Gov. Mike Dunleavy has called legislators into special session starting Aug. 2 to consider education issues, triggering a five-day clock if lawmakers want to override his veto of $50 million in state …
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Gov. Mike Dunleavy has called legislators into special session starting Aug. 2 to consider education issues, triggering a five-day clock if lawmakers want to override his veto of $50 million in state funding for K-12 schools in Alaska.
But, in an unusual request, the governor at a meeting of House Republican lawmakers on the same day he announced the special session asked them to stay away from the first five days of the session.
Under the Alaska Constitution, the Legislature has five days after convening in a regular or special session to consider overriding a governor’s vetoes.
It takes 45 of 60 legislators to override a budget veto. The count will be close, and if any Republicans who might have voted to override stay away from the Capitol as requested by the governor, their absence could kill the chances of restoring the school funding.
In May, when lawmakers voted 46-14 to override Dunleavy’s veto of a policy bill that permanently increased the state’s per-student funding formula, eight of 19 House Republicans voted for the override.
Rep. Jeremy Bynum, a first-time Republican lawmaker who represents Ketchikan and Wrangell, was among those who voted in May to override the governor’s veto of the funding formula legislation.
Though he had other plans for August — Ketchikan’s annual Blueberry Festival, a National Conference of State Legislatures meeting and a trip to Alaska’s North Slope at the invitation of the mayor of Utqiagvik — Bynum said he will change his plans to be in Juneau for the special session.
“I’ll be there to do the work.”
For Bynum, that means voting to override the veto of state funds for schools. “I don’t agree with that reduction,” he said on July 3. The governor’s cut is particularly hard on school districts trying to manage their budget amid the uncertainty, he said.
In June, the governor used his veto powers to cut $50 million from education funding, reducing by almost 30% the base-formula increase legislators had approved.
The governor’s reduction in state funding meant more than a $100,000 loss in aid for the Wrangell school district, which already needed to dig deep into its reserves to balance its budget for the 2025-2026 school year.
The governor’s opponents will have a difficult task overriding his veto next month. Some lawmakers, including Anchorage Sen. Forrest Dunbar, an override supporter, are expected to be unavailable for the special session, the Alaska Beacon reported. Dunbar has been deployed with the National Guard in Poland.
“If you want the veto override to fail … I guess you pull out every stop, and this is a stop that I’ve not seen pulled out by any governor,” said Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon and a supporter of the override, as reported by the Beacon.
“Governor Dunleavy asked House minority members to not show up for the first five days of session because, like any governor, he does not want his vetoes overturned,” the governor’s spokesman, Jeff Turner, said in an email to the Beacon.
Dunleavy has designated education policy and creating a Department of Agriculture as the only subjects for the special session.
Turner told the Beacon that the governor is willing to consider reinstating the school funds he vetoed from the budget if the Legislature passes “public education reform policies … he will introduce next month.”
During the legislative session that ended in May, Dunleavy pushed for several changes in Alaska’s public education laws, including provisions to aid the formation of charter schools and to allow students to attend schools outside their districts.
“It was definitely an unorthodox request that took me by surprise,” Rep. Justin Ruffridge, a Soldotna Republican, told the Beacon of the governor’s request that Republicans stay away.
Ruffridge voted in favor of the May override and indicated he is willing to vote the same way in a special session.
He said he absolutely intends to show up at the session.
“If a special session is called, I think all representatives and senators have an obligation to attempt to be there, if at all possible,” Ruffridge said. “I think that’s part of what we signed up for when we signed up to do the job. And I mean, if you’re not going to show up, I think essentially, you’re just afraid of taking hard votes at that point.”
Rep. DeLena Johnson, a Palmer Republican, said she’s still considering her options and is undecided about whether to travel to Juneau. Johnson voted in May to uphold the governor’s veto of the earlier education bill.
Edgmon, the House speaker, said his recommendation “to any legislator is to show up to Juneau, get their work done and make the tough vote whether they are a yea or a nay.”
Senate President Gary Stevens, of Kodiak, said the votes for an override are uncertain. “I suspect that’ll be the first thing we deal with, if not the only thing we deal with, and we’ll see how the votes go.”
Under the Alaska Constitution, governors have the power to call special sessions, with the subjects limited to those chosen by the governor and the reconsideration of vetoed bills.
“It’s my intention on Aug. 2 to bring up first the issue of the override,” Stevens said. “And then we could, after we’ve done that, pass or fail, then we probably … can easily adjourn and deal with these issues the governor brought up at a later date.”
