[Dunleavy vetoes half of education increase as he signs budget]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\nHowever, the odds of a successful override are “going to be very difficult,” according to state Sen. Jesse Kiehl, a Juneau Democrat, in an interview Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
“I think the question is, do education advocates, parents and business leaders across the state tell their legislators that this is important enough to say ‘heck with politics — do what’s right for Alaska,’” he said. “If they do it’s not outside the realm of possibility, but it’s very difficult.”<\/p>\n
According to state statute, if an override is the finish line, there are a few hurdles proponents need to overcome to cross it.<\/p>\n
First, it would require the Legislature to call themselves into a special session. To do that, two-thirds of Alaska’s lawmakers must vote to enter one. According to Keihl, the odds of that happening are low — and that’s just the first hurdle.<\/p>\n
”I think you’d be hard-pressed to find two-thirds of Alaska legislators to say let’s have a special session,” he said. “I think it’s very difficult to clear and I don’t see it today.”<\/p>\n
If two-thirds do vote in favor of a special session, the vote to override the vetoes would require three-fourths — 45 votes — of the full Legislature.<\/p>\n
In 2019, the Alaska Legislature tried and failed to override the budget, which included $390 million in state funding being vetoed by Dunleavy.<\/p>\n
Sen. Löki Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat and the chair of the Senate Education Committee, in a tweet Monday night, said she would “fully support” an effort by the Legislature to override what she described as a “short-sighted veto” to the education finding.<\/p>\n
“Gov Dunleavy’s decision to use his line-item veto authority to cut $87 mil in one-time funding for AK’s public education system will cause irreparable harm on our already struggling school districts,” she wrote.<\/p>\n
Rep. Cliff Groh, an Anchorage Democrat, said in a tweet Tuesday that he was “dismayed” by the vetoes included in the budget.<\/p>\n
“More than $200 million total, with more than half the cuts coming to education (mostly K-12),” he wrote. “These cuts to education are particularly disappointing and embarrassing for our state.”<\/p>\n
Sen. Scott Kawasaki, a Fairbanks Democrat and chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee, said he would also support a veto override to restore education cuts.<\/p>\n
Dunleavy can also call for a special session if he wants. He did so this year immediately after the regular session ended in a stalemate in the Legislature, which was resolved on the first day of that special session. He has also discussed calling legislators into a special session this fall to work on a long-range fiscal plan.<\/p>\n
When asked Tuesday if the governor had plans to call another special session before the Legislature is scheduled to convene next January, a spokesperson did not say if he intended to or not.<\/p>\n
“If the Governor calls a special session, we will announce it through a press release,” said Shannon Mason with the office of the governor.<\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Clarise Larson at clarise.larson@juneauempire.com or (651)-528-1807.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Odds are “going to be very difficult,” says Juneau senator. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":890,"featured_media":100379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[34,544],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-100378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100378"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=100378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}