Former Rep. Les Gara could be the first serious challenger to incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy in the 2022 race for governor. Gara said he formed a committee to consider running for the state’s top job.

During his time in the Legislature, Gara became the leading authority on oil taxes in the House, and an outspoken champion for young people, especially those in the foster care system.

In his press release, he said:

“I want a state that provides real opportunity for people, that creates jobs and that offers students and workers the skills and quality education they deserve. We should help people succeed because it’s right, because it will help end our recession, and because it will grow our  businesses with Alaska workers.”

“Governor Dunleavy has ‘worked’ to dismantle what gives people opportunity and dignity,” said Gara. It’s part of the reason over 8,000 workers, students and others moved from the state last year. “We should have a state people want to live in, not move from", said Gara. Dunleavy started his term proposing major destructive cuts to public education, a job-creating University that’s been the biggest source of vocational and higher education in Alaska, the Alaska Marine Highway, and rural public safety and power cost fairness.

Gara applauds Alaska’s history of responsible oil development and mining, but believes a fair budget plan requires an end to so-called “per barrel” oil company tax credits. “Governor Dunleavy’s February budget included $1.2 billion in unidentified personal taxes, over half of which would leave the pockets of Alaskans to subsidize needless oil company subsidies. That’s not a fiscal plan, it’s a shell game. Gara has supported Alaska's existing mines, but says "the toxic Pebble Mine endangers Alaska’s greatest-in-the-world commercial, subsistence and sport fishing. That's why I've fought to stop this disaster from the beginning.” 

While people are struggling, the Governor has left over 3,000 construction and other workers idle because of an austerity capital construction budget. That’s at a time when people should have jobs working on more than $2 billion in projects on the State and University’s growing “deferred maintenance” lists. “Crumbling infrastructure isn’t a plan, and costs people needed, high-paying jobs,” Gara said.

Dunleavy has yet to make his re-election campaign formal, but he is running. His support group is holding fund-raisers for Keep Dunleavy, including one now set for July 28 at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, charging $5,000 for a couple for a reception and photo.

Cynthia Henry’s group has sweetened the deal since this was first proposed in late June, an event postponed because of the special session, by allowing $2,500 donors to play golf.

“If we allow far-left obstructionists and special interests groups to dictate our lives and elections, we will no longer have a legitimate republic,” Henry’s group claimed on May 21.

Dunleavy is obviously running for re-election and has been busy asking for money, copying Trump and claiming his is an “Alaska First” agenda.

The Dunleavy support groups have not been required to reveal how much money they have collected and from where. But at least $275,000 came from Republican governors and their allies.

Keep Dunleavy could morph into a shadow Dunleavy re-election campaign, similar to the one that Francis Dunleavy and Bob Penney gave hundreds of thousands to in 2018.

But one of the potential legal roadblocks is that Dunleavy himself has been a key part of Keep Dunleavy, going so far as to sign fundraising letters. A shadow campaign is not permitted to have any connection with the candidate, so that would disqualify Keep Dunleavy.

“We could not do this without you,” Dunleavy tells donors to Keep Dunleavy.

People who know campaign fundraising and the law predict that Keep Dunleavy will have to give all of its money back to donors if there is no recall, and that transferring it to another purpose would be illegal.

I think that is a good reason to halt the recall. Let the 2022 election stand as the next big test.

Dunleavy ran for governor the first time telling people what they wanted to hear about how he would increase the Permanent Fund dividend, make no real cuts to public services and institute no taxes. He was aided by the failure of Alaska news organizations to investigate his fantasy plan.

So far, Alaska news organizations are repeating their errors of 2018 by regurgitating whatever he and his public relations people claim, without examination or analysis. Reports like this one by the Associated Press show a disinclination to try to connect the dots and a lack of awareness that there are any dots to connect.

On Wednesday, Dunleavy named Anchorage Superior Court Judge Jennifer Stuart Henderson to the Alaska Supreme Court, but he wanted to make sure his supporters knew he wasn’t happy about it. He made the appointment with no fanfare or press release.

This puts the constitutional standoff he threatened July 1 in a new light—that of a campaign stunt.

In a letter that day he said he really wanted more nominees to pick from to fill the Supreme Court seat of Joel Bolger, who has retired.

Dunleavy wrote, “please provide me with a new slate of names to choose from,” but we now see that he was just sending a signal to his fans and showing his support for Kristie/Tuckerman Babcock and their efforts to inject right-wing politics into judicial selection.

The governor has no part in the selection of nominees to the Supreme Court under our Constitution. That power is left to the council, which included three members appointed by the chief executive and three members of the Alaska Bar Association. The chief justice only votes to break tie votes on nominees.

The Babcocks wanted more conservative nominees and Dunleavy’s July 1 announcement that he wasn’t happy with the list showed that he was in agreement. He didn’t promise that he wouldn’t pick one of the nominees, however. He was required by law and the Constitution to select one of the three nominees and he did so. But he will tell his fans that he tried to get more Babcock-friendly nominees, but the council didn’t listen.