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The Alaska Senate on Tuesday advanced a constitutional amendment that would lower the threshold for veto overrides of spending decisions.

The Alaska Constitution currently has two thresholds to override a governor’s vetoes: it takes two-thirds of legislators to override a veto of a policy bill and three-quarters of lawmakers to override a budget veto or a veto of legislation that spends money.  

Anchorage Democratic Sen. Matt Claman’s proposed the constitutional amendment that would reduce vetoes of spending decisions to the same two-thirds threshold.

Claman’s resolution passed the Senate along caucus lines on a 14-6 vote. All 14 members of the bipartisan Senate majority voted for the resolution while each member of the all-Republican Senate minority voted no. 

At least 14 of Alaska’s 20 Senators are needed to reach the two-thirds threshold to advance a constitutional amendment. Twenty-seven of the 40 House members would need to approve Claman’s resolution for the proposed amendment to appear on November’s ballot.

The last time the Alaska Constitution was amended was in 2004.

Claman, a Democratic candidate for governor, said the drafters of the Alaska Constitution intended to create a strong executive branch. But the high hurdle to override a veto on spending decisions had “undermined the balance of power between the Legislature and the executive,” he said.

Alaska is the only state with a three-quarter veto override threshold for spending decisions.

In a statement following the vote on Tuesday, minority Senate Republicans said the governor’s veto power was one of few tools to curb the Legislature’s wide-reaching power. Members of the caucus stated that Gov. Mike Dunleavy had used that authority to veto tax bills, among other measures.

“The framers of our Constitution saw the wisdom in giving the governor considerable power to reduce state spending,” said Tok Republican Sen. Mike Cronk, the Senate minority leader. “The fiscal override threshold is high for a reason.”

While the Legislature has voted to override a governor on 40 occasions for policy bills since statehood, veto overrides for spending decisions have only occurred five times, Claman said.

The most recent override of a spending veto occurred last August in a special session Lawmakers voted to reject Dunleavy’s veto of more than $50 million in public school funding. The vote was 45-14, the minimum number of lawmakers needed to override a budget veto.

If approved by the House, the constitutional amendment would appear on the ballot at the Nov. 3 election. If approved by a majority of voters, the constitutional threshold for budget vetoes would then be lowered starting in 2027, also the beginning of a new governor’s term.

Unlike legislation, an Alaska governor cannot veto a constitutional amendment.

Editor’s note: this story has been updated with comment from the Senate Minority caucus.

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Five Alaska mayors voiced concerns about how a proposed tax break for the Alaska LNG gas line project would impact their communities.

Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has proposed eliminating property taxes and other local taxes for the $46 billion megaproject. Instead, his bill would impose a volume-based tax when substantial quantities of gas are delivered from the North Slope. 

The Alaska Department of Revenue estimated Dunleavy’s bill would equate to a roughly 90% reduction in property tax revenue, once the pipeline is at full capacity. The state agency has said the pipeline will not move forward without cutting property taxes for Glenfarne, the New York-based developer of the proposed pipeline and export facilities. 

Five Alaska mayors on Friday testified to the Senate Resources Committee in support of the 800-mile pipeline, which is set to run from the North Slope to Cook Inlet. But the municipal leaders also expressed concerns about the potential loss of revenue from the governor’s tax break and the impacts on municipal services. 

‘Bottom offer’

Peter Micciche is mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, one of Alaska’s largest with roughly 62,000 residents. He said a liquefaction facility, equating to 43.5% of the total project, is set to be located in the coastal region.

Micciche said the project would have tens of millions of dollars of impact annually for the Kenai Peninsula, with costs set to be borne by local communities under Dunleavy’s bill. He said the proposed elimination of all local taxes for Alaska LNG is “cutting deep into the fabric of how our communities work. And that worries me.”

He cited concerns about Dunleavy’s proposed tax rate rising by 1% annually. He said the borough’s budget increases on average by 2.5% each year, meaning that would leave the Kenai Peninsula “underwater.”

