Leftist bloggers have been floating the rumor this week that Anchorage Superintendent of Schools Deena Bishop is in talks with Gov. Mike Dunleavy on the subject of her joining his team as his running mate in 2022.
Nothing is further from the truth, Dunleavy said in a conversation with Must Read Alaska today.
Bishop has been the superintendent for Anchorage for the past six years. Before that, she worked in the Mat-Su Borough School District, where Dunleavy was on the school board. That was, evidently, enough of a link for bloggers to float the theory.
But Bishop had announced she would remain with the District through the end of the school year in June, which would have made it impossible for her to campaign. After that, she said she’ll spend more time with family.
The bloggers may have forgotten that Bishop came out publicly against separate bathrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls, saying it was unenforceable and bad for kids. “I honestly don’t know how we would enforce something like that,” she said.
That question, called the bathroom bill, was put to Anchorage voters in 2018, and over 52.6 percent of Anchorage voters agreed with Bishop that boys who want to use girls’ bathrooms should be able to do so.
This year, a parent in Louden County, Virginia confronted a school board over that policy, claiming his daughter had been raped and sodomized by a boy dressed in a skirt who was using the girls’ bathroom because district policy allowed him to use the bathroom he chooses. Parents in Louden County are now demanding the superintendent’s resignation and the incident likely led to a defeat of the Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe by a Republican newcomer, Glenn Youngkin.
In this year of backlash against liberal policies, it’s doubtful that Bishop’s well-known stance on mixed-gender bathrooms in schools, or her ringing endorsement of “White Fragility” pedagogy would help Dunleavy win reelection.
Also not in the running for running mate is Democrat Rep. Geran Tarr, although she attended a bill signing this year, which certainly should be enough to fuel blogger speculation.
