AKLEG Day 67: 'Establish and maintain'
Former Gov. Bill Walker broke the norms of the PFD law. Now, Dunleavy is effectively doing the same with the BSA.
Happy Friday, Alaska!
In this edition: It’s been quite the week after the education bill everyone hoped would settle the education debate early in the session was killed when legislators fell a single vote short of overriding the governor’s veto. There’s plenty of talk and even more uncertainty about what may be in store for the public schools this year, but in this edition, I wanted to take a moment to highlight just how much the governor’s threat and the House Republicans’ decision to bow to that threat represents a meaningful shift in how we should view education funding moving forward. Also, the House passed a long-sought-after bill to extend birth control coverage on a surprisingly bipartisan vote. Also, a short reading list and weekend watching.
Current mood: 💤
‘Establish and maintain’
The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State, and may provide for other public educational institutions. Schools and institutions so established shall be free from sectarian control. No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.
Alaska Constitution, Article VII, Sec. 1 — Public Education
The demise of Senate Bill 140 on Monday, when 17 Republicans flip-flopped on the bill and the Legislature fell a single vote short of overriding the governor’s veto, has thrown the future of education funding in Alaska into question. While the House Republicans who ensured the veto stood have spent much of the week professing their support for education, it can’t be overlooked that they’re still unable — or at least unwilling — to provide school districts that are grappling with having the rug pulled out from them with anything resembling certainty about funding this year.
“I found it very disingenuous for us to continue to hold out what I believe is something they will not get,” said House Rules Committee chair Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, when explaining why he turned on the education bill. “I think it’s time for the education community to start planning their budgets on not getting it. There will be some funding — I have no idea what it will be — but I just want to be honest and forthright with people and to lay out the realities that the likelihood of a $680 BSA inside the formula is not very good.”
That argument ignores the fact that six members of the House of Representatives could have ensured an override of the governor’s line-item veto of school funding. It wasn’t as impossible a task as Johnson suggests, which suggests that he and others never supported it in the first place or bowed to political pressure—which seems to be the going theory amid allegations that Republicans were threatened with well-funded Dunleavy-backed challengers.
But their motivation is a conversation for another day.
What I want to highlight here is that the governor’s threat and the House Republicans’ decision to bow to that threat represents a meaningful shift in how we should view education funding moving forward. The governor’s veto of BSA funding remains hypothetical, thanks to the actions of those 17 Republican lawmakers, but the message is clear he is willing to ignore a law that has long been seen as a guaranteed bare minimum. Education advocates can no longer bank on a BSA increase leading to increased funding, at least as long as Dunleavy and 16 Republicans stand in the way.
And as many in the Dunleavy orbit have raced to remind everyone, the Alaska Constitution is written that way. One Legislature cannot bind the hands of another when it comes to spending decisions, meaning that no law beyond the budget can truly decide funding. Anything that has been treated as automatic is only automatic because that’s what enough politicians have agreed to.
It doesn’t take too far to look back in state history to see another prime example, which probably informs much of the Dunleavy administration's thinking.
Former Gov. Bill Walker broke the norms of the PFD law, resulting in a system that now leaves the dividend at the whim of the political winds of a system that still can’t agree on a new formula. Now, Dunleavy is effectively doing the same with the BSA.
Yes, there’s a significant difference between a real-world veto of a dividend—which was never challenged by an attempted override, by the way(though Sen. Bill Wielechowski did take a lawsuit to the Alaska Supreme Court, where the justices confirmed that the PFD law is a suggestion, not a mandate)—and a hypothetical veto of the BSA. Still, it is now something that is on the table and must be part of the political calculus on public school funding moving forward. Achieving increased school funding through an increase to the BSA always seemed like the end goal for education advocates, but the governor essentially yanked the football and moved the goalposts with his insistence that the budget, and the budget only, matters.
More precisely, what matters is what the governor and at least 16 legislators, the number necessary to uphold a line-item veto, decide to do with the K12 funding.
It’s a massive break from the norms, but it’s technically within the rules. He’s that annoying friend at the game table who has figured out some nuance or loophole in the rules that, oops, only gets mentioned at the end when you can’t do anything about it.
In the big picture, the governor may be right that all state spending has to compete on an annual basis, but the Alaska Constitution also states that there’s a duty to “establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State.”
