Dunleavy attacks legislators for veto override

The Big Lie from Gov. Mike Dunleavy about public education in Alaska is that those who oppose him only care about money, while he cares about “policy,” the word he repeated three dozen times Saturday in a whinefest after 45 of 60 legislators voted to put $50 million more into public schools.

He spent nearly an hour Saturday before reporters complaining and attacking legislators—Democrats and Republicans—for not working hard enough and not paying enough attention to his ideas. He suggested they were lying about meetings with him. He claimed they don’t care about improving education.

He complained that legislators in other states get more done in less time. He complained about the union that represents teachers and the groups that represent superintendents and school board members, claiming they don’t care about the quality of education.

The event was a textbook example of the dismal attitude that Dunleavy brings to the table, the one that has prevented him from getting anything of substance enacted by the Legislature. His refusal to compromise and recognize that others have valid ideas are his fatal flaws as governor. He is ineffective for obvious reasons.

Dunleavy defended his dumb idea, one on which he caved because of public opposition, of getting his Republican allies to boycott the first five days of the special session so that an override would have been impossible. His Republican allies showed up to vote, including many who had claimed they would not.

He said the idea of the five-day boycott was “So the override wouldn’t, the override would not of hap—, would not happen and then we could have the conversation, because then there is a conversation of a two-sided coin. Right now you’ve got a one-sided coin, the money’s there.”

“Money seems to be the go-to default to fix problems,” he claimed. “We believe it’s policy to fix problems. So the question I guess I would ask is now that there’s $700 BSA and $50 million of it is restored, when do we move from 51st up? And how do we gauge it? How we’re gonna move up? Because if it’s just money, we don’t need any policy, then surely in the next year, next two years at the most, we should be moving through the ranks.”

“If money is the issue, I think we’re top eight in spending, we should be moving steadily towards, the ah, ah, we should be eighth in the country in outcomes. Raise your hand if you think that’s gonna happen,” he said.

“Let the record show nobody in this room has raised their hand. And why is that? Because we’ve been through this before time after time after time. All we need is more money. We’ll get to the policy. Ah, it’s just a lot of work. Getting that policy is so much work. It takes so much time. Um. I’m not sure what the Legislature’s doing right now. There’s a session. But not really. Um. I saw some of the press conference. Something’s gonna happen on August 27, the task force. But we’re gonna come back in on the 19th. What about before then? So anyway there’s um, there’s some serious policy that needs to happen.”

“It’s interesting. You had the length of the, length of the last session was how long? Was it 100, 120 days right? So I’m doing research trying to figure out what does the rest of the country do.”

“It’s just too hard. It’s not enough time. There’s so many things going on,” he said, doing his imitation of what he claims legislators say.

“It just seems that other states are able to you know make it happen. Put forward some substantial game-changing initiatives. I’m gonna ask you guys because I’m curious. Sometimes when I watch a press conference I feel like I’m on a different planet,” he said.

He said he would talk about three major initiatives that came up this year in the Legislature, but he lost hif train of thought and never got past the first—changing the dividend formula.

“New dividend formula, OK. Ok so we’re dealing with the money again, alright. OK. OK. OK. So spending more money. OK.”

“And where are they? Where are those bills right now?

“It looks like the world is divided between more money is the solution. We believe the policy is the solution.”

“I would say the winners today, in my opinion, uh was certainly um NEA Alaska, the school boards association and the superintendents association, the advocacy groups for more money. They certainly aren’t advocacy groups for good policy or better outcomes.”

“You know sometimes we have folks that are protesting outside here and I’ve looked at the signs. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sign that says we need more better policy. There’s always a dollar sign. And so the dollar sign is taken care of,” he said.

Dunleavy doesn’t get it. He never has. He never will. He doesn’t know how to work with people who have ideas that he doesn’t like. He has no respect for the education experts across the state who are working hard to improve education.

By and large they are doing a much better job than Dunleavy.

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