As Alaska job losses skyrocket, Dunleavy needs to stop paying Trump lawyers $600 an hour

Thousands of Alaskans lost their jobs this week with the shutdown of bars and restaurants. Thousands more face an uncertain future as the Alaska economy takes an enormous hit.

This is the wrong moment for Gov. Mike Dunleavy to double down on the wasteful plan to keep paying President Trump’s lawyers $600 an hour in Washington, D.C. to pursue the anti-union ideology of Attorney General Kevin Clarkson and Dunleavy.

This is $600,000 that the state doesn’t need to spend. If Dunleavy and Clarkson want to continue the crusade, they can do so by having one or more of the 160 civil division lawyers handle it as they are already on the state payroll.

Dunleavy vetoed legislative language in the mental health budget in which legislators said they opposed paying contract lawyers for the Clarkson crusade. The language, or something similar to it, ought to be included in the operating budget to try to block this contract.

The Clarkson ideological argument, backed by Dunleavy, is that it should be harder for state unions to collect dues from members, with Clarkson advancing a theory that goes beyond the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Janus case—which said workers who are not union members don’t have to pay “agency fees.”

This is a time for the Dunleavy administration to focus on the needs of Alaskans and to cut waste in state spending wherever it is found.