“Costs have shifted from the state to the municipalities. But we simply cannot afford additional costs,” he said to lawmakers Friday.

Micciche, a former long-time oil and gas executive, emphasized that he is excited by the project, but he considers the governor’s tax break to be “a bottom offer.”

Adam Prestidge, president of Glenfarne Alaska LNG, on Monday told the Senate Resources Committee that the company recognizes there will be impacts to municipalities from the project. He said discussions are ongoing with municipal leaders about how the company will cover some costs to ensure communities feel comfortable they “will be taken care of.”

Micciche, a former Republican Alaska Senate president, framed the scale of the challenge of negotiating acceptable legislation for communities and Glenfarne with less than half of the legislative session left until adjournment. “This bill needs a lot of work,” he said. 

“We’re ready to sit down and pen a deal that works for everyone — the developers, our community, Alaskans — and I hope to God that comes along with affordable gas,” Micciche said.

‘Once-in-a-lifetime project’

Supporters remain bullish on the gas line’s potential to be an economic boon for Alaska. Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich has been hired by the Dunleavy administration to boost the pipeline. He told the Senate Resource Committee on Monday that it was “a once-in-a-lifetime project.”

Glenfarne owns 75% of the project while the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., a state agency, owns the remaining 25%.

Begich and Prestidge declined to answer some questions in detail about the proposed tax break and whether it was at an appropriate rate, citing the need for confidentiality in commercial agreements. Begich implored lawmakers to hold a session behind closed doors to discuss revenue questions with Glenfarne.

Under Dunleavy’s bill, the long-sought gas pipeline is expected to raise over $22.5 billion in new revenue for the state of Alaska. But over the next 36 years, it would also cost roughly $13 billion for local communities compared to current law, according to state projections.

Instead of property taxes, the governor’s bill would impose a volume-based tax of 6 cents on every thousand cubic feet of gas, which would increase by 1% annually. The tax would only be imposed once the pipeline delivers an average of 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day or 10 years after gas starts being produced. 

Edna DeVries is mayor of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, home to around 117,000 people. She said the Mat-Su Assembly believes those thresholds are “far too high” and that they should be lowered so the borough could collect revenue sooner.  

DeVries cited a concern common to all five mayors along the proposed corridor for Alaska LNG: the impacts of constructing the pipeline on municipal budgets. 

Mayor Chris Noel of Denali Borough, home to 1,600 residents, said that construction would see added costs for waste management, fire and rescue and housing, which would likely be borne by the local community. Denali Borough does not currently collect property tax. But it would get “limited benefits” from the pipeline with no local offtake planned for the borough, Noel said. 

“The bottom-line is we cannot subsidize increased costs. We need certainty via an impact payment program during construction that actual costs will be covered by the project,” he said.

Another potential concern: education funding. Alaska’s complicated education funding formula means that as a local community’s total assessed property tax value increases, state contribution for schools is reduced. 

Concerned at the ‘precedent’

Mayor Josiah Patkotak of the North Slope Borough said he was concerned at the “precedent” set by eliminating property taxes for oil and gas projects before a final investment decision is reached. Patkotak, also a former member of the Alaska House of Representatives, cited a recent record North Slope lease sale and said oil developers could seek similar tax relief.

The North Slope Borough, based out of Utqiaġvik with 10,500 residents, has a long history of fiercely defending its authority to levy property taxes on oil and gas companies, he added.

Patkotak estimated Dunleavy’s proposed tax break means the borough would collect $12 billion less in revenue compared to current law. He said property tax revenue has been critical for the borough, which funds schools, fire and rescue services, airports and waste management. 

Prestidge declined to tell the Senate Resources Committee whether the proposed tax break would be make-or-break for the project. But he said if the bill failed to pass, “It makes it more difficult because it makes the gas more expensive.”

“It creates an incredible amount of uncertainty around the project,” he added.

