Suzanne Downing: Two veto overrides are hardly historic — Alaska governors have faced far more legislative pushback

By SUZANNE DOWNING

June 21, 2026 – The headlines from Alaska’s mainstream media would have you believe Gov. Mike Dunleavy suffered some sort of major rebuke when the Legislature overrode two of his vetoes on Friday.

In reality, the opposite is true.

The Alaska Legislature has overridden just two of Dunleavy’s nine vetoes this year. Historically, that’s a remarkably low number.

Context is everything, and context is what is often missing from modern political reporting.

When lawmakers overrode Dunleavy’s vetoes of House Bill 195, dealing with expanded prescribing authority for pharmacists, and House Bill 314, a licensing and regulatory measure involving interior designers and professional boards, many news stories focused on the fact of the overrides. They could not be bothered to explain the context.

The truth is that governors expect some of their vetoes to be challenged. The veto is not a ceremonial power. It is one of the principal checks a governor has against a Legislature that often wants to spend more money, create more programs, or expand government authority. Or in this case, expand the authority of pharmacists to prescribe dangerous drugs without a doctor in the conversation.

The more meaningful question is not whether any Alaska  governor has ever had a veto overridden. The question is how often.

Consider Gov. Jay Hammond, arguably one of the most beloved governors in Alaska history. He came into office in 1974 when the state budget was $335 million. In his 8 years the budget went to $3.2 billion. That’s an increase of over 855.22%. The framers of the Alaska Constitution made it so that 45 votes would be needed for a budget override, and 40 votes for other non-budget bills.

During his two terms from 1974 to 1982, Hammond issued roughly 70 full-bill vetoes. The Legislature overrode 15 of them.

He also issued 42 appropriation vetoes, with lawmakers successfully overriding four of those actions in whole or in part.

No one would look at those numbers and conclude Hammond was weak. In fact, Hammond remains one of the most respected figures in Alaska political history. Beloved is not too strong a word.

The Legislature simply disagreed with him more often and possessed the votes to challenge him.

Gov. Tony Knowles experienced even greater legislative resistance.

Between 1994 and 2002, lawmakers overrode approximately 20 of his vetoes. At the time, those overrides represented a substantial share of all veto overrides in Alaska history. Knowles frequently faced Republican-controlled legislative majorities willing to push back against his spending decisions.

Again, nobody rewrites Alaska history to portray Knowles as politically irrelevant because some of his vetoes were overturned. That’s just how the constitutional process works.

Now consider Dunleavy’s record.

From the day he took office in 2019 through the end of 2024, not a single veto override succeeded. Not one.

Multiple attempts were made. Legislators challenged him on education funding and other issues. Every effort failed.

In fact, before the first successful override in 2025, Alaska had not overridden a sitting governor’s veto since 2009.

That alone should tell readers something about Dunleavy’s effectiveness at holding his coalition together.

Last year, lawmakers finally broke through with three overrides. One involved House Bill 57, the large education funding and policy bill. Another involved a line-item education funding veto. A third involved legislation related to legislative audit powers.

This year they added two more.

That brings the total number of successful overrides against Dunleavy since he became governor to five.

Five over nearly eight years in office.

Compare that with Hammond’s 15 full-veto overrides and Knowles’ 20 overrides, and the narrative begins to look very different.

The real story is not that the Legislature overrode two Dunleavy vetoes. What we are getting with Ranked-Choice Voting is Republicans acting more and more like Democrats. The mushy middle.

Further, despite facing a bipartisan coalition majority in both chambers and despite years of intense battles over education spending, the Permanent Fund dividend, election law, and energy policy, Dunleavy remains one of the most successful Alaska governors of the modern era at sustaining vetoes.

The next time a headline announces that lawmakers have overridden a Dunleavy veto, readers should ask a simple question: Compared to what? Without that context, it isn’t really news. It’s just a number. The evidence shows Dunleavy is stronger than Hammond and Knowles in this regard, … and many other regards, such as holding down the budget to below inflation. Dunleavy has been a strong governor throughout his tenure.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story, and is a longtime Alaskan.