Alaska Legislature: Senate State Affairs, 4/21/26, 3:30pm

Okay, I'd like to call the Senate State Affairs Committee meeting to order. Let the record reflect that it is Tuesday, April 21st, 2026, and time now is 3:30 PM. We have members present today: Senator Wilkowski, Senator Gray Jackson, Senator Tilton, Vice Chair Senator Bjorkman and myself, Chair Kawasaki, we do have a quorum to conduct business. I'd like to thank Carrie Thippot from Senate Records and Jude Augustine, moderator with the Legislative Information Office, for being here today. We do have 4 items on today's agenda, but they will go fairly quickly, we hope.

We have a second hearing on House Concurrent Resolution No. 9, Declaration of Independence Anniversary. It's sponsored by Senator, or Representative Ashley Carrick. We have a second hearing on Senate Bill 239, Motor Vehicle Registration. It is sponsored by Senator Kathy Tilton.

And we have a second hearing on Senate Bill 282, Military Joint Armed Services Committee, sponsored by the Senate State Affairs Committee. We also then will have a first hearing on Senate Concurrent Resolution 11, the Legislative Commission on the State Seal. And that's sponsored by Senate President Gary Stevens. Um, we will first hear House Concurrent Resolution— well, that's not the title— House Concurrent Resolution Number 9, entitled Declaration of Independence Anniversary. It's sponsored by Representative Ashley Carrick.

Her staff is here present today in the room. Cadence Connor, if you'd like to summarize the resolution.

Through the chair, for the record, Kayden Sconner, staff to Representative Carrick. I would like to thank the chair and the committee for hearing HCR 9 again today. HCR 9 works to celebrate the semi-quincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and to commemorate all of the accomplishments which have been accomplished throughout the last 250 years while also recognizing the work which will continue to be done to ensure the expansion of individuals' rights moving forward.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Connor. Are there questions?

Hearing and seeing none, may I have a motion? Vice Chair Senator Bjorkman. Brief it ease. Brief it ease. Sorry.

Okay, I'd like to call the Senate State Affairs Committee meeting back to order. Um, thank you, Miss Connor. And Senator Bjorkman. Mr. Chairman, I move committee substitute for HCR 9, work draft 34-LS1091/i.a. Be reported out of committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note.

Great. Are there any objections?

Hearing, seeing none, HCR 9 moves from committee with individual recommendations and the attached fiscal notes. Next, thank you. Next, we are going to go ahead and speed right along and hear Senate Bill 239. Senate Bill 239, Motor Vehicle Registration, is sponsored by Senator Cathy Tilton. Her staff, Keith Hilliard, is here and can summarize the bill very briefly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. For the record, Heath Hilliard, staff to Senator Tilton. Again, SB 239 is a simple fix under motor vehicle registration. In 2006, the federal government extended an exemption to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for imported vehicles of a certain age.

When the state of Alaska decided to incorporate that regulation, rather than doing a 25-year rolling standard, a rolling date, they adopted a static date of 1981. And so the current— it currently is being enforced that only vehicles 1981 or older are allowed to be registered and titled if they're a legally imported vehicle. This would fix that to say that it's 25 years or a rolling date. So vehicles, for instance, as of today, 20— 2001 vehicles could get registered. What was interesting is we noted that for most of the time period that regulation was in effect, it wasn't being enforced.

It's only been in the last 2 to 3 years that the regulation was enforced. So all this does is fix that hiccup.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Hilliard. Any questions for the sponsor of the bill or Mr. Hilliard?

Hearing and seeing none, what is the wish of the committee? Senator Bjorkman. Mr. Chairman, I move committee substitute for H.Senate Bill 239, Work Draft 34-LS1371/A, be reported out of committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. Great. Any objection?

Hearing and seeing none, Senate Bill 239 is reported from committee with individual recommendations and the attached fiscal note, and legislators will stay after to sign all 3 bill files. Next, we'll hear Senate Bill 282, Military Joint Armed Services Committee. Members do have a draft substitute for Senate Bill 282 in their packets. It is identified with the letter N. May I have a motion to adopt the committee substitute as a working document? Senator Bjorkman.

Mr. Chairman, I move to adopt the committee substitute for Senate Bill 282, Work Draft 34-LS1614/N, as in the Paskiak, as our working document. Thank you. We have with us Senator I mean, Jenna Calhoun, staff to the Senate Joint Armed Services Committee, to come up and explain changes in the N version of the bill. For the record, Jenna Calhoun, staff to Senator Kawasaki and the Joint Armed Services Committee. What the version change from version A to version N is, it adds an additional responsibility for the Legislative Affairs Agency in AS 24.20.670 to maintain both a list of previous recipients awarded the Alaska Decoration of Honor and a list of military members that are eligible to receive that award.

