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Since 2016, no issue has divided Alaska state lawmakers more than the issue of the Permanent Fund dividend. The annual struggle over the amount given to state residents has repeatedly driven the Legislature into impasses that have brought the state to the brink of a government shutdown. Ahead of this year’s governor election, independent candidate Bill Walker, Democratic candidate Les Gara and Republicans Mike Dunleavy and Charlie Pierce have each outlined different approaches to solving the impasse, which voters have said is a top issue of c...
If Alaska’s state legislators remove constituents’ comments or block them on social media, they may forfeit state-paid legal protection, according to a new social media policy adopted last Friday. A House-Senate panel voted 8-3 in favor of adopting the new policy on behalf of the entire Legislature. Anchorage Rep. Matt Claman said the new policy means “that the Legislature is not going to be put in a position of always having to represent representatives who may or may not handle their social media properly.” Over the past year, three state l...
In a Sept. 21 candidate forum hosted in Fairbanks by the Alaska Chamber of Commerce, Democratic governor candidate Les Gara and independent candidate Bill Walker said that if elected they would seek new state revenue to pay for a variety of projects and reverse years of cuts to state services. Both men are seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has advocated cuts to public services and opposes any new taxes unless approved by a statewide vote of the public. Also competing in the Nov. 8 general election is Republican...
Democratic candidate for governor Les Gara and independent candidate former governor Bill Walker said that the best candidate is the one who shows up for public forums. The two had the stage to themselves at a Sept. 7 event sponsored by the Kenai and Soldotna chambers of commerce. The other two candidates did not attend. Incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy was absent, as was Republican Charlie Pierce, who last month resigned his job as Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor at the request of the borough assembly after an investigation determined...
Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, one of four candidates for Alaska governor, was asked to resign as mayor after an investigation determined a harassment complaint against him was credible. Pierce, a Republican, announced on Aug. 26 that he would resign as mayor at the end of September to focus on his gubernatorial campaign. He has refused to discuss reports that his resignation was motivated by a harassment complaint filed by a borough employee. Members of the Kenai Borough Assembly, who were briefed about the complaint on Aug. 23,...
In Chris Bye’s preferred campaign photo, the Libertarian U.S. House candidate is ripping open his dress shirt to reveal a T-shirt that says, “Do Good Recklessly.” After fourth-place finisher Republican Tara Sweeney abruptly withdrew from Alaska’s November U.S. House race, Bye, who placed fifth in the Aug. 16 primary, moved into the state’s top-four ranked-choice election. That puts him alongside Democrat Mary Peltola and Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III in the race for a two-year term in the House. Bye, a fishing guide from Fair...
A legal dispute that began when Gov. Mike Dunleavy took office in 2018 will not be resolved before this year’s gubernatorial election. Last week, a federal judge set a 2023 timeline for a trial to determine financial damages in a case involving Libby Bakalar, one of four state employees who sued Dunleavy, his former chief of staff Tuckerman Babcock and the state after being illegally fired when Dunleavy took office. Babcock is now a candidate for state Senate and Dunleavy is running for reelection. The state has settled with three of the p...
Throughout rural Alaska, the summer’s fuel barges arrived with loads of diesel, heating fuel and a big bill for cities and boroughs. Away from Alaska’s road system and along western and northern coasts that freeze in winter, fuel arrives by barge or plane once, twice or a handful of times per year. This year, those deliveries are coming with prices near record highs. While consumers are paying at the pump directly, there is the growing potential for a second financial hit as towns, villages, cities and boroughs absorb high fuel costs in the...
Democrat Mary Peltola is leading Alaska's special election for U.S. House, but the state's new ranked-choice voting system may leave Republican candidate and former governor Sarah Palin the ultimate winner. As of Aug. 17, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, Peltola had earned 58,689 (38%) first-choice votes in a race that will determine who fills Alaska's lone U.S. House seat until January, completing the term left unfinished by the death of Congressman Don Young earlier this year. Palin...
A group of conservative Alaskans, headed by a leading member of the Alaska Republican Party, has formed a new campaign organization intended to encourage Alaskans to call a constitutional convention and allow sweeping changes in the way Alaska runs its government, sets its budget and regulates the lives of its residents. Jim Minnery, president of the anti-abortion Alaska Family Council, announced the creation of ConventionYes on Aug. 8. Minnery is a member of the new group’s steering committee. The group’s chair is Craig Campbell, national com...
A committee of the Alaska Legislature voted unanimously on Aug. 10 to spend an additional $50,000 on its investigation into the firing of Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. director Angela Rodell, bringing the investigation’s total budget to $150,000. Anchorage Sen. Natasha von Imhof, chair of the House-Senate Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, said the money is needed to get the investigation “to the finish line,” and she expects a full report in October. Members of the committee hired a special investigator in January to determine wheth...
For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., source of more than half of Alaska’s general-purpose state revenue, posted negative investment returns for an entire fiscal year. As of June 30, the last day of the just-ended fiscal year 2022, the fund reported having earned minus-1.32% over the preceding 12 months. The decline will not have an immediate effect on state finances, but continued losses over multiple years would reduce the amount of money available each year for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend. B...
