Gov. Mike Dunleavy plans to veto a bill naming a storied University of Alaska, Anchorage, public policy research center after its first director, Vic Fischer, Dunleavy’s office said Wednesday.
Fischer was a delegate to Alaska’s constitutional convention who had a seven-decade career in politics in the state. In 1966, he became the first official director of what’s now known as the Institute for Social and Economic Research at UAA.
In the 60 years since, the institute known by its initials as ISER has examined a wide range of economic and policy questions. Just this year, ISER published an extensive look at the state’s options for closing a long-running budget gap and highlighted a structural economic policy issue that researchers dubbed the “Alaska Disconnect.”
Dunleavy spokesperson Jeff Turner disclosed the governor’s plans to veto House Bill 79 in a call to Alaska Public Media on Wednesday, saying the University of Alaska had requested the governor veto the bill. He declined to allow a reporter to record the call and directed questions to the university.
Board of Regents Chair Scott Jepsen recommended Dunleavy veto the bill, University of Alaska public affairs director Jonathon Taylor said.
“When the governor's office reached out to us to ask us our opinion on HB 79, Chair Jepsen recommended that it be vetoed because it doesn't follow the established, transparent process we already have in place for naming university facilities and programs,” Taylor said in an interview. He provided links to university policy and regulation governing the renaming of academic programs and university buildings.
As of Thursday morning, the Alaska House Chief Clerk Crys Jones had yet to receive a formal veto message, she said.
Anchorage Democratic Sen. Forrest Dunbar proposed naming the institute after Fischer.
“Frankly, I think it's a little bit disrespectful to Vic Fischer's memory,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar attached the proposal to House Bill 79, sponsored by Anchorage Democratic Rep. Zack Fields, which would have also renamed Shoup Bay State Marine Park near Valdez after Fischer.
“He was the first director of ISER, and so it's appropriate to rename ISER after him,” Dunbar said. “It's unfortunate that the governor did this, and it's very unfortunate if it's true that the university asked him to do it.”
Fischer’s decade as founding director of ISER was a highlight of his long career in public policy, which in addition to his work as a constitutional convention delegate also included stints in Alaska’s territorial and state legislatures, said Fischer’s widow, Jane Angvik. Fischer died in 2023 at 99.
“It has advised legislators and governors for decades. It simply provides the most reliable source of information about the social and economic structures of Alaska,” she said in a phone interview. “ISER was Vic's gift to Alaska.”
Turner, the governor’s spokesperson, volunteered that the veto was not connected to Fischer’s work on the 2019 campaign seeking to recall Dunleavy.
At 92, Fischer served as a co-chair of the recall campaign, enraged by Dunleavy’s cuts to university programs, Angvik said.
“I don’t know if he remembers that,” Angvik said. “But I wonder.”
Dunbar said he “struggles to believe” that Dunleavy would have vetoed a similar bill naming ISER after a prominent member of his own party, such as former Republican Congressman Don Young.
University of Alaska public affairs director Jonathon Taylor declined to address Dunbar’s claim.
“I don’t do hypotheticals,” Taylor said in a phone interview, adding that the decision “doesn't have anything to do with a particular person or a particular issue.”
The university has repeatedly honored Fischer in other ways, Taylor said. Fischer was awarded two honorary doctorates and is listed as ISER’s director emeritus, he said.
The bill passed by a combined vote of 48 to 12 in the Legislature, greater than the 40 votes needed to override a veto, though lawmakers have failed on numerous occasions to override Dunleavy’s vetoes of similarly popular bills.
Lawmakers plan to return to Juneau for a floor session during the ongoing special session on gas pipeline legislation on July 1.