That standard has landed Alaska in the courts before, with judges finding that Alaska was failing to uphold that constitutional duty on public education and enforced changes. That’s the funny thing about the Alaska Constitution: it’s not just a black-and-white ruleset of issues to be tweaked and bent to one’s advantage. It also contains a set of societal goals and duties that cannot be so easily ducked.
And as long as we’re talking about what the Alaska Constitution says about education, it’s also worth noting that one of the three sentences on education is: “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.” That also happens to be the one sentence of the Alaska Constitution that Sen. Mike Dunleavy was particularly keen on repealing as a senator and seems to be tied up closely in his push for charter schools.
While Dunleavy and his allies seem keen on dodging those provisions, they cannot avoid them forever. Alaska Public Media reported on Thursday that the Coalition of Education Equity of Alaska is in the process of preparing a lawsuit challenging the state of inadequately funding education.
“We are obviously at the point where the Legislature is not meeting its constitutional obligation to maintain an adequate system of public education,” Caroline Storm, the group’s executive director, told the outlet. We have to inflation-proof the BSA, and advocacy has not worked. So we are up against a wall, I suppose. If the only thing that people will listen to is the court system, then that’s what we’re left with.”
Stay tuned.
Yearlong birth control supply bill passes House
The House passed House Bill 17 this week, advancing long-sought-after legislation that would require insurance providers to cover a yearlong supply of birth control. The measure has been proposed in past legislative sessions, with proponents arguing that it is particularly important for women who live and work in remote parts of the state where it’s impossible to make regular trips to the pharmacy.
“At the end of the day, this only has an impact on the quantity of medication dispensed at a pharmacy counter, and it does not allow pharmacists to dispense more than what is prescribed or allowed,” said bill sponsor Rep. Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks. “This bill is about Alaskan women having the ability to make their choices in consultation with their doctors about their health care. It’s about them being able to make private decisions in a state where we have folks living far away from providers and in a state where providers are becoming more and more limited.”
We heard largely predictable Republican complaints that expanding access to birth control infringes on religious beliefs, that it would encourage abortions or that it amounted to unfair preferential treatment of women. Some, like Big Lake Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe, managed to wrap nearly all of the points together while also admitting that Planned Parenthood’s support for it drove his opposition.
“As the user of some other prescription medications for blood pressure and all sorts of things, I only get a 90-day supply. I’m not sure where the difference between men and women comes in this discussion,” he said, turning to a graphic outlining the priorities of Planned Parenthood’s political advocacy arm. “I had considered voting yes for this — because frankly, it is just an insurance bill — but the Planned Parenthood association with birth control, tying it to gender-affirming care and abortion, just doesn’t sit right with me.”
A common thread in much of the debate was an imagined hypothetical situation where the health of a woman is so rapidly changing that they must have regular checkups with their doctors to ensure birth control is still safe for them. Buried in that is a recent surge in disinformation about the health risks of birth control, which has spread with alarming speed on social media.
What was less predictable about the whole debate was the many Republicans who stood up for the bill, calling it a commonsense measure, and called out their male counterparts for making claims that simply aren’t based in reality.
“I appreciate all my male colleagues commenting on this bill, but I’ve lived this, and I’m supporting this bill because I’m pro-life,” said Anchorage Republican Rep. Julie Coulombe. “This is a woman taking personal responsibility in trying to prevent a pregnancy when she’s not able to care for a baby. … The thought that somehow a woman doesn’t know her own body, that her body’s changing all the time and I have to go talk to a doctor every three months, is not the way I taught my daughter to deal with her own health issues and it’s not how I’ve dealt with mine. … Women can figure out for themselves when they have to go see a doctor.”
The measure passed 29-11 and now heads to the Senate, where companion legislation is already moving through the process.
My other headlines from the Alaska Current
Following education veto, lawmakers scramble to salvage time-critical school internet bill
Alaska House approves 12-month birth control coverage bill, with bipartisan support
Schools shouldn’t expect much, Alaska House Republican says after the demise of education bill
Here are the 17 Republicans who flip-flopped on the education bill
Poll: Alaskans broadly oppose Gov. Dunleavy’s education bill veto
Weekend watching
NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert always has a knack for showcasing musicians on the rise, and that is no different with the latest show featuring Chappell Roan, whose debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” came out last year.
Have a nice weekend, y’all.