“On one hand, a veto of this half measure would seem appropriate, but at this stage of the game that would aid and abet those that don’t care about individual Alaskans, small businesses and the economy,” said Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in his official written statement regarding the Legislature’s passage of a $1,100 dividend.
”Aid and abet” has a specific legal meaning, which is defined as “To assist someone in committing or encourage someone to commit a crime.” A crime. What crime was being committed here? When did it become a crime for a bipartisan body of duly elected legislators to disagree with a governor and come to a reasonable compromise over a legitimate disagreement? Dunleavy’s use of this phrase was either embarrassingly ignorant, deeply malicious or mindlessly careless. Probably all three. It really shouldn’t be necessary to say this, especially after a full-blown recall effort slapping Dunleavy’s hand for his earliest my-way-or-the-highway actions: We didn’t elect an emperor.
And who’s really the champion of Alaska’s future, here, anyway?
Clearly, it’s the members of the bipartisan coalition in the House, who fought so hard to preserve the money-earning potential of the only state savings account we’ll ever have. It was a brave and principled effort to extend the enormous benefits of that account to “… individual Alaskans, small businesses, and the economy” of our state well into the future. It certainly is not our governor, who is willing to squander it in what is essentially an enormous bribe to gin up greed, anger, and — even more — divisiveness in Alaska’s voters. It’s no secret that his party’s real goal is to use that anger and greed over the Permanent Fund dividend to pry open the door of a constitutional convention in order to lay open Alaska’s government for wholesale gutting, replacing it with the far-right’s fever dream of a one-party, Texas-style state.
— Ken Higgins
Anchorage
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