Up to 82,000 rural Alaskans will see lower electric bills because of legislation signed into law last month. Senate Bill 243, passed by the Legislature this spring, raises the maximum subsidy under the state’s Power Cost Equalization program, which reduces the cost of electricity in rural Alaska. Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed the measure into law on July 14. The bill, authored by Bethel Sen. Lyman Hoffman, increases the maximum available subsidy from 500 kilowatt-hours per month to 750 kilowatt-hours per month. The average Alaska home consumes 5...
Alaska cable company GCI has no immediate plans to drop the right-wing TV channel One America News, a spokesperson said July 27. Verizon, the last remaining major carrier to carry the channel, stopped airing the channel last Saturday. That action follows a similar move in April by DirectTV. Their decisions leave the channel, once a reliable advocate for the administration of President Donald Trump, without a nationwide audience and without the revenue paid by those carriers. Scott Robson, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intellige...
The top employees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. are some of the highest-paid public workers in Alaska, but with wages rising across the country and employers competing for skilled labor, even the $80 billion Permanent Fund is struggling to keep employees from leaving. Nine of the corporation’s 66 employees have quit this year, including the manager of the corporation’s highest-earning investments and the entire three-person team in charge of finalizing trades. Seven other positions are new, and filling them is expected to be difficult. The...
The state has sued the U.S. Department of the Interior in an attempt to hold the federal government responsible for the identification of thousands of polluted sites on land given to Alaska Native corporations. A complete inventory is a first step in the state’s ongoing efforts to hold the federal government responsible for cleaning the sites. The state argues that pollution left by the U.S. military and other federal agencies has prevented the development of land transferred from the federal government under the Alaska Native Claims S...
Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy has raised more money than any other candidate in this year’s Alaska governor’s race over the past five months and is heading toward the Aug. 16 primary election with more cash in his campaign war chest than his challengers. Dunleavy, a Republican, reported raising $925,380 between Feb. 2 and July 15, according to new filings with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, and reported having $768,263 in cash on hand as of July 15, after expenses and debts. Former Gov. Bill Walker, challenging Dunleavy as an independent,...
With two of its members facing lawsuits for their social media practices, the Alaska Legislature is contemplating new advice and policies to cover its 60 members. The joint House-Senate Legislative Council unveiled its first draft of a new policy last Thursday, but individual lawmakers voiced objections to the proposal and further revisions are expected before a final policy is settled. As explained by legislative staff, the draft policy is an “everything or nothing” approach that advises lawmakers to not discuss legislative issues or bus...
In front of more than 5,000 cheering supporters in Anchorage on Saturday, former President Donald Trump fulfilled a year-old promise to campaign in Alaska against incumbent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of seven Republicans who voted in favor of his impeachment following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that targeted Congress. With a 90-minute speech that included a story about a trip to Iraq, conversations with foreign leaders and his thoughts on a variety of issues, Trump endorsed Murkowski's...
Alaska’s state alcohol regulator is declining to stop distilleries from selling kegs of premixed cocktails despite a warning by federal regulators, who have concluded that the process is illegal. The Alaska Alcohol Control Board has rescinded an advisory notice that had cautioned distilleries against selling kegs to bars and other places with alcohol licenses. The board also voted unanimously to create a working group to consider the topic further. “In the meantime, I’m not going to go after a guy who has been doing something, allegedly lawfu...
If all goes as Lisa Simpson expects, she will win the August primary for an Anchorage state House seat and be cleared of several felonies about the same time. Simpson, a former aide to Anchorage Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, is facing trial in August alongside her former boss. Both have been accused, as has Simpson’s son, of encouraging illegal votes in state legislative races in 2014 and 2018. The trial is tentatively scheduled to take place at the same time as the state’s Aug. 16 primary election. Simpson has registered as a Republican can...
The Alaska Supreme Court is considering a case that could redefine the extent of legal protection for corporations — including health care consortiums — jointly operated by Alaska Native tribes. The verdict could have implications across the state. In written arguments and in court on June 21, attorneys representing the state said that if the court rules broadly it might limit the state’s ability to enforce a wide range of laws, including tax collection, consumer protection and antidiscrimination rules. But tribal health care consortiums argue...
Breaking news: Al Gross late Monday withdrew from the race for U.S. House. Gross, who had finished third in the primary election, did not give a reason for his decision. The Alaska Division of Elections on Tuesday said the August general election to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young will proceed with just three candidates, not four as had been expected. The division said state law does not allow for the fifth-place finisher, Tara Sweeney, to move up to fill out the four finalists for the general election for the seat. The...
As election officials count votes in Alaska’s first-ever statewide election by mail, they have rejected thousands of submitted ballots, including one in six from a Western Alaska state House district, causing concern from observers who say the state’s process is disenfranchising voters, particularly Alaska Natives. At last week’s meeting of the National Congress of American Indians in Anchorage, Michelle Sparck delivered a speech on behalf of a group whose mission is to improve Alaska Native voting rates. When she described the issue, “ther...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge is considering when and if it is legal for a state legislator to ban a constituent from the lawmaker’s legislative Facebook page. On June 8, Judge Thomas Matthews heard oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by an Eagle River woman against Sen. Lora Reinbold, an Eagle River Republican. After hearing arguments, Matthews took the case under advisement, with a decision to be issued soon. Bobbie McDow, the plaintiff, is asking for an injunction against Reinbold, plus financial damages and attorney fees. The verdict co...