Good morning, #akleg. The House Education Committee is about to take up a new version of HB 105, the bill that has been colloquially known as the governor's "bathroom bill" for public schools: akleg.gov/basis/get_docu… The new version strips out references to bathrooms by biological gender and requires school districts to open single-person bathrooms. It preserves the requirement that parents opt into (rather than out of) sex-ed classes. It exempts sexual abuse education from that requirement.

Alaska has now certified its election results. House Minority Leader Lance Pruitt, R-Anchorage, has lost his race by 13 votes, down from 16 votes in the unofficial results: elections.alaska.gov/results/20GENR… #akleg #akelect Ballot Measure 2, the ranked-choice/election-reform measure, has won by 3,781 votes, or 1.1%. @ltgovmeyer has said he will ask for a hand-count/audit of those results to reassure doubtful Alaskans. #akleg #akelect

With all the concern about slow mail delivery and slow absentee ballots this year, I checked to see whether this year's ballots were slower than normal. The answer? No. (thread) adn.com/politics/2020/… #akelect #akleg This year's absentee ballots arrived at the Division of Elections proportionally *earlier* than they did in the 2016 and 2018 primaries. #akelect #akleg

(1/x) Some folks have asked why someone infected with coronavirus in Washington state and who died in Washington state is being counted as Alaska's first death from the disease. It's because of how epidemiological statistics work. #akleg #akgov (2/x) From what I understand, folks who track vital statistics at various states use driver's licenses (and occasionally family claims or voting records) to determine residency.

Folks, in light of this story, it's worth talking about the history, including the time the U.S. sought to buy Greenland at almost the same time as Alaska. Here's a bit of a thread ...

https://twitter.com/MichaelCBender/status/1162113262990872586

As he was working with the Russian government on the Alaska Purchase, Secretary of State William Seward negotiated with the Danish government on other territorial purchases. These included the islands of St. Thomas and St. John as well as Greenland.

(1/x) Historic events are happening in the Alaska Legislature #akleg today, so here's a thread for folks just learning about it ... (2/x) Today, lawmakers will meet in Wasilla and Juneau, each group claiming that its city is the legitimate place to hold the Legislature's second special session this year: adn.com/politics/alask… #akleg

1/x More folks Outside are beginning to become aware of @GovDunleavy's #akleg #akgov budget vetoes, so I wanted to create a thread with all the excellent reporting @adndotcom folks have been doing: 2/x On Friday, the governor announced he was using his line-item veto power to cut $444 million in spending as part of a two-year plan to balance the state budget without cutting the Permanent Fund dividend or raising taxes: adn.com/politics/alask…