The Alaska Legislature’s March 18 failure to override the governor’s veto of the education funding bill was an orgy of cowardice. Only a few weeks ago, 56 legislators voted for a compromise bill that increased the Base Student Allocation for education funding for the first time in years. Fifty-six legislators! Now, only a few weeks later, 17 of them did not have the backbone to stand behind their votes. They simply caved. They had claimed to stand for education, but it turns out they stand for nothing except what the governor tells them to stand for.
I am disgusted that my representative, Dan Saddler, was one of the 17 who could not stand behind their votes. He was quoted as explaining that he voted against the funding because the governor “will exercise that constitutional authority to veto the funding” at a later date. This is illogical. It is like saying you are worried that someone will one day run over your dog, so you are going to get in your car now and run over your dog.
If you support school funding, then you vote for the school funding and make it part of Alaska law. It still leaves time to negotiate the governor’s priorities, and to override his future funding veto if necessary. Instead, Saddler just rolled over and killed the bill. As of this morning, he has not yet updated his web page to let his constituents know that he supports larger class sizes, overworked teachers and cutting school programs, but I’m sure he will have the intellectual honesty to add them.
— Michael Hershel
Chugiak
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