A handful of legislators met for a brief, barebones session in Juneau on Tuesday, keeping the special session Gov. Mike Dunleavy called earlier this month open and thereby blocking him from calling another.
The technical sessions marked a perfunctory step in legislators’ plans to run out the clock on the session without giving the governor’s agenda — a slate of right-wing policies aimed at upending public education in the state — any serious airtime. The session is set to expire on Aug. 31, which is also expected to be marked with a technical session.
The governor could call another special session, but House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, told KTOO that it wouldn’t make a difference.
“If he calls us back in, the results are going to likely be the same as where we’re at now,” he said.
And, by the sounds of it, the governor hasn’t lifted a finger to advance his measures. Both Edgmon and Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said the governor hasn’t spoken with them since the start of the special session.
In the big picture, that’s because the governor lost any leverage he had over the education policy debate when a supermajority of legislators — including ten Republicans who are typically sympathetic to the governor — voted to override his veto of $50 million in public school funding. On the same day, legislators also voted to override the governor’s veto of an oil tax transparency bill.
Heading into the session, Dunleavy suggested openness to restoring the $50 million in funding through legislation if lawmakers instead voted for a slate of changes that include an expansion of charter schools, which typically serve wealthier, less-diverse students, and one-time payments to teachers that he claims are more effective than raising pay.
The Dunleavy administration continues to claim its slate of policies would be more effective at improving outcomes than properly funding schools. Critics argue that the particular policies Dunleavy has advanced don’t help all students but, instead, would worsen the achievement gap between wealthier, less-diverse students and everyone else.
While not part of this slate of changes proposed at the special session, Dunleavy has also been one of the state’s leading proponents in allowing public funding to flow to private and religious schools. Other states that have implemented such changes, typically in the form of vouchers or spending accounts, have seen costs balloon as students who were already in private and religious schools tap the programs to subsidize an education they were already going to get.
Zooming out further, the relationship between the Legislature and the governor, which was never particularly good, has fallen apart since multipartisan coalitions won the House and Senate in the 2024 elections. Instead of making meaningful compromises – something he’s never been good at – he’s taken a strong-arm approach to try to bully legislators into submission with the liberal use of the veto pen.
But legislators’ patience and tolerance for the governor are running out as he enters the final year of his time in office. He’s done little to address concerns about the inequity of his policy proposals beyond deflection and denials, and he’s even taken to blowing up deals negotiated by Republican legislators on education policy.
Legislators, including sympathetic Republicans, have complained that the governor has been absent and disinterested in working with the Legislature.
While the governor continues to whine about the Legislature not taking up his policies, a bipartisan panel of legislators is set to meet on Aug. 25 to discuss education funding and school policies.
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.