Patkotak noted that the North Slope would not get any of the gas delivered through the pipeline with no offtake planned for the remote region.

That has long been a concern for Fairbanks, which has a population of 97,000 people. The borough has advocated for a $180 million spur to deliver gas to the Interior city.  

“We need to make sure we’re getting Alaskans’ gas to Alaskans,” said Mayor Grier Hopkins of the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Hopkins said there are currently “no concrete” plans to build a gas offtake for Fairbanks, but discussions are ongoing with Glenfarne.

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President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday that attempts to restrict mail-in voting, a White House priority certain to face significant legal challenges.

The order directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of voting-age American citizens in each state and share it with state election officials. The order also requires the U.S. Postal Service to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes.

Trump’s order represents a major escalation in his effort to assert presidential control over elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are administered by the states. Trump last year attempted to unilaterally impose a proof of citizenship requirement to vote in federal elections in an executive order that was blocked in federal court.

The move also reflects a long-held focus by Trump and his allies on noncitizen voters. Studies have shown noncitizen voting is extremely rare.

“I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said.

National database of adult citizens

Homeland Security operates the SAVE system, a powerful computer program that can verify citizenship. 

DHS has previously invited states to run their voter rolls through SAVE, which flags voters as potential noncitizens. Some election officials criticize the system, saying it wrongly identifies U.S. citizens as possibly ineligible.

The U.S. Department of Justice as recently as last week denied any efforts to create a national voter registration list. While the executive order does not explicitly mandate the creation of a voter list, it essentially marks an effort by the White House to create a national database of adult U.S. citizens.

The order requires Homeland Security to enable states to routinely supplement or suggest changes to each state’s citizenship list. Federal officials would also be required to allow individuals to access their own records and update or correct them ahead of elections.

Under the executive order, the postmaster general must propose rules to require all outbound ballot mail to be sent in an envelope that includes a barcode for tracking. The order also requires that states must inform the U.S. Postal Service at least 90 days before federal elections whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent through the mail.

“Instead of focusing on lowering the cost of energy, groceries, and health care, Donald Trump is desperately attempting to take over and rig our elections and avoid accountability in November,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement shortly after Trump announced the order. “This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power.”

SAVE America Act

Trump has pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require individuals to produce documents, such as a passport or birth certificate, proving their citizenship in order to register to vote. The U.S. Senate is debating the bill, but it appears unlikely to have enough support to overcome a filibuster.

Trump has repeatedly asked Republicans to add three provisions to the bill, including restrictions on mail-in voting, with exceptions for members of the military, people who are ill and those on vacation. 

The president has also previously promised to advance voting restrictions, with or without Congress. Earlier this month, Trump voted by mail in Florida.

The executive order directs the Justice Department and other federal agencies to withhold federal funds from non-compliant states and localities “where such withholding is authorized by law.” 

Tuesday’s order is certain to face legal challenges. The Constitution gives Congress — not the president by executive order — the power to override state election regulations.

Marc Elias, a prominent voting rights litigator, promised to fight the executive order.

“If Trump signs an unconstitutional Executive Order to take over voting, we will sue,” Elias wrote on social media. “I don’t bluff and I usually win.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Grunters praised the order, saying Trump was restoring voter confidence. “Protecting America’s ballot box isn’t optional – it’s the foundation of our republic,” Grunters said.

DOJ lawsuits against states

The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for copies of their voter rolls that contain sensitive personal information on voters, such as driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers. About a dozen states have voluntarily provided the data, but most are fighting the demands in court.

Three federal judges have so far ruled against the Justice Department. The administration is appealing and in court documents has argued that swift court decisions are necessary to ensure the security and fairness of the midterms.

The Trump administration has said the data is necessary to verify only citizens are registered to vote. Last week, a Justice Department lawyer confirmed in court that voter data would be shared with Homeland Security.

