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It would mean Alaskans could register to vote when applying for their PFD, but they would need to opt in, rather than opt out.
The 2016 initiative was approved by almost 65% of voters . Since then, more than 70,000 more Alaskans registered to vote between October of 2016 and January of 2021.
“I keep being told this is the will of the people. But a third of the people didn’t want it. And why didn’t they want it? Because they did not want to be automatically registered to vote to get their PFD.”
Shower filed a similar bill in 2019, which would have repealed the initiative. This year, his staff asked people on social media what they thought of the automatic voter registration.
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It would mean Alaskans could register to vote when applying for their PFD, but they would need to opt in, rather than opt out.
The 2016 initiative was approved by almost 65% of voters . Since then, more than 70,000 more Alaskans registered to vote between October of 2016 and January of 2021.
“I keep being told this is the will of the people. But a third of the people didn’t want it. And why didn’t they want it? Because they did not want to be automatically registered to vote to get their PFD.”
Shower filed a similar bill in 2019, which would have repealed the initiative. This year, his staff asked people on social media what they thought of the automatic voter registration.
Wed, 02/24/2021 - 9:28am
The bull market continues to boost the Permanent Fund value as it nears $75 billion, or nearly a $10 billion increase over the past eight months. (Photo/Chris Hondros/Newsmakers/Getty Images/TNS)
Alaska’s Permanent Fund has continued its rapid growth into 2021 with a value quickly approaching $75 billion.
The fund had a value of nearly $74.8 billion as of Feb. 22, according to unaudited figures from the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which equates to growth of 4.3 percent in just the first roughly seven weeks of the year.
It ended a tumultuous first half of 2020 that also marked the end of the 2020 state fiscal year with a total balance of $65.3 billion for a net value increase of about $9.5 billion, or 14.5 percent, in less than eight months.
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Hoffman said that the Permanent Fund Dividend is the Legislature’s top issue this year. He said that voters may have clarified that situation during the election when incumbents who voted for lower dividends last session lost their seats.
“I hope we can come up again with at least a minimum of a $1,000 dividend,” Hoffman said.
He said that the future of the dividend relies on the Legislature creating new forms of revenues. Without that, he said, the Permanent Fund will be put in jeopardy.
The state has been spending more money than it’s taken in for years now. Over those years, some legislators have said that they need to work across party lines to agree on new taxes, but no such agreement has been reached. Instead, they’ve shrunk government services and pulled from dwindling state savings.