Dunleavy continues to misuse state resources to boost his reelection campaign

State employees who owe their jobs to Gov. Mike Dunleavy and state contractors who owe their contracts to Dunleavy continue to play the leading roles in his reelection campaign.

By relying on state-paid “volunteers” for campaign work and claiming that campaign tasks are state business, Dunleavy has run his campaign for nearly a year and paid next to nothing for campaign staff.

This is a clear misuse of state resources. State law prohibits the use of “state funds, facilities, equipment, services or another government asset or resource for partisan political purposes.”

Last July, Dunleavy hired back his 2018 campaign manager, Brett Huber, for partisan political purposes. Dunleavy created a brand-new $140,000-a-year job titled “Governor’s Senior Policy Advisor for Statehood Defense.”

Huber had no job duties other than to direct the chorus of complaints about federal overreach and promote Dunleavy.

It was a campaign job, paid for with public funds.

In May, the Associated Press reported that after Huber left his state job on April 2, the governor’s office gave him a no-bid $50,000 contract to perform the same work he had been doing as a state employee.

Meanwhile, Huber also went on the payroll of the “independent” Dunleavy campaign group backed by $3 million from the GOP governors association, collecting $80,500.

“The governor is using public money as a personal campaign piggy bank," Dunleavy challenger Les Gara said in a press release. Gara is correct.

The Huber contract is part of an overall pattern of using state resources for partisan political purposes that goes back to before Dunleavy filed for reelection.

The law says that partisan “means having the intent to differentially benefit or harm a candidate or potential candidate for elective office.”

Dunleavy has given a $50,000 consulting contract to Jordan Shilling, a former state employee, and “volunteer” on Dunleavy’s reelection campaign. Shilling, a deputy treasurer of the Dunleavy campaign, has donated $750 to the Dunleavy campaign.

On Oct, 19 last year Dunleavy hired Andrew Jensen, former editor of the Alaska Journal of Commerce, as a state public relations man for $90,000. Jensen is performing public relations tasks for the Dunleavy campaign, claiming he does that work as a “volunteer” on his own time.

His state job is identical to his “volunteer” job.

Jensen works under Dave Stieren, who is paid $139,000 by the state. Both serve as campaign attack dogs and as spokesmen for Dunleavy.

The Alaska Landmine reports that state employee Tyson Gallagher, now the acting chief of staff for Dunleavy, is also working on the Dunleavy campaign. Gallagher, a former employee of GCI, earns about $150,000 from the state.

Gallagher, a deputy treasurer of the Dunleavy campaign, has given $1,013 to the Dunleavy campaign.

On May 10, former Dunleavy public relations man Matt Shuckerow gave $1,000 to the Dunleavy campaign.

On May 25, Dunleavy gave Shuckerow a $29,500 state contract for public relations work until after the election.

Shuckerow’s state work is identical to campaign work, as shown below, in a contract posted by the Alaska Landmine.

Gov, Mike Dunleavy, using state funds, has hired his former public relations man, Matt Shuckerow, to perform the services listed above for $75 an hour, tasks that are identical to those that are part of the Dunleavy reelection campaign.

Since early 2020, Dunleavy has been sending $4,000 month to Mary Vought, a media consultant in Virginia who helps get him on TV. The $48,000 annual payments started not long after Vought attached her name to a letter opposing the recall. No one has ever explained why the state is paying for her services.

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