Gov. Mike Dunleavy has vetoed a bill that would allow paramedics and other licensed emergency responders to provide treatment to injured police and rescue dogs.
Current state law permits non-licensed people to treat injured “operational canines,” but licensed providers are forbidden from helping because doing so would be considered veterinary medicine and a violation of their license.
House Bill 70, from Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, was inspired by the death of an Alaska State Trooper canine during a 2017 police chase in Wasilla.
The Alaska House approved the bill by a 32-8 vote on April 28, and the state Senate followed suit with a 20-0 vote on May 20.
Some veterinarians lobbied against the bill, and in his veto message, the governor sided with those veterinarians, saying that the “veterinary community warns this approach blurs scopes of practices, increases liability exposure, and duplicates services already available.”
“Given the rarity of canine field emergencies, expanding state authority in this area is neither necessary nor prudent,” the governor wrote.
By phone, Schrage said he was “obviously disappointed” by the governor’s decision.
“This bill, in my view, was a common-sense piece of legislation to remove some red tape currently preventing our first responders from providing life-saving care to our police search and rescue dogs. And I thought it would have been a useful tool for our first responders to have, given that we have seen some of these critical first responder dogs actually pass away in traumatic circumstances in the past,” he said.
The veto of HB 70 could be overridden if 40 members of the 60-person Legislature agree to do so during the first five days of a special legislative session scheduled to begin Aug. 2 in Juneau.
Schrage said he isn’t sure whether he will seek an override.
“Overrides are a sensitive topic and fairly complicated, as we have a very limited opportunity to take those up, and I don’t want to bring a bill up that there isn’t broad support for overriding, so we’ll have to have further conversations on that topic and see how this plays out,” he said.
Of the 33 bills passed by the Legislature this year, the governor has vetoed seven and issued line-item vetoes to budget bills. Two passed bills have not yet been sent to his desk. Two others are awaiting his action. The remainder have become law.
Of the seven vetoes, one was sustained during the regular session and another was overridden. The five remaining vetoes, plus line-item budget vetoes, will be subject to consideration during the special session.
James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he is married and has a daughter, owns a house in Juneau and has a small sled dog named Barley. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