Thank you. Any questions for the sponsor's designee?

Thank you. Hearing and seeing none, I will remove my objection. Is there any further objection to using the end version of the bill as a working document?

Okay, hearing and seeing none, Senator Bjorkman, would you make the motion? Very good. Mr. Chairman, I move to report Senate Bill 282, Work Draft 34-LS1614/n, as in Nakisky from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. Are there any objections? Great.

Hearing and seeing none, Senate Bill 282 is reported from committee with individual recommendations and the attached fiscal notes. We will take a brief at ease to bring up the next bill.

Okay, I'd like to call the Senate State Affairs Committee back to order. We will now hear Senate Concurrent Resolution 11, Legislative Commission on the State Seal. We're happy and excited to have President Gary Stevens here, his staff Tim Lampkin. To come up and introduce the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gary Stevens, uh, Senator from Kodiak. The bill we're talking about is establishing a commission to review the Alaska state seal. Mr. Lamkin will be showing you some slides that show you the history of the seal as it's changed. The seal we have today is not the only one.

We've had several over the years and it's gone through several changes, but So the seal we see today really was adapted from 1959 when we became a state and it continues on to be our seal today. But it comes from that era of the 1880s, the 1900s, and when we were really in the colonial expansion. So that's what you see in the seal today. And from what we can learn in looking in historical records, It was never adopted— it was adopted administratively, never adopted by a legislature at any time. Certainly not the Alaska Legislature, 'cause we did not exist at that time.

The earliest seals you'll see show things like igloos and kayakers and forests and actually an aurora and Native fur seal hunters. But the original icons sort of disappeared as time passed. And what we see in the current seal that we have is— are things like smelters, mining smelters and hills with all the trees cut off and locomotive engines and cargo ships and horse-drawn wheat harvesters. And so I think it's really time to think about redesigning Alaska's official state seal. This, uh, SCR would establish a commission to do that, to look at it, to not necessarily design it, but begin to think about it.

What would you want in it? So maybe it's time, I think, to have a more comprehensive seal that really casts a wider net, that captures a more modern emblem of Alaska and represents our values and all of the people of Alaska. So I would appreciate it if you would allow Tim to go through some of the slides he has. I think you will be interested in a little entertainment and seeing what has happened in the past. Very good.

Thank you, President Stevens. Mr. Lampkin. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Tim Lampkin, staff to Senator Stevens. I want to thank the committee for hearing this resolution, and some of you have seen this presentation already, but just thought in the context of what what this resolution and commission proposes to do, it would be helpful to offer you some historical background as to how we got here with the seal we have today.

At the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, the first 10 years was governed largely by our military and specifically the Army commanders. At the time, it was originally called the Department of Alaska, run by the War Office, the Army, and their this, this initial slide features those commanders in that first 10 years. There was quite a lot of turnover during that time. This 1867 to '77 was a 17-year time span with an average tenure of 390 days, just so, just over a year that each one of these commanders was in charge of the place. It was largely to kind of to manage basic commercial trade and maintain peace and order in the villages and the small towns at that time.

Jefferson Davis notably is the first one was present, according to the historical records that I encountered, present at the treaty that signed Alaska from Russia to the United States. A lot of these commanders I noticed had experience in the Civil War. A lot of them had specifically— and I don't know if it was a coincidence or not— but they all had background, extensive background in commanding in artillery. I think it might be safe to say, as much so as it is now, it may have been back then, that you, when you come to Alaska initially, you either love it or you hate it. And so in this instance, I think a lot of them may have hated it, and that's why they didn't stay here for much more than about a year.

As we segued from This, from the military, from the 1877 era, for a 2-year period, we were controlled by the U.S. Treasury Department, specifically a collector of customs. And we had some— there was a seal at that time that transitioned from the Army seal to the Department of Treasury. And I'll note, interestingly enough, I found in my research on this was that the Treasury Department has been in existence longer than the federal government. Itself.

As we move or considering these Treasury folks, they had an average of about 8 months of service. And there are some stories I could tell that are colored. I will spare us that on record right now. But there is a reason perhaps that they moved from Customs to the Navy. As you know, Alaska has a large coastline, and so the Navy commanders controlled for about 5 years.

They had about the same average as the Treasury folks insofar as they had about an 8-month tenure on average of running the state. We used the Navy Department seal at that time.

