Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy extended his record-high veto rate June 18 by vetoing nine of the 82 bills passed by lawmakers this year.
Among the vetoed bills were measures that would have provided mental health lessons to kids in public schools, created a retirement plan for private-sector workers who don’t have one, imposed a tax on e-cigarettes and vape products and updated the state’s corporate income tax system.
Two of the vetoed bills — one expanding the power of pharmacists and the other covering the state’s board of engineers and architects — were put into law June 19 after lawmakers overrode the governor.
Dunleavy has now vetoed or attempted to veto almost one-fifth of all bills passed by the 34th Legislature. Other governors have issued more vetoes, but none have vetoed a higher proportion of bills than Dunleavy.
State legislators voted 43-17 on June 19 to override Dunleavy’s veto of House Bill 195, which gives pharmacists more authority to prescribe medicines and conduct simple medical tests. Forty votes were needed.
Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, spoke in favor of the override, saying the bill will enable Alaskans to get cheaper medical care from pharmacists instead of more expensive providers.
Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, offered an example: For a parent with a child suffering from strep throat after their pediatrician had closed for the day, going to an urgent care clinic might cost hundreds of dollars, and an emergency room visit could cost thousands.
“This bill allows a parent to take their child to a pharmacy” and get a strep throat test, he said.
Lawmakers also overrode Dunleavy’s veto of House Bill 314 by a 45-15 margin. Forty votes were needed.
A revised version of a bill Dunleavy vetoed last year, HB 314 will regulate some aspects of interior design in the state by adding them to the State Board of Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors.
Forty of the Legislature’s 60 members are needed to override the veto of a policy bill, and legislators failed to reach that threshold on three votes due to the opposition of Republican lawmakers.
On House Bill 52, which would require increased oversight of youth psychiatric facilities, the vote was 36-24. The bill, from Rep. Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks, was introduced in response to reports of widespread problems at North Star psychiatric hospital in Anchorage.
If enacted, the bill would have required unannounced state inspections of facilities like North Star and reports on the use of physical and chemical restraints on children.
In his veto message, the governor said that while he supports oversight, he believes the bill duplicates what the state is already empowered to do.
Despite an impassioned speech from Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage, the Legislature declined to override Dunleavy’s veto of Senate Bill 41, which would have required the Alaska Department of Education to draft a mental health curriculum in the same way that it has a physical education program.
Local districts would have been responsible for implementing that curriculum.
The override vote was 38-22, two votes short of what was needed.
Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the nation, the senator said, and “in many rural communities, suicide rates are nearly four times that the national average. Teaching our students how to recognize mental health challenges, to seek help and support one another, is one of the most basic and meaningful steps we can take to address this crisis.”
In his veto message, the governor said, “this bill places the state in the role of imposing upon school districts to mandate the development of mental health education at a time when districts are already working to meet existing requirements.”
Gray-Jackson lambasted that statement, saying it repeated “false” and “harmful” misinformation from “online blogs and commentators.”
“SB 41 didn’t remove parents from the conversation, it didn’t strip authority from local school boards, it didn’t replace community values with a one-size-fits-all mandate,” she said.
Legislators failed by a single vote to override Dunleavy’s veto of Senate Bill 21, which would have provided state-run retirement plans for workers in businesses that do not currently offer retirement benefits.
The program under SB 21, similar to efforts already launched by other states, would have principally affected minimum-wage workers and those in small businesses. Unless they opt out, eligible workers would have had 5% of their paychecks automatically deducted and deposited into an investment account managed by the state.
In his veto message, the governor said he opposes a mandate, even with an opt-out provision.
The vote on an override was 39-21.
Of the governor’s nine vetoes, legislators declined to vote on four, permitting them to stand without a vote.
Dunleavy vetoed two bills — House Bill 280 and Senate Bill 24 — saying that he is unwilling to approve tax changes without a comprehensive fiscal plan that brings state expenses and revenue into line over the long-term.
Both bills had been passed in different forms by prior editions of the Legislature and were also previously vetoed by Dunleavy.
If SB 24 had been enacted, it would have imposed Alaska’s first tax on e-cigarette and vape products.
HB 280 would have modernized the state’s corporate income tax system, declaring that online sales to Alaskans take place in Alaska, not at the location of a warehouse or computer server operated by the seller. That would have diverted corporate income tax payments from the states where the online is based to the Alaska treasury.
House Bill 23, also vetoed by the governor, would have subjected nonprofit businesses to the authority of the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights, which handles discrimination complaints against employers.
“While I support protecting Alaskans from unlawful discrimination, this bill expands the commission’s reach over nonprofit employers, including charitable, educational and religious organizations,” Dunleavy wrote in his veto message.
The last of the vetoes, Senate Bill 258, would have forbidden the state from signing computer software deals that lock in the state to a particular company or limit the software to a particular geographic area.
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