Sorted by date Results 26 - 44 of 44
In an unannounced move, the State Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution March 14 that urges the Alaska Department of Education to limit the participation of transgender girls in girls school sports. The resolution, which is non-binding, encourages the department to adopt a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing alongside girls who are cisgender — meaning their gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth — in school sports. The resolution asks the department to create two sports divisions: one exc...
While education advocates continue to push for increased state funding to Alaska public schools, Gov. Mike Dunleavy last week opted to introduce proposals that would limit sexual education in schools and impose new requirements on gender-nonconforming students. The governor at his March 7 news conference did not propose any increase in the state’s per-student funding formula for school districts, essentially unchanged in six years, though he did ask legislative approval of retention bonuses for teachers. Most legislators have said an i...
Newly appointed Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said last Thursday that she was considering severing ties with a nonprofit that helps maintain voter rolls nationwide, after several Republican-led states announced earlier this month their intention to pull out of the effort. Beecher told state lawmakers she was evaluating Alaska’s membership in the organization during a presentation to the Senate State Affairs Committee. She cited the cost of the program as a reason for leaving despite the benefits it provides. Her c...
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Feb. 15 appointed a longtime state employee and Republican Party supporter to lead the Alaska Division of Elections. Carol Beecher, who led the state's child support enforcement division for the past nine years, will now administer Alaska's elections. Her first day was Feb. 15. Beecher grew up at a logging camp on Zarembo Island and graduated from Wrangell High School in 1980, according to the lieutenant governor's office. She succeeds Gail Fenumiai, the division's...
A group seeking to reverse Alaska’s 2020 election reform has begun gathering signatures to put the question before voters on the 2024 ballot. The ballot initiative is seeking to do away with open primaries and ranked-choice voting in general elections, returning to Alaska’s previous elections rules, which included closed partisan primaries and traditional pick-one general elections. Ranked-choice voting and open primaries were adopted in Alaska in 2020 through a ballot measure that passed narrowly, with just over 50% of voters in favor of the...
JUNEAU — Amid a deepening crisis in recruiting and keeping state workers, the Alaska Legislature is again considering measures to recreate a pension plan for public employees, but disagreements on the type and extent of the plan mean a long path ahead. A deficit of billions of dollars led lawmakers in 2006 to do away with the state’s defined-benefits plans, which gave state and municipal employees a dependable pension calculated on their years of service and average salary, not reliant on the ups and downs of the stock market. Instead, the stat...
While Alaska lawmakers have not yet started to discuss specific numbers, public education advocates are calling for an increase of at least 14% to the per-student formula used to calculate state funding for K-12 schooling. In Senate Education Committee meetings held in the second week of the legislative session, members of the bipartisan Senate majority appeared open to a sizable increase to the base student allocation formula, but have yet to put forward legislation to that effect. At the same time, Republicans who control the majority in the...
JUNEAU — A newly formed House majority — comprised of 19 Republicans, two Democrats and two independents — finalized its membership last Thursday, signaling a rightward shift in the chamber after six years of bipartisan coalitions composed mostly of Democrats. The four-member Bush Caucus representing predominantly Alaska Native rural areas of the state joined most House Republicans to form a caucus on the second day of the legislative session, ending weeks of uncertainty over House leadership and giving many Republicans their first exper...
A new group has announced it will attempt to do away with ranked-choice voting in Alaska by ballot initiative, and former Gov. Sarah Palin was the first to sign the petition — before the outcome of her failed congressional bid ws final. Alaskans for Honest Government, a political action committee that formed last month, hosted an event Nov. 17 where group organizers launched their effort to collect signatures to put the question of reinstating the state’s former voting system to voters on the 2024 ballot. Ranked-choice voting was adopted in...
In the days following last Tuesday’s election, U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka joined other Trump-endorsed Republican candidates around the country casting unfounded doubt on election results, despite the fact that Alaska election officials are still counting thousands of absentee ballots and have not reported widespread problems in voting. “Our war is not over yet,” Tshibaka said last Wednesday in a podcast interview with Steve Bannon, who previously advised then-President Donald Trump. “This might come down to things like recount...
