Dunleavy recall succeeded in capturing the governor's undivided attention, but it can’t force a fiscal plan

Just before the pandemic hit hard, John Binkley, a political ally of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, whose family owns the Anchorage Daily News, announced plans for a group to fight the recall, which had been illegally blocked by former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson.

Dunleavy had grown into the position, Binkley said. It would have been more accurate to say that Dunleavy had grown to fear the recall.

“Last year’s budget vetoes inflamed the recall effort, and now that the governor has reversed himself on many of those vetoes, Binkley said he believes Dunleavy ‘has made changes that really reflect what Alaskans have been feeling,’” Binkley told a reporter for his family’s newspaper a year ago.

Clarkson’s illegal stalling and the pandemic stalled the recall. Now comes the Daily News with another high-handed defense of Dunleavy, linking his recall to Anchorage Assembly Member Felix Rivera, claiming it is a similar situation.

While keeping quiet about John Binkley’s leadership role in backing Dunleavy, the Binkley-owned paper sniffs that the Dunleavy recall grounds are trivial.

Nonsense.

One of the grounds for recalling the governor is that he “violated Alaska law by refusing to appoint a judge to the Palmer Superior Court within 45 days of receiving nominations.”

The Dunleavy defenders claim he was actually “negotiating” when he announced in a letter March 20, 2019 that he would refuse to follow the Alaska Constitution. He was “negotiating” the way bank robbers negotiate for cash withdrawals during a stickup.

The Anchorage Daily News would have Alaskans believe this matter is insignificant because Dunleavy was forced to back down and follow the law.

Opposition to Dunleavy’s handling of the budget is all that really counts with recall backers, the newspaper claims, and opposition to Dunleavy’s handling of the budget is not on the official list of grounds for recall, therefore the campaign is not a legitimate political exercise.

“Rather than educating the public on the impact of Dunleavy’s cuts and urging neighbors to make their views known to legislators who control the state’s purse-strings, recall proponents would rather promote the chimeric fantasy that a Kevin Meyer administration would somehow be vastly preferable to the status quo,” the Daily News claimed.

The Binkley-owned paper should not be lecturing recall backers about educating Alaskans regarding Dunleavy’s handling of state finances, when it has failed to report on the topic in depth.

As for the chimeric strawman Kevin Meyer fantasy, that is a creation of the Anchorage Daily News.

Since Dunleavy announced plans to run for governor, the Daily News has failed to explain his radical, reckless, and unworkable financial plans.

To this day, no news organization in Alaska has examined the Dunleavy fiscal fantasy in real detail, including the false claim by Dunleavy that he would save $200 million by cutting 2,000 unfilled jobs. That was the biggest budget cut he promised as a candidate and the only one of any size.

It never happened because there never were 2,000 funded but unfilled jobs. After the election, he invented a story that candidate Dunleavy promised lots of budget cuts and reduced services that would make people angry. The many contradictions between his promises and his actions went largely unreported.

The recall movement, though it was illegally blocked by Dunleavy’s AG and then stalled by the pandemic, had enough political power to force Dunleavy to retreat on nearly every aspect of his reckless Arduin-Babcock budget, a reversal never examined by the Anchorage Daily News or any other news organization.

On Aug. 1, 2019, thousands of people showed up statewide to begin the recall “conversation,” and it remains a powerful political tool that got Dunleavy’s undivided attention.

The recall succeeded in forcing change.

The recall succeeded in keeping the ferry system from disappearing. It succeeded in keeping Pioneer Home rates from skyrocketing. It succeeded in preserving state support for education. It succeeded in preserving health care for tens of thousands of Alaskans. It succeeded in at least limiting some of the damage Dunleavy did to the University of Alaska.

What the recall movement could not do was force Dunleavy to offer a fiscal plan and a plan for state services, a massive failure unexamined by Alaska news organizations, creating a situation that threatens the survival of the Permanent Fund, the dividend and many programs that are vital to the daily lives of Alaskans.

The biggest Dunleavy budget scam is that more than $1 billion in new revenue is going to appear on July 1, 2022 to solve Alaska’s financial problems. But he doesn’t support new taxes and he is introducing no new taxes, which means there probably won’t be any new taxes.

There is no Dunleavy plan that includes future revenues, a clear understanding of the Permanent Fund and how the state and local government services will continue. There is no Dunleavy plan to support a modern state.

There is no Dunleavy fiscal plan other than unsustainable spending—which won’t last long because the easy money is almost gone—a story that belongs on the front page of every Alaska newspaper and in every newscast.