As statewide health crisis grows, Dunleavy dithers

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has masked his opposition to a mask mandate with the phony claim that local governments can do whatever needs to be done.

Dunleavy has bought into the idea that a mask mandate is an infringement of individual rights. He’d rather listen to fringe crackpots than the Centers for Disease Control. But if local governments choose to infringe on people’s rights, that’s up to them.

“I certainly don’t want to infringe upon the rights of folks. I take that very seriously. I mean people that know me and know where I come from on our individual rights, which I think are, it’s what makes America different than any other country in the world,” he said at one of the COVID-19 shows he held regularly and then abandoned when reporters started asking questions that made him uncomfortable.

The CDC has updated its guidelines to recommend that local and state governments mandate the use of masks in indoor settings when people are not at home. The governor refuses to do his job and back that up with a statewide mandate.

Dave Stieren, Dunleavy’s mouthpiece, told a Juneau radio station Nov. 25 that “the governor feels pretty strongly that government telling you to do something that you’re going to blow off anyway isn’t going to make a dent in the numbers . . . “

By their words, Stieren and Dunleavy—echoing the soon-to-be-former president and his Republican sycophants—encourage Dunleavy’s right-wing fanbase to blow all of this off because a real emergency would trigger action by the governor, not a suggestion. And Dunleavy is all about suggestions, not decisions.

Dunleavy continues to claim that it’s not up to him to do anything about masks except recommend that people wear them. He has washed his hands of the matter.

Former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson may have produced this unsigned document in July as alleged legal justification for the governor’s contention that the buck stops with local governments, not with him.

That neither Clarkson nor anyone else on the state payroll had the gumption to put a name on the Dunleavy Decree is indicative of its value. The document has all the legal weight of a message scrawled on a bathroom wall, claiming local governments can handle mask mandates.

“Some municipalities are hesitant to enact such measures because they believe they do not have the authority to do so. This notion is simply incorrect,” the decree said.

Some days after the Dunleavy Decree, the Alaska Municipal League produced a revised version that said many local governments do not have the broad powers that Dunleavy keeps claiming they have.

“Second-class boroughs whose residents have not approved public health or safety powers may not add these responsibilities during a disaster,” the document says.

In this thorough analysis of state law and local ordinances, longtime Alaska attorney Michael Gatti concluded that the City of Homer “does not appear to have express authority to issue an emergency mask mandate require COVID-19 testing, or issue isolation and quarantine orders.”

Homer Mayor Ken Castner asked Dunleavy for a statewide mask mandate July 1. Others have done the same.

On Nov. 18, municipal attorneys from across Alaska wrote to Acting Attorney General Clyde “Ed” Sniffen to remind him that many local governments do not have the health powers that Dunleavy claims they have.

“Earlier this summer we explained to various members of your department that why this is not legally allowable under Alaska law. We have not seen any legal analysis from your department and are again providing ours for your consideration,” seven local government attorneys said.

They quoted specific laws that forbid the actions Dunleavy says they can take. In response, Sniffen sent them a copy of the July 24th unsigned Dunleavy decree.

Sniffen told reporters on Nov. 16 that “You don’t really need health powers to issue a mask mandate,” Sniffen said. “Those aren’t heath powers. Those are disaster powers.”

On Friday, he wrote back to the local government attorneys, repeating the flaccid legal advice in the Dunleavy Decree.

But don’t take his word for it, the acting general said, concluding with a paragraph that provides political cover.

“At this time, the governor has asked all Alaskans for voluntary compliance with respect to the wearing of masks and has declined to issue a statewide mandate. Some local governments have chosen to implement local mask mandates. If your advice to your respective government clients is that your client does not have the authority to mandate the use of masks, then your local government must default to the governor’s position—voluntary compliance,” said Sniffen.

Sniffen is bending his legal analysis to appease Dunleavy, a governor who has made evasion and dithering the hallmarks of his administration.

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