So Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants to make the next special session of the Legislature accessible to more Alaskans. If that’s the case, why not hold it in Anchorage? It’s Alaska’s major population center (290,000 vs. the Mat-Su Borough’s 90,000), it’s only one hour from the Mat-Su (and just two from the Kenai Peninsula Borough), and it already has an actual legislative office. Presumably with adult-sized chairs. As a strategy, the governor’s demand is not just embarrassingly Trumpian, it’s laughably transparent. The Mat-Su region is the very epicenter of Dunleavy’s anti-government, anti-tax, high PFD-payout base. Like President Donald Trump with his cult rallies, Gov. Dunleavy wants to pack the legislative galleries (bleachers?) with as many of those 90,000 reliably vocal Mat-Su folks as possible in order to create a false sense that they represent everybody.
I urge our Legislature to unite across party lines in at least one area: Don’t let our governor for one instant believe that he can direct you like some two-bit Joseph Stalin with a rubber-stamp Duma. The longer you put off educating him about the constitutional limits to his power, the harder it will be.
— Ken Higgins
Anchorage
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