I have a theory about what is behind the Dunleavy recall. At one level, the rationale is pretty simple, especially given the failure of democrats and their supporters these days to accept the results of an election. After Bill Walker, who was elected as an independent, staffed his administration with democrats, and governed as a democrat, the democrats and the unions were thoroughly embarrassed by the 2018 gubernatorial election results and want another bite at the apple.
The second piece of this is Attorney General Clarkson’s announcement that the Dunleavy administration would start enforcing policies that would implement the SCOTUS Janus opinion in Alaska. This triggered quite the reaction from both the ADN and AFL – CIO head Vince Beltrami.
Suzanne Downing’s Must Read Alaska then ran a commentary by Art Chance predicting that the unions will play for time, running this thru a politicized and union-friendly state to run out the clock until they can install the next democrat (Mark) or faux democrat (Bill) as governor.
It is important to note that this time around, the unions are finally backed into a corner, and have to play for keeps. They have to. If Janus is adopted, their members will then be required to both actively opt in for union membership, and actively make the decision to pay agency fees, the fount of all union political spending in this state. If that happens, they and the democrats they support, are flat out sunk.
Art Chance predicts that the moment anyone in the Dunleavy administration issues an order implementing Janus in Alaska, there will be a minimum of a 3-5 year long court fight, with state lawyers knowing if they defend this action, they will be gone three nanoseconds after the next democrat or figurehead is elected governor. His suggestion is that they hire outside counsel and fast-track this process as quickly as possible. Probably a pretty good suggestion.
In states where Janus has been adopted, there has a precipitous decline in the number of people in public employee unions, and most importantly their involuntary payments into unions which in turn fund democrat political campaigns. Democrats get a LOT of political donations from unions in this state. And they must not allow this to happen.
Final piece of the puzzle is an interesting little piece out of Suzanne Downing a couple weeks ago, noting that the Dunleavy recall web site reservations were made last March, months before the Dunleavy vetoes the recall campaign is claiming the whole process is based upon. If the movement is based on the “terrible” vetoes, why pray tell did they reserve web site names at least two months before the vetoes were issued?
How to put all this together?
My guess is that the recall was preplanned by democrats, the unions, the Walkerites (Robin Brena’s Alaska Fair Share assault on the oil and natural gas producers) to take Dunleavy out or destroy his political power. Things got a lot more serious when Attorney General Clarkson started talking about Janus, though anyone watching knew it was just a matter of time before he did.
So, the recall now has three reasons: Inflict as much political damage on Governor Dunleavy as possible; terrify Republicans in the legislature to not support him or his agenda (though the Governor’s office this year did a great job making sure they didn’t via sheer buffoonery); and finally, keep the union money stream afloat long enough to elect enough democrats to ensure Janus does not get implemented up here. For when it does, they are lost.
Our job is to ensure they are not successful.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