“Some may freak out about this, but honestly, this is hilarious,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former U.S. Department of Justice Voting Section attorney, wrote on social media about the Trump order. 

“It’s clearly unconstitutional, will be blocked immediately, and the only thing it will accomplish is to make liberal lawyers wealthier. He might as well sign an EO banning gravity.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case that could reshape the understanding of who is American by birth.

The case, Trump v. Barbara, challenges President Donald Trump’s executive order that redefines citizenship to exclude children born to parents who either do not have legal status, or hold temporary legal visas. 

It has the potential to upend the guarantee of birthright citizenship in effect since a Supreme Court decision in 1898 that extended citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States. There is a small carveout for children born to foreign diplomats. 

The Trump administration petitioned the high court in December after multiple lower courts struck down the executive order, finding it violated the Constitution.

Birthright citizenship has been a longstanding core principle in the United States, where nearly any child — regardless of their parents’ immigration status — born on U.S. soil is automatically granted citizenship. Experts have warned that if birthright citizenship were struck down, it would effectively create a class of millions of stateless people.

But what was once a fringe legal theory has been pushed into the mainstream by the president and his far-right allies, who have sought to redefine who is American. 

They argue the citizenship clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which is the basis for birthright citizenship, was meant to apply to newly freed African American slaves after the Civil War, not to children of immigrants. Most legal scholars and historians disagree with that interpretation. 

The text of the clause is: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

After oral arguments are heard on Wednesday, a decision from the Supreme Court is expected before the court’s summer recess begins at the end of the term in late June or early July. 

19th-century case

This is not the first time the Trump administration has brought a birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court. 

Last year, after federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Washington state struck down the president’s executive order, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, but asked the justices to consider the lower courts’ use of universal injunctions, rather than the merits of birthright citizenship.

The justices took up the case, and in a 6-3 vote divided along ideological lines, the use of universal injunctions was curtailed by the conservative wing of the high court. 

After the ruling, immigration advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union filed class action suits, which were successful in blocking the birthright citizenship executive order. The suits argued that future children born in the United States without gaining citizenship constituted a nationwide class.

Cody Wofsy, of the ACLU, is a co-lead attorney in the case and told reporters last week that the Supreme Court already decided the issue of birthright citizenship in 1898.

“The constitutional text is clear, the precedent is clear and the history is clear,” Wofsy said.

The 1898 case, United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, settled the idea that automatic citizenship was granted to children born on U.S. soil, Wofsy said.

Ark, born in San Francisco, was denied entry back into the country after visiting China. Officials at the time argued that because his parents were Chinese citizens in the United States on temporary visas at the time of his birth, and therefore were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., he was not a citizen. He took the issue to the high court and in 1898 the Supreme Court affirmed that children born in the United States were guaranteed citizenship.

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Solicitor General D. John Sauer has said that the 1898 case is being misinterpreted, and that it meant to only include children born to parents who were granted authorization to be in the U.S.

“Illegal aliens are not ‘permitted by the United States to reside here,’ and thus their children are excluded from citizenship,” Sauer argued in briefs. 

However, Trump’s executive order would also deny citizenship to children born to parents on temporary visas, such as for work or school. 

Sauer also relies on an 1884 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to John Elk, a Native American man born in Nebraska, who was no longer a member of his tribe and tried to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in order to vote. 

Elk was denied citizenship, because he was not “subject to the jurisdiction of” the U.S. because of his “political allegiance” to his tribe, even though he had renounced his tribal citizenship. Congress extended citizenship to all Native Americans in 1924.

Sauer cites the Elk case in his argument that the citizenship clause does not apply to children born to immigrants on temporary visas or undocumented people and “only to those born of parents with primary allegiance to the United States.” The administration is not arguing that Indigenous people should be denied birthright citizenship.

Torey Dolan, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said Sauer’s argument wrongly conflates Indigenous people with migrants, despite a long U.S. legal tradition of treating them distinctly. 

