: S.B. 15, prescribing qualifications for police officers in first class cities; H.B. 58, a $1,200 supplemental appropriation for the office of the Attorney General to be used for law compilation; H.B. 31, increasing pay of election officials from $7.50 to $15 per day; H.B. 25, increasing per diem in lieu of subsistence for traveling Territorial employees from $6 to $7 per day.

H.B. 68, making a permanent increase in legislative pay from $15 to $22, per day also passed. The measure came over from the House with a $10 lawmaker pay boost provided. The Senators, however, cut the added pay to $7 to make it conform to the subsistence allowance to Territorial employees. A companion measure received from the House and passed by the Senate Monday afternoon was House Resolution No. 3. It carries an appropriation for the added pay for the legislators attending this special session. Also included in H.J.R. 3 is post-session pay for the President and Secretary of the Senate and the Speaker and Chief Clerk of the House for compiling the Journal.

The Senate also wrote into the Resolution a bonus for House and Senate employees to compensate them for overtime.

Senators N. R. Walker and Frank Gordon almost reached the millennium when they found themselves opposed to the measure providing that extra $210 for each lawmaker. Gordon went on record with the un-Scottish declaration that he would not accept his chunk. Walker was just about as idealistic and hardly more practical. The Ketchikan solon announced he will donate his $210 to the Southeast Alaska branch of the University of Alaska.

One other action taken by the Senate during the afternoon session assured passage for H.B. 27. The Senators receded from their amendments to that bill authorizing purchases of surplus government structures for housing veterans attending the University of Alaska. The Senate action restored the appropriation at $100,000 and the responsibility for administration in the Alaska Housing Authority. Upper chamber changes had halved the fund and vested authority in the Board of Regents.

Also considered by the solons yesterday was S.B. 19, appropriating $50,000 for landing fields at Naknek and Dillingham. The measure once faced with indefinite postponement but survived to pass to the Third Reading stage on today's calendar.

The old argument about illegality was hauled out against the bill, but co-author Grenold Collins referred to the appropriation of $25,000 made on the last day of the 1945 session as a precedent for such specific appropriations. Collins declared he had been willing to stay out of the pork barrel as long as that was the rule of the Senate, but the Petersburg bill tore the lid off.

Collins also argued that Bristol Bay has contributed up to one-third of the Territory's revenues and received very little in return; that the airfields are much needed for bringing cannery workers into the area.

The Senate was to re-convene this morning at 10 o'clock, for this session's final day. The Senators still have more bills ahead of them than they are likely to be able to handle.