A group of House Republicans has proposed limiting the rules to allow the House to operate until it has a permanent speaker.
Normally, bills are heard first in committee and then advance to a floor vote.
But under the proposal, every bill would be considered by all members of the House, on the floor. Temporary Speaker Neal Foster, a Nome Democrat, would continue to preside over floor sessions.
Reps. David Eastman of Wasilla, Ben Carpenter of Nikiski, Sarah Vance of Homer and Bart LeBon of Fairbanks attended a press conference Wednesday to present the idea.
It faces a high bar to be enacted, since two-thirds of both the House and Senate must approve suspending the rules. The House has been deadlocked for 30 days over choosing a speaker. Under the rules, there must be a permanent speaker for work on legislation to begin.
The leadership of the mostly-Democratic caucus declined to comment on the proposal.
Andrew Kitchenman is the state government and politics reporter for Alaska Public Media and KTOO in Juneau. Reach him at akitchenman@alaskapublic.org.
