Recall Dunleavy Wins Again

Mike Dunleavy, Alaska’s governor, Bog help us

Let’s recap.

Mike Dunleavy is the governor of the State of Alaska, elected in 2018. In just one year, he has taken the trophy for Worst Governor in Alaska’s history from the likes of Keith Miller, Sarah Palin and Sean Parnell. A remarkable, if appalling, achievement.

Dunleavy has been so bad that the Recall Dunleavy campaign  was able to obtain all of signatures required for the first phase of a recall effort under Alaska’s byzantine recall procedures in less than a month. The requirement was 28,901 signatures; Recall Dunleavy provided 49,006.

The next step in the recall process was legal review by the Alaska Department of Law. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson – a Dunleavy appointee – found the grounds for recall legally insufficient. The Recall Dunleavy campaign challenged AG Clarkson’s ruling in court. And won. Superior Court Judge Eric Aarseth found that all but one part of one of the four grounds for recall were legally valid and constitutional. Judge Aarseth ordered the Director of Elections to issue the petition pamphlets, the third step in the recall process.

The Governor has a three-fold strategy in response to all these developments. First, he stalls in every way he can, hoping the passage of time will change his electoral fortunes. Second, made a series of appeals and pitches to Outside, right wing funders, looking for money to mount an anti-Recall campaign. Third, he dialed back his behavior somewhat in an attempt to placate his outraged constituency.

It was that first tactic that sent his attorneys scrambling back to Judge Aarseth asking him to stop the recall effort from proceeding while he appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court. Surprisingly, Judge Aarseth more or less reversed himself and granted that stay. The Recall Dunleavy Campaign appealed that stay to the state supreme court. The Alaska Supreme Court, in response to the Recall Dunleavy campaign’s request,  issued an order dissolving Judge Aarseth’s stay, and ordering the Division of Election to move the next step in the recall process: printing and distributing the booklets to collect signatures.

The second tactic is an implicit admission that his legal case is nonsense. In fact, the Alaska Supreme Court, in its order, announced it was unpersuaded that the appeal was likely to succeed:

Having granted summary judgment to Recall Dunleavy, the superior court implicitly rejected the argument that Stand Tall with Mike will probably succeed on the merits of its appeal. We conclude that it has not made that showing here, either, in its response to Recall Dunleavy’s Motion to Lift Stay.

Admittedly, it’s not conclusive, but as omens go, it’s pretty useful. WC doesn’t doubt that Dunleavy shook down the right wing donors – including his brother – to give him lots and lots of money to resist both the signature collection effort and the recall election itself if the Recall Dunleavy campaign is successful in collecting signatures.

The third tactic has been hampered by Dunleavy’s earlier vetoes. The Alaska Marine Highway system, is at a virtual standstill, as the sole remaining operating ferry has been shut down by mechanical problems. The folks in southeastern, coastal southcentral and southwestern Alaska are pretty unhappy with the Governor. Their travel, groceries and supplies are largely cut-off. Dunleavy’s war on the state employees unions has alienated most of the state and municipal employees. And, of course, he has broken his campaign promises of no impacton government services and fat Permanent Fund Dividends.

Outside of the Mat-Su Valley, where voters are obsessed with no taxes and any chance, however small, of those big PFDs, much of his base constituency may be gone. And Dunleavy’s tactics since the Recall Dunleavy campaign got those 49,006 signatures so quickly is fine evidence that Dunleavy knows he’s in big trouble, too.