Alaska Legislature approves $100,000 lawsuit over Dunleavy funding legal challenge to state union dues rules

JUNEAU — The Alaska Legislature on Thursday approved spending up to $100,000 on a lawsuit against Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration for ignoring legislative directives and funding a legal challenge to state union dues rules.

Dunleavy issued an administrative order in 2019 that said state employees would need to annually opt into union membership, based on the administration’s reading of the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision. A legal challenge was filed by the state’s largest public sector union and the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in May that Dunleavy’s plan had violated state law — describing “an anti-union animus” behind the administration’s actions.

In August, the Dunleavy administration announced it was appealing that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In response to the protracted legal fight, the Legislature approved operating budgets in 2020 and 2021 that limited how much Dunleavy could spend on his challenges to state union dues rules. Dunleavy vetoed those appropriations and subsequently spent $315,034 on legal work by attorneys at Consovoy McCarthy, a Virginia-based law firm.

The Dunleavy administration argued that the Legislature had inappropriately tried to restrict the attorney general and confine the executive branch. But Kris Curtis, the Legislature’s auditor, released a report last month that said the Dunleavy administration had likely violated state law by disregarding lawmakers’ directives and hiring outside counsel instead of state attorneys.

Legislative Council — a joint committee that represents the Legislature as a whole — voted Thursday to approve funding the lawsuit against the Dunleavy administration on a 10-3 vote. All three no votes — Reps. Cathy Tilton, Kevin McCabe and Craig Johnson — are members of the House Republican majority.

McCabe, a Big Lake Republican, classified the lawsuit as “politically driven.” Speaking in opposition to funding the legal action, he said that the Legislature could write a letter to the attorney general or pass a resolution if it wanted to oppose the Dunleavy administration’s actions.

“I think it’s just the wrong,” McCabe said. “We’re using a sledgehammer to do what we could do with a scalpel.”

Senate President Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, said that the lawsuit could end up costing more than $100,000, but he still supported it. Echoing a majority of members of Legislative Council, Stevens said that it was a separation of power issue for the Legislature.

“We have to keep control of the spending in the state,” he said. “That’s our job.”

In response to the lawsuit, Patty Sullivan, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law, said that the Legislature had granted the attorney general broad discretion to pursue litigation in the public interest.

“The Department of Law remains firm in its stance that the Legislature can’t use the budget to tell the executive branch what litigation to pursue and not pursue – that is clearly a violation of the separation of powers,” she said through a prepared statement.