Commander Birdslee, for example, is known for naming Glacier Bay. Glass was involved in preserving peace and property extensively. He was involved in our territory of Guam. Merriman, as some of you may have taken an Alaska Studies class, is known for the infamous bombardment of Angoon. He too, by the way, was heavily involved in artillery.

And Nichols, is known for his navigation on the waters and was known for traveling a lot at sea and discovering of the Black-Eyed Goby, which that's a different conversation. But the focus, the point being there that they focused their time at sea and were exploring the waters and not so much managing or being executive of our territory. In 1884, with the introduction of the Organic Act and the Department of Interior came into the picture and under their seal and population growth began to occur. We had John Henry Kincaid. At that point we were referred to as the District of Alaska.

Our first seal that I've been able to identify on record is there in the center. I'll point out that we focused a lot on the, the note, the wilderness, the woods. The forest rather and the timber and lumber, you'll see seals ready to harvest on the beach. There's a kayak there and I think at the time it was, they're referred to as igloos. That transitioned from 1804 to 1909 with these first appointed governors with the introduction of the Seal of the District of Alaska.

Under— I'll mention under Glenn, John Green Brady was involved or had relationship dealings with Soapy Smith, the Gold Rush days, 1898. Here I just want to point and pause that all of these seals to date were administratively approved through the Department of the Army, the Navy, Treasury Department, and through the executive orders of the governor that was appointed by the president at that time. So at no point to date, with perhaps the exception of statehood, was the seal vetted through a more populist type of process. It was decided administratively. In 1913, we had what we see today.

The wilderness, the woods, the forest is gone. It's been replaced with a smelter. We see railroads and construction, heavy industrial development. Focus and farming, in particular wheat and grains on the bottom. 1913 To '58, we had, when we became officially a territory, our first governor, Walter Eli Clark.

And with the introduction of this seal, our legislature presumably adopted it, but I don't have a record of that. Again, I I believe it was done by our executive at that time. By 1910, '13, it was a— seems to have been a done deal. By statehood, we essentially gave it a rubber stamp and have since then seen the same seal today. And I could even, I suppose, point out, in my opinion at least, that the top right seal there, the gilded one that's gold, really sort of bleeds out all of those details.

You just see the blue and the gold anymore. So that's a summary of where we've been, where we're at. I would mention it's worth mentioning that this Commission in and of itself is not changing the state seal. It's not putting money toward the change of any such seal. And it would simply propose that a group of stakeholders, artists, designers, historians, get together and talk about possibly changing the design of the seal.

Uh, it— the resolution is structured such that it calls for supporting philanthropic contributions to this project. It should hopefully, at least on the front end, minimize any state investment of dollars. That concludes my presentation, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Lampkin. I thought that that little building at the top of the mountain was a little a little cabin with a wisp of smoke, but is that supposed to be an industrial facility?

Mr. Chairman, that's correct. It's a smelter. Okay. It's really small. Thank you, Mr. Lampkin.

Are there questions? This is really just fascinating history. So thanks for bringing that forward. I do not see any questions. We do have some folks who are invited testimony who are on Teams today.

We have first Gretchen Guess. Gretchen is the President and CEO of the Rasmussen Found— no, not yet. Nobody on Teams. Nobody on Teams. Oh, but we— do we have anybody?

Let me take a brief at ease.

Okay, I'd like to call the Senate State Affairs Committee back to order. We will receive a couple folks who will be online through teams. In the meantime, we have a person in the room. Uh, we have Chad Hutchison. Chad joined the UA team as Director of State Relations in January of 2021.

Prior to that time, Chad served as the Alaska Senate Majority Council starting back in January of 2013 and has had consistent, proven experience with the development and passage of legislation. Chad's known for maintaining strong, trustworthy, meaningful relationships within the legislature and the executive branch. He has been a licensed practicing attorney since 2007 and started his career in private practice at Cook, Schuman, Gross, Close in Fairbanks. As Senate Majority Counsel, part of his responsibilities included legal analysis, advocacy, and communicating on a wide variety of topics that affect all of Alaska. Chad was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, and has graduated from UAF with bachelor's in business administration and then earned his law degree from Gonzaga.

Welcome to the Senate Committee. Chair Kawasaki, that bio might be longer than the testimony I have to give today. University, if there is a joint commission that's created, we support having a seat at the table and appreciate the thoughtfulness of Senator Stevens to make sure that that we can help raise that voice. I think we have a lot to offer as a university system. As Senator Kawasaki and everyone here knows, the university was started in 1917.

