This needs an examination by someone who is not part of the CYA division of the Dunleavy administration, but the refusal by the governor to talk about the former attorney general is not defensible.

A veteran state attorney brought the language in AS 39.25.110 to my attention.

The law says that the attorney general, as the head of a principal department in the executive branch, is among those who are “exempt from the provisions of this chapter and the rules adopted under it. . .”

The chapter in question is the State Personnel Act, which exists to “establish a system of personnel administration based upon the merit principle and adapted to the requirements of the state to the end that persons best qualified to perform the functions of the state will be employed, and that an effective career service will be encouraged, developed and maintained.”

The protections in the State Personnel Act include a section that keeps many records confidential, but this protection does not extend to exempt employees. The rules adopted under the act are not a legitimate excuse, therefore, for Dunleavy’s silence.

“Exempt employees serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority,” a state manual says, and are exempted from the personnel act. In this case, Dunleavy is the appointing authority.

At his COVID-19 show Tuesday, a reporter asked Dunleavy when he knew and when regarding Clarkson’s 558 text messages to a low-level female state employee half his age.

“That issue was dealt with according to law. And there are statutes that allow and prohibit certain comments on that,” Dunleavy said.

“And so once again if that’s a question you want answered you can send it to our press, They’ll screen it through our Department of Law to make sure that the answers that you’re given are in, in conjunction with allowable, applicable law to actually talk about that issue.”

Alaskans deserve a straight answer from Dunleavy on this. If Alaska news organizations are taking up the governor on his offer, they should demand the exact legal authority under which Dunleavy says he has to keep his mouth shut.

This is not a matter of privacy. It is already public knowledge, by Clarkson’s own resignation letter, that he was disciplined by the governor for his 558 text messages pursuing the young woman. He admitted to wrongdoing. It is also public knowledge, from Dunleavy’s own statement last week, that he agreed with Clarkson that wrongdoing had taken place and that Clarkson was right to resign.

What we don’t know is when Dunleavy learned of the wrongdoing and why he believed that a secret suspension would make things right.

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