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The Alaska Supreme Court on June 28 overturned a lower court decision that found two statutes governing Alaska’s publicly funded homeschooling programs violated the state constitution by sending public funds to private and religious schools. The ruling is a victory for Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has sought to defend the statutes and keep them on the books. But it is largely procedural, and the attorney who originally challenged the constitutionality of the statutes vowed to continue fighting the practice of spending correspondence school a...
State laws allowing correspondence students to use public funds at private and religious schools will remain in place through the end of June, but not after, an Anchorage Superior Court judge ordered May 2. Judge Adolf Zeman last month struck down two statutes governing Alaska’s correspondence programs, finding that they violated a state constitutional prohibition on spending public funds at private institutions. The decision affect hundreds or thousands of correspondence students across the state, depending on how the Legislature and Gov. Mike...
The state ferry Tustumena is preparing for its 60th birthday party this summer. Over the years, the vessel has become a familiar and important part of life in communities between Homer and Dutch Harbor. But after years in rough waters, the cost of keeping the Tustumena running is ballooning. "This ship is a floating museum piece," said John Mayer, who has captained the ship for years. The Tustumena exemplifies the storms that the Alaska Marine Highway System has weathered. In March, Seward...
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has made headlines again with comments on her unwillingness to vote for former president Donald Trump, which puts her in an ever-shrinking group of GOP members opposing the party’s presumptive nominee for president. “I wish that as Republicans, we had a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told a CNN journalist in a brief hallway interview posted online on March 24. “I certainly can’t get behind Trump,” Murkowski added. Her comments triggered stories on a number of national news sites. On March...
A pair of citizen-backed initiatives will likely appear on the general election ballot in November, including one seeking to repeal Alaska’s voting system, state election officials said Feb. 27. After a monthlong review, the state Division of Elections made the initial assessment that separate groups had gathered enough signatures to place the two questions on the ballot. Voters will be asked if they want to overturn Alaska’s ranked-choice voting and open-primary system; and whether they support increasing the minimum wage and amending sta...
Alaska’s campaign ethics commission found that opponents of ranked-choice voting violated the state’s campaign ethics laws for months by funneling most of their funding through a tax-exempt church and inaccurately reporting their funding to the state. In a decision released Jan. 3, the Alaska Public Offices Commission issued more than $94,000 in fines against groups working to repeal Alaska’s voting system. Former Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson, who represents the opponents of ranked-choice voting fined by the commission, said they...
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has sent a letter to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, urging him to include $23 million in his coming budget for the replacement of a state ferry. Dunleavy spokesperson Jessica Bowers declined to say whether the governor’s draft budget — due by Friday, Dec. 15 — would include the matching funds needed to secure a $92 million federal funding award that Murkowski announced last month. The Alaska Marine Highway system has already been promised $416 million in federal funds through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act....
Alaska Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom is running for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House, challenging Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in the 2024 election. In her campaign announcement on Nov. 14, Dahlstrom dubbed herself “a conservative Republican, law enforcement leader, military and veterans advocate.” Dahlstrom, 66, has served as lieutenant governor for less than a year. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy tapped her as his running mate in 2022. Before that, she served as commissioner of the Department of Corrections. Dahlstrom also served in the state...
Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s husband, Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr., died after a plane he was flying crashed Sept. 12 in Southwest Alaska. Peltola, 57, was the former regional director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for Alaska, serving from 2018 to 2022. He previously spent 34 years working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska. Among other roles, he served as vice mayor and council member for the city of Bethel between 2010 and 2012 and sat on various Alaska Native village corporation boards. After retiring in 2022 from his work...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has vetoed a bill that aimed to minimize the use of harmful refrigerant chemicals that exacerbate climate change and also reduce the risk of spills of a different chemical that can pollute drinking water. The legislation would have banned most firefighting departments from using a type of firefighting foam that has contaminated drinking water in dozens of places across Alaska and many more in the Lower 48. The bill, originally introduced by Anchorage Rep. Stanley Wright would have allowed newly constructed buildings in...
A board appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy has decided in favor of a new state regulation that would ban transgender girls from participation in high school girls sports. The decision by the state board of education on Thursday, Aug. 31, came less than six months after the board passed a resolution indicating its members were interested in such a policy. All seven Dunleavy-appointed board members voted in favor of the new policy, which says that only girls whose sex assigned at birth is female will be able to participate in girls sports. The only...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy spoke publicly Thursday, Aug. 31, for the first time about his decision to endorse Republican former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race. In a Fox Business interview, Dunleavy said Trump has been “the best president for this state in its short history,” citing Trump’s actions in issuing oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and removing roadbuilding restrictions for logging in the Tongass National Forest. Dunleavy’s endorsement of Trump was first reported by Politico on Aug. 22, but he di...