“American law has always found a way to distinguish Indigenous people from non-Indigenous people in a way that has never been applied to immigrants,” Dolan, an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said. 

She noted that in the Declaration of Independence, which includes the grievances of the colonists, one complaint was how British King George III refused to allow for migration into the colonies in order to occupy land stolen from Indigenous tribes. 

“This conflation of immigrants and Indigenous people, for the sake of this argument, I think, is pretty egregious, and I think it really obfuscates American history and its colonial history in particular,” she said. 

‘Pure chaos’

Legal advocates challenging the executive order are confident they will win at the Supreme Court. 

“President Trump’s executive order is plainly unconstitutional and unlawful, and we’re confident that the Supreme Court will reaffirm existing legal precedent and strike down this executive order once and for all,” Hannah Steinberg, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told reporters. 

In briefs, the ACLU has also argued that if Trump’s executive order were to go into effect, it would create a stateless class of people. The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration, found that the end of birthright citizenship would increase the unauthorized population by an additional 2.7 million by 2045. 

Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship is part of the administration’s broader goal to curtail migration to the U.S., arguing that birthright citizenship is an incentive for unauthorized immigration.

But the idea that people migrate to the U.S. so their children can be born as citizens is not supported by research, Julia Gelatt, the associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, said.

“People move mainly for opportunity for themselves and their children and also for safety,” she said. “There are many unauthorized immigrants who have come to the United States with their own children, who were born in another country, who won’t be U.S. citizens, and they still come.” 

“I don’t think there’s any evidence that birthright citizenship specifically is an independent pull factor. It’s more the safety, the rule of law and the earnings potential that people see in the United States, and the opportunity to reunite with other families is another major factor,” she continued. 

Ama S. Frimpong, the legal director for the immigrant rights group We Are CASA, told reporters that there are practical questions to how Trump’s executive order would even work. 

“What happens in a household in which there are older children who are born here and now, suddenly they have a new baby who’s born tomorrow, and that baby is not going to have the same rights that their siblings have?” she asked. “Is a baby going to be subject to detention and deportation by their very own government that is meant to protect them because they were born here?” 

That reality of birthright citizenship being stripped, Frimpong said, would be “just pure chaos.”

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A Ketchikan-based U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutter has a temporary commanding officer after an “investigation leading to a loss of confidence” prompted the Coast Guard to “temporarily” relieve the cutter’s regular commanding officer.

The Coast Guard announced on Monday that Rear Adm. Bob Little, commander of the Coast Guard Arctic District that includes Ketchikan, “temporarily relieved Lt. Edwin Kuster following an investigation leading to a loss of confidence. This temporary relief is not due to misconduct.

“Lt. Bryce Matakas has temporarily assumed the position of commanding officer of Coast Guard Cutter Douglas Denman,” the announcement continued.

The Douglas Denman is one of three Sentinel-class fast response cutters currently based in Ketchikan, which is also home to the buoytender Anthony Petit.

The Douglas Denman is continuing in service, according to Lt. Pam Manns, a public affairs officer with the Coast Guard Arctic District.

“This cutter remains fully operational, and there will be no degradation in our mission success or capabilities,” Mann wrote in an email reply to a Ketchikan Daily News inquiry. “We have full confidence in the crew of the Douglas Denman to continue to execute the mission safely and effectively.

“Until the new commanding officer permanently assumes command, we have assigned a temporary commanding officer who is experienced and ready to lead the cutter through the upcoming operational schedule,” wrote Mann.

Mann wrote that the commander of the Coast Guard Personnel Service Center has the final decision authority for a “permanent relief for cause.”

The circumstance of a temporary relief of command is “initiated by the operational commander with information and circumstances that raise concerns about a service member’s ability to effectively serve in their current position,” write Mann. “Commanding officers are expected to demonstrate the highest levels of leadership, judgment, professionalism, proficiency, and dedication to the Coast Guard’s core values.”

This story was originally published by the Ketchikan Daily News.

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