The Alaska Legislature held its annual joint session to consider confirmation or rejection of people placed on boards and commissions by Gov. Mike Dunleavy since last year, approving 78 of 81 appointees.

There were legislative confirmation hearings on many of those up for a vote, but the confirmation process is almost always superficial and cursory.

The Legislature rejected three nominees, Bob Griffin, Mike Porcaro and Mark Sayampanathan. Griffin was on the state school board, Porcaro was on the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission and Sayampanathan was on the Worker’s Compensation Board.

Here is a rundown on the votes for some nominees that I have written about:

BOB GRIFFIN: The Legislature rejected one of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s closest political allies, Bob Griffin, for a second five-year term on the state school board on a bipartisan 21-39 vote.

Griffin, an Alaska Airlines pilot, is the volunteer “senior education research fellow” for the Alaska Policy Forum. He has been Dunleavy’s point man on education.

“I was a fighter pilot for 22 (years) and have had my ass chewed by better people than those,” he told the right-wing Republican blog after the vote. The Republican blog accused Republicans of “a rarely witnessed show of disloyalty” for opposing Griffin.

Griffin has made it a regular practice to use misleading statistics in attacking public education. He supports spending pubic funds on private schools, which is unconstitutional.

Griffin contradicted himself about local control of schools by saying he wanted the unelected state board on which he sits to be given the power to create new charter schools, a priority of Dunleavy.

Fairbanks-area lawmakers who backed Griffin: Mike Cronk, Mike Prax, Robb Myers, Frank Tomaszewski.

Fairbanks-area lawmakers who opposed Griffin: Ashley Carrick, Maxine Dibert, Scott Kawasaki, Click Bishop, Will Stapp.

Here is the vote on his confirmation.

BARBARA TYNDALL: The Legislature confirmed Tyndall, a retired Christian school teacher and church worker from North Pole, for a seat on the state school board, 34-26.

Asked during her confirmation hearing in late March if she agreed with the Alaska Constitution provision that bans spending public funds on private schools, she said she accepts that public schools are “secular.”

“So yeah, I agree with that,” she said about the language in the Alaska Constitution. “For now.”

“For now,” responded Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson.

“Well yes, if some, you know if there, if there are changes in the future that’s fine, I can probably go with that too,” Tyndall said.

No one on the Senate Education Committee followed up on Tyndall’s acceptance of the education clause “for now” and the ban on using public funds for private schools. This was a few weeks before the landmark court ruling on unconstitutional spending on private schools.

Gray-Jackson voted against confirming her. Here is the vote on her appointment to a five-year term on the board, setting policy for public schools.

Fairbanks-area lawmakers who backed Tyndall: Scott Kawasaki, Click Bishop, Robb Myers, Will Stapp, Mike Prax, Mike Cronk and Frank Tomaszewski.

Fairbanks-area lawmakers who opposed Tyndall: Ashley Carrick and Maxine Dibert.

At her confirmation hearing in the House, Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot asked Tyndall what experience she had to justify her claims in 2022 that critical race theory is being taught in Alaska schools.

“For far too long, our schools have been used as propaganda machines to indoctrinate our children on CRT; to the exclusion of all other viewpoints,” Tyndall wrote. Here is her letter backing a bill by Sen. Lora Reinbold, “An act relating to transparency and compelled speech in education.”

Tyndall never answered Himschoot’s question.

Instead, she said this:

“I have been involved personally with my own children, with my grandchildren, with many of the children in my community who have felt that the school was not adequately meeting the needs of children, they were, going off in other directions, doing other things.

“I remember, it’s been some years now, I had a former teacher of mine who was telling me in the school system, I think she was teaching sixth grade, and she was very frustrated by the things coming into the school taking away class time.”

“There was this program, that program. They weren’t necessarily things that were objectionable to people. But she kept track for three years of her actual teaching time and she averaged an hour-and-a-half a day. And so a lot of these other programs that come in, that might be ‘Sea Week,” it might be whatever, they might be very good things.”

“But my, my contention was that we need to stick to education and we need to give teachers adequate time and not overburden them with all these other things that come, come down, that other agencies or people want to do this program or that program. And make sure that it is addressing the educational needs of our kids.”

Tyndall did not mention critical race theory in her confirmation hearings, though she talked about it at length two years ago.

She did not back up her claim that 90 minutes of every school day are dedicated to extraneous activities. She did not explain her opposition to mental health counseling in school. She did not show any awareness that the state board controls the education department. And she did not explain what she meant by saying she supports the Alaska Constitution language on education “for now.”

With her confirmation Tuesday, Tyndall will be on the Alaska State Board of Education until 2028.

MIKE PORCARO: An Anchorage adman and talk show host, Porcaro came within one vote of keeping the $136,000 state job bestowed on him by Dunleavy last summer.

The Legislature rejected him on a 30-30 vote, though it had first approved him on a 31-29 vote.

Porcaro has long used his radio show to attack government at all levels and preach about the virtues of budget discipline and cutting government waste.

Porcaro said that he never sought a state job, it was offered to him by Dunleavy. A 2015 audit said that the three commissioners of the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission had to work less than 15 hours a week and shouldn’t be collecting benefits.

Porcaro did not mention the loss of his full-time state job on his radio show Tuesday, but he did complain twice about Republicans in the Legislature, claiming that many are not trustworthy or honest.

“We supposedly have a Republican-controlled Legislature. Do we? The answer to that is no, we don’t. The Democrats are in control, especially in the Senate with a whole bunch of Republicans,” Porcaro said.

Here is the 30-30 Porcaro vote.

SETH CHURCH: The Legislature confirmed contractor Seth Church of Fairbanks without objection to serve on the University of Alaska Board of Regents until 2027. Church is a former board member of the Alaska Policy Forum who has long been active in right-wing causes.

Church is president and director of “Alaska Policy Partners,” a nonprofit group that has members who overlap with the Alaska Policy Forum, which is headquartered in the same Old Seward Highway building. The group ran the most scurrilous attack ads during the 2022 Alaska state campaign against moderate Republicans and Democrats. The group claims to promote “free market policies in social and civic venues . . .”

Among the early backers of Alaska Policy Partners were Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor and his wife Jodi Taylor, Bethany Marcum and Seth Church.

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