Unlike a year ago, when 17 Republicans flip-flopped on that year’s education bill, most legislators held firm to their position on Tuesday and voted to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s latest veto of a broadly popular education funding bill.
The 46-14 vote is a stinging rebuke for Gov. Mike Dunleavy and his supporters, who mounted a last-minute pressure campaign to discourage Republicans from allowing House Bill 57 to become law. The measure makes the current year’s one-time funding levels permanent, bans cellphones, increases bus funding and outlines a path for incentive reading grants to be paid out to schools that show improvement.
Legislators salvaged the bill from the wake of the governor’s veto of a funding-only school bill, which legislators upheld in the face of the state’s grim financial picture. HB 57 was a hard-fought compromise that backers said struck a balance between delivering funding and broadly agreeable policies, passing the Legislature on a combined vote of 48-11.
Dunleavy’s veto of the measure on Monday wasn’t a surprise; he and Education Commissioner Deena Bishop told school officials in a closed-door meeting that they would block funding if more items from the governor’s wish list weren’t approved.
The demands from a governor who’s entering his final years in office didn’t seem to carry as much weight with legislators as they once did, especially given the bipartisan complaints that Dunleavy has been largely absent from negotiations with legislators.
House Speaker Bryce Edgmon reiterated that frustration in a post heading into Tuesday’s override vote.
“I’m not surprised by the veto but am just utterly shocked that our schools would be left hanging. We put policy measures in — some that he wanted — measures that we could get through the Legislature, along with a commitment to devote time this fall to consider longer-term policy measures,” he said. “We came down from our original BSA number, quite a bit. I can’t believe a governor could be so oblivious to the needs of our schools.”
The governor’s precise policy demands have shifted this session, but have included a no-holds-barred statewide open enrollment system, expanded approval of public charters, and increased funding for homeschool students on top of other funding increases.
While the governor has pitched the policies under the conservative banners of “school choice” and “parental involvement,” critics argue that they’re primarily designed to benefit wealthier families who have the means to take advantage of them.
At his news conference, the governor reiterated his support for those programs, insisting “there are times where children and parents have to pick a school that really works for them.” It should be noted that when charters, the governor’s preferred choice of school choice, can self-select for families that can afford to provide meals, transportation and volunteer hours, it really means certain families get to have a choice about the school “that really works for them.”
Still, conservative political groups like Moms for Liberty and the Alaska Republican Women’s Clubs launched a concerted effort to convince legislators to uphold the governor’s veto. The Alaska Republican Women’s Club said it’d pull all support for anyone who voted to override the governor’s veto.
“If you vote to override Governor Dunleavy’s veto of HB57 it is a failure of both principle and leadership. And we will not stand behind it, or behind you,” the group said. “Let us be perfectly clear. We will not endorse. We will not volunteer. We will not fundraise. We will not campaign. Not for any legislator who sides with union-backed politics and the broken education status quo over real solutions for our kids.”
The threats carried much less weight than they did two years ago, and only three Republicans switched from voting for the measure to voting against the override.
That’d be Wasilla Republican Reps. Elexie Moore, Jubiliee Underwood, and Homer Republican Rep. Sarah Vance.
All other Republicans, including Anchorage Rep. David Nelson, who missed the first vote because of an excused absence, held firm on their position and voted to enact the law that they voted to pass.
Voted to override: Reps. Burke, Bynum, Carrick, Costello, Coulombe, Dibert, Edgmon, Eischeid, Elam, Fields, Foster, Galvin, Gray, Hall, Hannan, Himschoot, Holland, Jimmie, Josephson, Kopp, Mears, Mina, Nelson, Ruffridge, Saddler, Schrage, Stapp, Story, Stutes. Sens. Bjorkman, Claman, Cronk, Dunbar, Giessel, Gray-Jackson, Hoffman, Kaufman, Kawasaki, Kiehl, Merrick, Olson, Stedman, Stevens, Tobin, Wielechowski, Yundt.
Voted to uphold the veto: Reps. Allard, Johnson, McCabe, Moore (flipped), Pray, Rauscher, Schwanke, Tilton, Tomaszewski, Underwood (flipped), Vance (flipped). Sens. Hughes, Myers, Shower.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