It's been an area that's hosted key moments in the state's history, including the signing of the state constitution in 1956. I think that the breadth of the university expands the entire state, and from workforce resource development, indigenous studies, natural resource development, I think we have expertise that we can draw upon to make sure that an adequate, very competent voice can be raised to express our thoughts on if we are moving forward with a state seal change. So with that, that's my testimony, and if there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Thank you. Mr. Hutchison, so the university has been around since 1917. Was it founded by itself or was the territory involved in the formation of the university?

Chair Kawasaki, the genesis of the university goes back to land grants in the western states, starting with conversations that were happening during the Lincoln administration and executed by Secretary of State Seward. There were land grants that orbited around the university. The official genesis of the founding of the University of Alaska did happen technically in 1917. At least that's the official number. There are some debates about if it was a little bit earlier than that, but the official settled date was 1917, and our first graduating class, if memory serves, was 6 students at the time on the hill up in Fairbanks.

And then there's been an evolution as the state grew, so did our extension into Anchorage with the absorption of community colleges and with Southeast in Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan.

Thank you. Um, why, uh, so the, the university has kind of a large, a large pool of students, and you know, if you compare smaller states than ours, we have a pretty, a pretty sizable student, student load, student population. Why does the state of Alaska not yet have a medical school or a law school? And we're the only state without without both or either rather. Chair Kawasaki, that is a question that many have wondered over the years and it is true the economies of scale for some of that is a challenge with some of the resources that we have throughout the university system.

We do have partnerships that we've had over the years both with schools. Willamette University is one that I think about on the law school front, and University of Washington with WAMI and the medical school. So we do try to take advantage of our great partnerships with other universities around the United States, but it is true, the, the economies of scale have been a challenge for the university considering some of the budget constraints that we have and the amount of students that we can expect in order to have an economically viable law school and medical school when there are willing partnerships that we've been able to work with in a cost-effective manner.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hutchinson. Are there questions?

Okay. Hearing and seeing none, thank you for your testimony today. And thank you for your commentary as well. We, uh, now we'll go online, uh, to— do we have Cordelia? Cordelia Kelly.

Cordelia is a lifelong Alaskan and her family has lived in Alaska's Arctic for 10,000 years. She's from Tagaruk, James, Segavan, and the, and the Pituk families of Wainwright and has aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews across the North Slope. And Northwest Arctic. Her father's family is of Scottish descent by way of Washington State. She serves on the board of Baird and the Alaska Humanities Forum.

For the past several years, Cordelia has worked as an advisor of government affairs at Ilasavik College, which is currently the only tribal college in Alaska and the only college located within the boundaries of the North Slope. The college provides an education based on Inupiaq a cultural heritage with a rich foundation of subsistence culture in harmony with the land and seas that give it sustenance. I welcome you to the committee, Ms. Kelly.

Thank you so much, Chair Kwasniewski and members of the committee. As stated, my name is Cordelia Kelly. I'm Inupiat from the North Slope. My Inupiat name is Keleniak. I'm a resident of Anchorage and and also serve, of course, on the board of the Alaska Humanities Forum.

So, I'm here today also representing the Alaska Humanities Forum. And I feel very grateful and thankful for SCR 11 and this discussion to evaluate the current official seal and really create more of an opportunity for other Alaskans to reflect on the current seal and the ways in which it may or may not reflect Alaska today and our future. I really do appreciate that this has been, you know, a conversation that has happened for some years. It's happened in looking at past efforts, looking at HCR 5 in the 23rd Legislature. So back in early 2000s, 2003, there was initially a task force on the design of the state seal, and that was legislation that was introduced by and representative tool of Northwest Alaska.

And we look at the first seal that was created for Alaska, which was in use for about 25 years. It really did depict some characteristics that are familiar to us in our current seals, but there really was more, I think, a reflection of some of the people in Alaska in the sense that there were— there was Alaska Native representation, which we don't currently feel— see in our current state seal. There were also non-native people and they were depicted really living and harvesting from the land. And with under the current seal that was created in 1910, you know, you have this Alaska Native representation that was then removed. So, in the process of our current seal, you really see how Alaska Native people also lost representation within that transition.

And when we look at the current seal, I really do question its audience in the sense that, you know, there's a lot of industry that is really represented within the current seal, but I really raise more again that human element of what about the people who are living within the state. You know, the only human that is present on the state seal is with the plow and horses, and is that really the best representation of Alaskans today? Our history and our present and also our future. You know, there are many other elements of, you know, the bill or the seal that are outdated, whether it's mining represented by an ore smelter, which doesn't currently exist in the state. Also, there's representation of seal hunting, which designates government contracts to these commercial companies that have long come and gone that were a very narrow part of our history.

