Assembly Rules Committee Special Meeting on Committee Assignments and Quasi-Judicial Training - August 21, 2026
Assembly Rules Committee Special Meeting on Committee Assignments and Quasi-Judicial Training - August 21, 2026
The Assembly Rules Committee held a special meeting on Friday, August 21, 2026, from approximately 11:50 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. (extended slightly) to continue discussion on committee assignments, structure, and scheduling, and to receive a training on quasi-judicial proceedings from legislative staff. Chair Anna Brawley led the meeting. Members present included George Cameron, Perez Radio, Janice Donald Handel, Sure, Sydney Scout, Anna Brawley, Yara Silvers, and (telephonically) Keith McCormick. Erin Baldwin Day and Dan O'Bullen were absent.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Jamie Lopez (formerly homeless, representing the homeless community) expressed disappointment with the proposed bi-monthly or quarterly schedule for the Health and Homelessness committee, arguing it reduces public access for testimony from homeless individuals who lack time awareness. He urged monthly meetings and criticized the administration for lacking transparency, particularly regarding police surveillance technology (facial recognition tracking) and non-compliance with previous resolutions (e.g., AO 2023-35 S1 requiring annual surveillance reports by June 1st, which he claimed were not produced for 2023–2025).
Discussion Items
- Committee Structure and Leadership: Chair Brawley presented a working draft that proposes: combining infrastructure with transportation; renaming Rules to Governance; moving health out of Public Health & Safety to form a new Health and Homelessness committee; splitting housing into a Housing and Community Development committee; making Public Safety a committee of the whole; and adjusting meeting schedules to cluster on Thursdays and Wednesdays with at least 30-minute buffers. The draft also included training up new leaders (termed "train up") to rotate chair roles.
- Member Feedback:
- Yara Silvers suggested 30-minute breaks between meetings (preferring shorter buffers than one hour).
- Jared (Gerk? identified as "Jared") volunteered to co-chair Public Safety and expressed interest in the Visit Anchorage liaison role.
- Sydney Scout volunteered to co-chair the Enterprise and Utilities committee (with Zach) and to co-chair Housing and Community Development (with George), and expressed interest in the ACDA liaison.
- Janice Handel volunteered to chair the Legislative committee.
- George Cameron advocated for durable committee titles (e.g., keep economic development in Housing & Community Development) rather than temporal ones like housing, and noted that committees should not overstep into quasi-authoritative roles without expertise.
- Cameron (no last name) clarified he had no input on the draft and asked if Health and Homelessness would be quarterly (the draft showed bi-monthly, but Chair noted earlier proposals for quarterly from Erin).
- Donald Handel indicated willingness to chair Transportation.
- The chair noted that committee membership is opt-in (except Audit) and that the schedule is flexible for special meetings.
- Quasi-Judicial Training: Jeff Purzell (clerk staff) presented on quasi-judicial procedures for alcohol and marijuana license hearings. Key topics included due process (citing Matthews v. Eldridge), ex parte communication rules, evidence standards (competent and substantial), and criteria-based decision making. The training emphasized acting as a judge and avoiding personal beliefs or outside opinion. The chair clarified the training was not a response to any recent events but part of a long-planned effort to reduce litigation risk.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken. The chair directed members to submit final feedback on committee assignments, leadership preferences, and schedule changes to Clerk Jamie by Thursday, August 27, 2026. She indicated she would implement the final structure by the end of September 2026, with possible adjustments for early September meetings.
- Several members expressed interest in specific leadership roles (as listed above); the chair will make final assignments based on feedback and may conduct one-on-one conversations.
- The quasi-judicial training concluded with no further action required.
- The meeting adjourned at approximately 12:50 p.m., with a five-minute break before the next scheduled work session.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, uh, why don't we go ahead and get started? Are we recording? Okay, cool. Um, okay, so this uh welcome everybody. This is the uh special meeting of the assembly rules committee. We're noticed from 11 50 to 1250 p.m. Today is Friday, August 21st. Uh let's do uh introductions and then we'll talk about the agenda. George Cameron Perez Radio. Janice, Donald Handel and Sure. Sydney Scout, Anna Brawley. Yara Silvers. And on the phone, we have uh Keith McCormick. Okay, well, maybe he'll is on mute or uh we'll be here later. Um so and I'll just note too I know um Erin Baldwin Day was here earlier. She is traveling, not able to uh be on the phone, and then Dan O'Bullen is also traveling. So um, and that's who we have right now. Uh, we're also joined by uh clerk staff, uh legislative services, one member of the public. And um, so I'll just briefly speak to today's meeting. So this is uh to finish the business that we had um on our agenda uh previously, uh specifically the committee's uh discussion of committee assignments and and what that looks like. Um, and then we also have a training on uh quasi judicial uh proceedings. Uh so that is going to be given by Mr. Jeff Purzell. So um at the request of at least one member of this committee, um, we will do the committee work first, but I will note um we do need to get both of those items done today. So and we can go a few minutes later. We have one more work session after this. Um, but at some point I'm gonna uh say we need to cut off discussion on committees if we're still discussing so that we can move on to the training. So um, so what I'm hope is that we get as far as we can through the committees today. There may not be agreement or um kind of decision on all of these, so we'll do what we can um because the goal is to start changing both our structure of committees and schedule uh and also making sure that we have our leadership positions all worked out. So um, so with that, we'll go into our committee business. And I will just note uh sorry, I'm sure I'm pieces of paper. Um so I'll just speak very briefly to this list, and then I'm really hoping we have a good discussion and I want people's feedback. This is a working draft, so I'll say that again. This is not the final decision. Um, and you'll see some things are changing, some aren't, but that doesn't mean that we can't have further changes to this list. So just again, this is a group discussion, but at the end of the day, um the chair is empowered and required to make these um assignments. And so, for example, if we say we want a committee and no one signs up to be chair, I'm gonna have to select a chair. So I just want to also put that out there, or we just say we're not having that committee. Uh so this is not a group vote, but obviously it affects the group. So I'll just very briefly walk through this. Um this list that we have before us, this working draft again, um to generally orient you. And I know there's been a lot of um discussion previously. So so what I heard from members is we want to have um if possible, fewer committees or at least fewer meetings. Um when we have meetings to uh really cluster them together or kind of have days that we're doing assembly business for the most part versus days that we're not. I know it's challenging when you have to, when you're working another job, you have to chime into a committee meeting and then jump back into your job. So looking at clustering those that way. Um also looking at how we can use our committees and not uh put everything through a work session, uh, but also recognizing there are reasons that we have work sessions and there's things that are appropriate for that. Um, and then also really looking at the schedule to make sure that we have committees, uh ones that relate to each other uh are spaced out enough properly so that we're not having um, you know, for example, transportation committee on the same day as AMATs, because the request was that there's different purposes for those committees. So all that to say, I'll just briefly walk through um the proposed changes essentially. Some are not changing, so budget and finance would remain a committee of the whole.
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