Gov. Mike Dunleavy appears to have won a second term without Juneau playing much of a role.
During campaign season, Dunleavy did not spend appreciable time in capital city, where he got about 30% of the vote in a city and borough that historically votes more liberally than the state as a whole.
But the Republican incumbent visited Juneau on Sunday, five days after initial statewide returns show him winning an outright majority that will avoid a ranked choice “instant runoff” against his two main two opponents. While he was here to deliver the keynote speech for the 80th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Juneau, he agreed after the ceremony to answer a trio of questions about his probable second term.
The following are the questions asked and his verbatim responses, annotated with contextual information in italics.
Question 1: What did you learn from the difficulties you experienced during the early stages of your first term that will affect your agenda and approach early in your second term?
(Context: Dunleavy’s first term, which started in December of 2018, got off to a rough start as a recall effort was launched in July of 2019 due to large-scale line-item vetoes on state spending including in $135 million cut – or about 41% – to the University of Alaska, plus cuts to the courts system after the Alaska Supreme Court struck down legislation related to state spending on medically necessary abortions. The recall effort, which due to legal wrangling dragged out through most of his first term, failed to get enough signatures to force an election.)
Answer: “This question been asked and it’s a great question. I think we’re really talking about the budget. You have an earthquake before you get in and you have to fix the place because of an earthquake. You’ve got budgets. We had aging ferries, we had a whole host of issues.
“What I learned is the key is communicating with all Alaskans why this is happening, what we have to do to certain things, what are the issues, etc. The first couple of months I probably didn’t communicate as well as I could have. But I guess that will be the big thing going forward — communicate, communicate, communicate — and I think you saw that, for example, during the pandemic. We had what must have been 200 press conferences informing Alaskans about the pandemic, what the status of the pandemic was. But all in all I would say that moving forward communications is going to be the key and we’re going to be focused on that to the greatest extent possible.”
(Context: A magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Nov. 30, four days before Dunleavy was sworn in, caused widespread damage in Anchorage and other parts of Southcentral Alaska, resulting in a federal disaster declaration for the area and the governor signing a $150.3 million aid package in April of 2019.)
Question 2: High oil prices that allowed for generous funding commitments during the past budget cycle have dropped significantly. How will that affect your thinking about spending going forward?
(Context: Oil prices that skyrocketed to a peak of nearly $128 a barrel in mid-2022 due largely to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which combined with federal pandemic-related funding allowed Dunleavy to run for reelection after signing a budget in June featuring the first state budget surplus in 10 years, a $3,284 Permanent Fund Dividend and policy pledges such as forward funding education. But prices began declining at the beginning of September, mostly fluctuating between $85 to $95 a barrel. The state can only do limited forward funding if the average price for the fiscal year is between $87 and $102, and the overall budget will fall into deficit if the average price is below $87 per barrel. The Department of Revenue’s current projected average price is $93 per barrel.)
Answer: “You still have oil at $95 a barrel, which is not bad for the state. It’s really bad for people that have to pay for it.
“But right now our budget’s in pretty good shape. We’ll have conversations with the Legislature about how much they want to spend, how they want to fund that, especially if they want to spend more money. But those are going to be conversations we have every year.
“We’re looking forward to a positive year, to talk about what Alaska’s going to look like, not just for the next year, but for the next 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 years, because that’s what we have to do. We have to make sure Alaska is independent when it comes to energy internally, food-wise, infrastructure-wise. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. But I look forward to working with the Legislature.”
Question 3: On a Southeast Alaska issue, and as a representative example for your approach to the region, how would you respond to people wondering if you will again seek heavy cuts to the Alaska Marine Highway now that you’re assured of another four years in office?
(Context: Dunleavy said “there is no plan to hack, cut or destroy the marine highway system” during the campaign for his first term, but shortly after taking office proposed a 75% reduction to the ferry’s system’s budget and aspirations to privatize the system. The most severe cuts were avoided during the legislative process, but the state’s most recent infrastructure report card, which averages a C-, gives its lowest grade of D to several entities including the Alaska Marine Highway System. The system is reaping a windfall via $1 billion in “essential ferry service” for rural areas, secured by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s in last year’s infrastructure bill, which is what Dunleavy and many other officials are often referring to in terms of future spending plans on upgraded vessels and facilities.)
Answer: “We helped put together an endowment for the ferry system. We funded the replacement for the Tustumena. We changed the schedule at the request of the folks down here so they could capture a lot more of the fare from a 12-month to 16-month schedule. So we’ve done a number of things in conjunction with folks along the coast in regard to the schedule.
“So our goal is to make sure we have a sustainable ferry that isn’t falling apart every year. When we came into office we had ships that were 50 years old. There was no real maintenance schedule and that’s something we have to talk to the Legislature about. We’ve got to have a maintenance schedule so we don’t find ourselves in this spot again.”
• Contact reporter Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com
