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After the Legislature narrowly voted to reject Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s appointee to the College of Alaska Board of Regents, the governor appointed Wednesday former chief of workers Tuckerman Babcock to the place.
Babcock served as Dunleavy’s chief of workers at a time when the governor proposed deep cuts to state companies, adopted by vetoes of a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in state spending, together with to the college system. A few of the cuts had been finally restored amid widespread backlash.
These 2019 proposed cuts had been one of many causes cited by lawmakers once they earlier this month voted to reject Dunleavy’s first choose for the Board of Regents, Bethany Marcum.
Marcum is the director of a conservative advocacy group that had championed the cuts proposed by Dunleavy.
The alignment between Marcum and Babcock of their positions on the cuts to school funding led some to consider that Babcock could be rejected by the Legislature simply as Marcum was.
“The time that he was chief of workers was the time the place probably the most important cuts to the college system occurred. These had been the identical cuts that had been defended by Bethany Marcum. So I’m not fairly positive why the governor perceived this as a more sensible choice,” stated Tom Begich, a Democratic former state senator and childhood pal of Babcock. “So I’d anticipate that the result would most likely be much like what Miss Marcum encountered.”
Babcock resigned from the governor’s workplace in August 2019, shortly after a recall marketing campaign was launched in opposition to Dunleavy. He has additionally served beforehand as the pinnacle of the Alaska Republican Social gathering, a three-year time period as a commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Fuel Conservation Fee, the chair of the redistricting board in 1991, and a decade on the Matanuska Electrical Affiliation. In 2022, he misplaced an election to state Senate to extra average Republican Sen. Jesse Bjorkman.
“I don’t assume he’s going to be confirmed, so I assume it’s form of a short lived appointment,” stated Rep. Zack Fields, an Anchorage Democrat.
“Basically, he tried to destroy the college, and doesn’t have a report of supporting it,” stated Fields, including that the finances cuts proposed by Dunleavy — with Babcock as his chief adviser — had been “unpopular, unwise, and resoundingly rejected on a bipartisan foundation.”
As a result of the Legislature has simply adjourned its common legislative session, it will likely be practically a 12 months till lawmakers convene once more to approve or reject the governor’s picks for state boards and commissions. Babcock can serve on the Board of Regents — which oversees all services and applications of the College of Alaska — till the Legislature votes on his appointment, doubtless within the spring of subsequent 12 months.
“I’m trying ahead to reviewing the finances and getting grasp of the place all of the completely different sources of earnings are,” stated Babcock in a short cellphone interview on Wednesday, including that he’s “not charging in with any explicit agenda.”
The state paid a $495,000 settlement on behalf of Babcock and Dunleavy to 2 state psychiatrists who had been fired firstly of Dunleavy’s time in workplace for refusing to signal a so-called “loyalty pledge” to the governor.
Requested about that settlement, Babcock stated “that’s actually one thing that’s prior to now.”
“I’ve a 40-year plus status of working in all ranges of native and state authorities and personal enterprise. I don’t assume there’s going to be any actual problem there,” Babcock stated. “The Board of Trustees has all kinds of opinions on it, and represents Alaska nicely. I’ll hopefully be a optimistic member in that blend.”
In a written assertion, Dunleavy stated he’s “assured that Tuckerman’s professional information of public service and management will proceed to assist Alaska for the higher.”
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