That do not currently exist. And so there really was a very external audience when it comes to the creation of the seal then. And so it really raises the question of who is our state seal for? So there is an article from 1911, so a year after the seal was introduced, by Alaska Yukon Magazine, which wrote that the very rays of sun represented, quote, "the dawn of the commercial and industrial era in Alaska." And so, my question is, are we a colony for America or are we at home? And then I think my final point is that there really was never a public process for the creation of the state seal, something that is so ubiquitous to Alaskans and again, is really supposed to really represent Alaskans.

There was never like an open design contest or open conversation like we had with our state flag. Even when we had, you know, our state bird designated, there was an opportunity for 6,000 school children to weigh in on the state bird. And so SCR-11 would really give more Alaskans that very first chance to be able to have the conversations of a seal that really truly represents not just Alaskans today, but where we've come from and where we are going. So, kwaynaak, thank you for the opportunity to share testimony with you today. Wonderful.

Thank you very much, Ms. Kelly. Are there any questions? Uh, yeah, there's a question from Senator Bjorkman. Thank you, Ms. Kelly, for joining us today, and thank you for pointing out really the public process that was involved in choosing our state bird, a state bird that I, I love and enjoy very much, which is the willow ptarmigan. And I, I thank you for your support in that.

Other legislators have had legislation to change our state bird, and that's been very, very unfortunate. Absolutely. So we're very thankful that the state bird is indeed the Willow Ptarmigan. As we have seen other efforts to change state seals or state flags around the country, they've created a significant amount of angst.

How would Alaska go about avoiding some of the pretty bitter fights? I mean, in Utah, they came close to having a civil war in their legislature about changing the state flag. How are we going to avoid that here in Alaska when we have other pretty big problems we're trying to wade through.

Miss Kelly, any comments?

I think you might be on mute.

Or did we lose her? Nope.

Well, I think we might have dropped off. I also got locked out of the screen by mistake. Oh, excuse me. Oh, there we go. Oh, excuse me about that.

Thank you for the question, sir. I do think that as you look to even some other local examples name change processes, I do think being able to have more of that longer lead time to have that open discussion, you know, over the course of at least like a whole year, similar to FCR 11, and that public process, I think both of those elements seem to be very helpful where it feels like there at least is an opportunity where it's very, you know, open and public for people to share their input. Over the course of a number of different months. When I look to a couple of other local conversations where there have been either name changes or field changes, that has been my observation and also the feedback that I've received from those, you know, talking to them about what their takeaways were. And it's that maybe there was a change that happened.

It's happening within the avenues that exist, right? They're all, you know, by the book, like you can, you know, maybe a council member, for example, in, you know, the Iqaluit name change, you know, was able to put forth, you know, a resolution, and it happened within their existing policies and procedures. But, you know, there was a little bit of back and forth after that name change happened because there was a number of folks who feel like there wasn't adequate time to be able to have more of that community conversation, that, you know, 2 weeks wasn't enough. A month wasn't enough. Maybe several months wasn't enough.

And so being able to create an opportunity where people really do feel like they're able to have that type of community conversation and public inclusion, I think that that is a way that would be successful in this endeavor.

Thank you very much. Um, Ms. Kelly, are there any further questions?

Okay, um, hearing and seeing none, we were going to go to Miss Guess if she is online. She's not online right now. Um, well, let's see, she's not online. I'll go ahead and open public testimony, um, if there's any public testimony here in the room. Like testify in Senate Concurrent Resolution 11?

No takers? Okay, um, we'll go ahead and close public testimony for now. I'll just state on the record, public testimony can be received by the committee at any time. Just send an email to [email protected]. That's [email protected], and we will make sure that it's part of the permanent record of the legislature.

Before we go ahead and set Senate Bill— Senate Concurrent Resolution aside, are there any final comments you would like to make?

Any final questions or any final comments you would like to make about the concurrent resolution? Okay. All right then. That concludes the meeting for today. We will hold Senate Concurrent Resolution over for a further hearing.

Again, public testimony can be received at any time. Our next meeting is— I'm sorry. Our next meeting was scheduled for April 23rd. Actually, our next meeting was canceled already. We don't have a meeting on April 23rd.

Our next meeting will be the following Tuesday where we do have a pretty bulky schedule. Uh, and if there's nothing more to come before the committee, please remain afterwards to sign the committee notes. This meeting is adjourned. Let the record reflect it's 4:11 PM.