Alaska's four candidates for governor sparred over crime, education, abortion access and the state budget on Oct. 19 in the only live televised debate ahead of the November election. Independent former Gov. Bill Walker and Democratic former state legislator Les Gara devoted much of their responses to attacking Republican incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his record. Meanwhile, Dunleavy and fellow Republican candidate Charlie Pierce, former mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, appeared to agree...
In unprecedented move tailor-made for Alaska’s new voting system, two different campaigns for governor on Oct. 28 released a joint ad urging voters to rank them either first or second — regardless of the order. It’s not a new message for independent candidate former Gov. Bill Walker and Democratic candidate former state Rep. Les Gara. Both Walker and Gara for months have indicated that they would vote for the other candidate second. But it’s the first time their campaigns have indicated as much in an ad jointly produced by the two campaig...
U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s “pro-fish” message was met with scrutiny at an Oct. 4 candidate forum in Kodiak that focused on the commercial fishing industry. Peltola was sworn in to the U.S. House last month after winning a special election to serve out the fourth-month remainder of the late Rep. Don Young’s term. Peltola, a Democrat, now faces another election against Republicans Nick Begich III and former Gov. Sarah Palin, along with Libertarian Chris Bye, to determine who will hold Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat for the two-year term that begi...
In their first time sharing a debate stage, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka presented their visions for representing Alaska as Republicans. And the differences were just as pronounced in style as they were in policy. Murkowski highlighted her 20-year tenure as a moderate dedicated to advancing resource development while maximizing federal funding for Alaska. For Tshibaka, it was a vision of resisting the Biden administration’s energy policies and federal largesse, epitomized by this year’s inf...
One of the three U.S. House candidates was missing at a candidates forum in Kenai on Aug. 3: Former Gov. Sarah Palin instead held a fundraiser in Minneapolis, according to photos she posted on her Instagram account. The next day, she was in Dallas for a 20-minute onstage interview titled “She’s Back!” Her Texas appearance was at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which draws notable Republican and conservative politicians, including former President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Her opponents to fill the se...
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Aug. 1 joined a bipartisan coalition to introduce a bill that would protect abortion and contraception access. The measure faces an uncertain future in a Senate that failed to pass a broader measure enshrining abortion rights in May. It also comes as Murkowski faces reelection this fall, with abortion emerging as a key issue in that campaign. Despite the bill’s bipartisan co-sponsors — Democrats Tim Kaine, of Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, and Republicans Susan Collins, of Maine, and Murko...
If early results hold up in Alaska’s 48-candidate special primary election for U.S. House, the August general election to fill the last months of the late Rep. Don Young’s term will provide voters the choice between two Republicans, an independent and a Democrat. Former Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III, both Republicans, were the top two vote-getters in the primary, which closed to voting last Saturday. Independent Al Gross came in third, and former state Rep. Mary Peltola, a Bethel Democrat running in her first statewide campaign, was in f...
A bill that would ban discrimination on the basis of COVID-19 vaccination status passed the Alaska Senate on March 16 in a move to limit state service providers and private businesses from requiring the life-saving vaccine. The bill, sponsored by Eagle River Republican Sen. Lora Reinbold, would make it illegal for the state to withhold services based on COVID-19 vaccination status, such as in public education or assisted living in Pioneer Homes. The bill would also ban private businesses from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition for...
State House lawmakers have proposed paying Alaskans almost $1,300 as an “energy relief check” on top of the annual Permanent Fund dividend. As presented by the House Finance Committee on Friday, the two payments would total about $2,500 this year for every eligible Alaskan. The energy relief payment would use some of the state’s unexpectedly high oil revenues to help residents hit by rising fuel prices, record inflation and ongoing financial recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers in the House majority said in a written statement on Ma...