The group that championed Alaska’s ranked-choice voting reform filed a complaint on July 5 against several individuals and entities that are leading an effort to repeal the state’s new election laws, alleging that they violated multiple campaign finance rules and obscured the source of their funding. The complaint alleges that opponents of ranked-choice voting founded a church called the Ranked Choice Education Association that could allow donors to gain tax advantages for their contributions while skirting disclosure requirements. Those requir...
The first session of the 33rd Alaska Legislature adjourned last month, with a lot of issues unresolved. “We were just tied up too much with the issue of the dividend and the budget and how we’re going to pay for things,” said Senate President Gary Stevens after adjournment. The slow movement on priority bills was tied to the protracted disagreement between the House and Senate majorities over the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, but also questions about other priorities. Lawmakers will reconvene in January 2024 for the second regular sessi...
Alaska school administrators are welcoming the $175 million in additional one-time funding in this year’s state budget, but warn that they’ll again face large deficits next year. Permanently increasing the base student allocation — the state’s per-student funding formula — was a top priority for many legislators this year. School districts across the state reported being in crisis after six years of essentially flat funding, high inflation and the end of federal COVID-19 relief aid. “The legislature has offered a spring bonus rather than...
A staffing crisis in the state agency that provides guardianship services for some of the most vulnerable Alaskans means it can no longer accept new cases, agency heads said in a letter to the Alaska court system. The Office of Public Advocacy is required by law to provide guardianship services for adults with severe mental illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, dementia or traumatic brain injuries, along with young adults transitioning out of the custody of foster care or the juvenile justice system. That means connecting them...
Almost two weeks after Gov. Mike Dunleavy told lawmakers he would propose a new sales tax, legislators have yet to see the governor’s bill — and are still far from reaching agreement on the state’s fiscal future. Lawmakers broadly agree on the need for new revenue sources amid declining oil taxes. But any proposal from the governor, along with other revenue measures considered by lawmakers this year, are unlikely to pass with only two weeks until the constitutional deadline marking the end of the regular legislative session, key lawma...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he does not support a request to add millions of dollars to the state budget to help child care providers, instead announcing the formation of a task force to examine the issue and provide policy recommendations by the end of the year. Child care, expensive and in short supply in Alaska, has benefited from more than $50 million in federal pandemic aid paid as grants to providers since 2020. With the end of federal funding, child care advocates have asked legislators to add $15 million to the state budget to boost...
More than 100 Alaskans spoke out against a “parental rights” bill proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a wave of opposition to the legislation that many said would harm already vulnerable transgender youths. Of the 119 Alaskans who spoke during the nearly five-hour hearing held last Thursday evening by the House Education Committee, 103 opposed the bill and only 16 were in favor of it. Apayauq Reitan, the first openly transgender woman to run the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, was one of many gender nonconforming individuals who said the bill wou...
Some state lawmakers have signaled their opposition to the nomination of the leader of a conservative advocacy organization to serve on the University of Alaska Board of Regents. Bethany Marcum is executive director of the Alaska Policy Forum, which advocates for limiting government and reducing state spending, including on education. Gov. Mike Dunleavy nominated Marcum for the board earlier this year. Her appointment is subject to confirmation by the entire Legislature, which will vote on the governor’s nominations in April or May. The H...
The Senate Education Committee on March 13 advanced a bill to increase state funding for public schools, clearing the bill’s first legislative hurdle. The bill to increase the base student allocation, the per-student formula used to calculate school funding, heads next to the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate bipartisan majority has named increasing public school funding as one of their top goals for the legislative session, and the measure has support from a broad coalition of education advocacy groups who are warning that districts will b...
In an unannounced move, the State Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution March 14 that urges the Alaska Department of Education to limit the participation of transgender girls in girls school sports. The resolution, which is non-binding, encourages the department to adopt a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing alongside girls who are cisgender — meaning their gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth — in school sports. The resolution asks the department to create two sports divisions: one exc...
While education advocates continue to push for increased state funding to Alaska public schools, Gov. Mike Dunleavy last week opted to introduce proposals that would limit sexual education in schools and impose new requirements on gender-nonconforming students. The governor at his March 7 news conference did not propose any increase in the state’s per-student funding formula for school districts, essentially unchanged in six years, though he did ask legislative approval of retention bonuses for teachers. Most legislators have said an i...
Newly appointed Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said last Thursday that she was considering severing ties with a nonprofit that helps maintain voter rolls nationwide, after several Republican-led states announced earlier this month their intention to pull out of the effort. Beecher told state lawmakers she was evaluating Alaska’s membership in the organization during a presentation to the Senate State Affairs Committee. She cited the cost of the program as a reason for leaving despite the benefits it provides. Her c...
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Feb. 15 appointed a longtime state employee and Republican Party supporter to lead the Alaska Division of Elections. Carol Beecher, who led the state's child support enforcement division for the past nine years, will now administer Alaska's elections. Her first day was Feb. 15. Beecher grew up at a logging camp on Zarembo Island and graduated from Wrangell High School in 1980, according to the lieutenant governor's office. She succeeds Gail Fenumiai, the division's...
