It is terribly shocking when a Mat-Su Republican legislator goes from being a homeschool dad one day to suddenly being anti-homeschool right before an election.
I was shocked too, especially since I was (and still am) that homeschool dad.
I, and many other Alaskans, were told by Jubilee Underwood that I opposed the 2024 homeschool bill (House Bill 202) and that I voted against it.
That news was all the more surprising because not only did I vote in favor of the bill, but every other legislator did as well. The bill passed with a vote of 40 to 0.
Actually, when the bill came up for a vote not only did I vote in favor of it, but I also rose and spoke in favor of passing the bill in the Alaska House of Representatives (watch video) and had to declare a personal conflict of interest as a homeschool parent (watch video).
When a Mat-Su politician asserts something confidently enough, and posts documents to back up her claims, and repeats it enough times, most people naturally want to believe her. The alternative is something few would even want to consider.
My parents first began homeschooling in 1987. I was the first acknowledged homeschool graduate to serve in the Alaska Legislature. My wife attended traditional public school, but homeschooling held out opportunities for our kids that she didn’t have growing up, and we have been active homeschooling parents now for more than five years.
You can imagine my surprise when Jubilee publicly announced on her campaign page, in August of 2024, that I opposed the homeschool bill (HB202) and did not celebrate it becoming law.
To back up her accusation, she dialogued with a former Democrat staffer about me on her campaign page and even posted screenshots of a website showing me voting NO on a bill (the screenshot did not show which bill), and a quote from an Alaska Beacon article explaining my opposition to a bill (again, her screenshot did not show which bill).
Both screenshots were used to make it look like I voted NO on a homeschool bill that passed 40 to 0 and that we all celebrated the passage of.
Both referred to my vote on a bill that had no connection to homeschooling.
On October 4th, the Republican Chairman for House District 27 (the house seat she was running for and currently holds) called her out publicly on her campaign page and provided the official legislative record for the homeschool bill (House Bill 202), which shows that the bill passed the house with a vote of 40-0.
She ignored the correction.
Two weeks later, on October 20th, another Republican district chairman (from Anchorage) also publicly called her out on her campaign page for lying and creating propaganda.
She ignored the correction.
Jubilee then spent at least $500 to buy between 30,000 and 35,000 Facebook ads declaring, among other things, that I wasn’t the conservative I claimed to be and that I had voted against a homeschool bill. The ads ran between October 28th and November 5th, well after she had been publicly called out by two Republican leaders for spreading false information. She also spent money to put out the same accusations in radio ads.
Below is a portion of that ad. You can find the full ad on Facebook.
Jubilee used it to win an election by 196 votes. She never apologized.
And that is how a Mat-Su homeschool dad becomes an anti-homeschool fake the week before an election.
In today’s politics, the most ardent defender of homeschooling will be publicly accused of being anti-homeschool. The most ardent defender of the unborn will be publicly accused of promoting genocide and wanting children to die. The most consistent advocate for the Constitution will be publicly accused of wanting to subvert it.
The left will attack you where you are strong because that is where you pose the greatest threat to their agenda. If a conservative public figure is being attacked by the left for being a nazi (read: Anti-communist) now you know why. It’s the fact that they oppose communism that the left is worried about.
