Matt Acuña Buxton Profile picture
There are strange things done 'neath the midnight sun. Newsletter journalist. @alaskacurrent. #akleg dork. Oft-sad Husker. Pro-wrestling sicko. matt@akmemo.com

Feb 9, 2022, 22 tweets

Some after-the-credits action in the House, Rep. Hopkins moves that the Sense of the House be adopted. There's a flurry of objections from Republicans so a pretty good guess about what it's about.

#akleg

Watch: w3.akleg.gov/includes/_play…

Rep. Kurka says it's "clearly engaging in personalities."

Followed by an at-ease.

Following the at-ease, House Speaker Stutes says his concerns are "duly noted" and refers the Sense of the House to the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

Which gets an objection from Eastman and another at-ease.

The Sense of the House by Rep. Hopkins seeks to condemn those who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Oath Keepers and all the Holocaust comparisons.

Rep. Hopkins is Jewish.

Rep. Carpenter, probably: "People want to say Hitler was a white supremacist. No."

For the record, that's an actual thing that Rep. Carpenter told the ADN last year while defending his likening the #akleg covid-19 measures to the Holocaust.

He's getting into it with Hopkins now.

adn.com/politics/alask…

It'd be neat if Republicans would defend anything as much as they defend Jan. 6 insurrectionists, Oath Keepers, Holocaust denialism and Rep. David Eastman (who's a little of all of the above).

Rep. Carpenter, up at the dais again, probably: “Hitler wasn’t fearful of a Jewish nation because there was not one. The point was that it was fear that drove him. The attention of his fear was undesirables, including Jews. And the larger point is that PEOPLE FOLLOWED HIM.”

After a lengthy at ease. House Speaker Stutes says Kurka's motion is out of order because the rule he cited was about debate and the Sense of the House is not being debated.

Rep. Eastman is now arguing that they do IN FACT have a right to debate.

Eastman says it's important to understand "both sides" of the debate.

The underlying debate being whether the House should condemn insurrectionists, Oath Keepers, Holocaust comparisons and David Eastman for being all of the above.

But that's not what this vote's about.

This vote is specifically about Kurka's incorrect objection. And whether or not House Speaker Stutes was right to rule it out of order.

Rep. Tuck notes that Kurka's objection is over debate. The introduction of the Sense of the House is not a debate. They can have that debate later when it's in committee or appears in front of the House for a vote.

House Speaker Stutes' motion ruling Rep. Kurka's objection out of order on a 22-17 vote. Reps. Thompson and Rasmussen join the united majority.

Might be the closest thing we get to a vote on Eastman.

And then the motion to refer the Sense of the House to the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee—which is holding a hearing on Thursday on the Oath Keepers—on a 23-16 vote. LeBon crosses over this time.

And then Rep. McCabe moves to immediately discharge the Sense of the House from the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. This time Rep. Rasmussen joins the Republicans after supporting the previous votes...

It fails on a 22N-17Y.

In announcements, Rep. Tuck recognizes Alaskan Keegan Messing will get to skate tonight (for Canada) after testing negative on for covid-19.

Tuck: "He will be able to vote—I mean skate."

And now into special orders. House Speaker Stutes apologizes for cutting off Rep. Carpenter for his overlong special order. Says that, for now, there's no time limits.

In special orders, Eastman then compares vaccination requirements for NY fire fighters to the Holocaust... the precise topic of the Sense of the House that his Republican colleagues just threw a fit over.

Rep. Kurka, an extreme white candidate for governor, says one of his great regrets in life is not participating in Jan. 6.

Kurka keeps on saying "castigate" then spreads some right-wing conspiracy theories about how it was just the "crazy nuts and many unindicted co-conspirators" (aka the feds).

Rep. Wool:

Now Rep. Carpenter is mad that the Alaska Supreme Court nearly established a right to a safe and clean climate. He scoffs.

And that, mercifully, is it for the House floor today.

Yikes.

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