The ill-conceived 2025 special session
- Bruce Botelho
- Jul 8
- 3 min read
Gov. Mike Dunleavy on July 2 called for a special session of the legislature to convene in Juneau on Aug. 2 to consider yet-to-be-seen education reforms and the creation of a Department of Agriculture. At the same time, he urged Republican members of the Legislature to skip the first five days. It’s a sophomoric bit of gamesmanship that should embarrass any leader regardless of political affiliation.
The backstory has several twists. Education funding and reform was the premiere issue of this regular session. The Legislature considered several of the Dunleavy administration’s proposals, rejecting some, but incorporating others into a final legislative package that included an increase to the Base Student Allocation, a formula for funding schools set in statute. The governor vetoed the bill, but was overridden by a vote of 46-14.
Subsequently the Legislature included that increased amount in this year’s budget. On June 12, Dunleavy vetoed the increase — and, in fact, reduced the amount below last year’s per-student allocation — the first time in state history that a governor had failed to support the education funding formula.
Under the Alaska Constitution, the Legislature has to consider any veto override within the first five days of the first special or regular session following the veto. An override of a budget veto requires a vote of 45 of 60 legislators meeting together. Wishing to forestall a special session to override his veto, Dunleavy vetoed money the Legislature appropriated for a special session on June 12.
His advisors apparently concluded that there was a better strategy: first, take advantage of the absence of one legislator, Forrest Dunbar, who is deployed to Europe with the Alaska National Guard and who would be expected to vote to override; second, call on Republican legislators to ignore their legislative duty to timely appear for session and thereby deprive the body of the necessary votes to override.
As a diversionary measure, he added the creation of a Department of Agriculture to the call. The proposal is a feckless attempt to put lipstick on a pig. In January, Dunleavy issued Executive Order 136 to create a standalone Alaska Department of Agriculture by moving the existing Division of Agriculture out of the Department of Natural Resources. The Legislature rejected the executive order in March. Even if there is merit to the proposal, there is no urgency justifying a special session. January will come soon enough.
Instead of urging legislators to absent themselves from the session, Dunleavy could simply have asked them to sustain the veto. Now Republican legislators should publicly distance themselves from this plea to compromise their oath of office. For their part, Alaska’s citizens should demand that their legislators attend the full session and hold them to account if they fail to do so. That’s because a legislator’s absence from the first five days is tantamount to a “no” on every piece of legislation that is up for an override vote.
Nevertheless, if on Aug. 2 certain lawmakers fail to answer the call, legislative leadership can exercise their constitutional right to “compel attendance of absent members” (Alaska Constitution, Art. II, sec. 12). In this circumstance, the sergeant-at-arms is empowered to enlist the assistance of the Department of Public Safety to enforce the call.
Dunleavy can easily avoid the embarrassing spectacle and expense of state troopers rounding up recalcitrant legislators by either urging them to attend or canceling the call.
• Bruce Botelho is a former Juneau mayor and Alaska attorney general.
