In a telephonic town hall Feb. 19, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the recent mass firing of probationary federal employees violated the law and lacked “respect and dignity” toward the workers who lost their jobs, which in Alaska include more than 100 employees of the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and other agencies.
In a call that drew more than 1,000 Alaskans, Murkowski also said that President Donald Trump’s efforts to withhold federal funding that had already been approved by Congress “cannot be allowed to stand.”
“If we in Congress allow that, we effectively cede some of our authority,” she said.
“We have to stand up,” said Murkowski. “The ‘we’ has to be more than just me. And this is where it becomes more of a challenge.”
Murkowski’s town hall drew a sharp contrast with one hosted by Alaska’s newly elected member of the U.S. House, Nick Begich III, on Feb. 17. Begich, who has aligned himself closely with Trump, steered clear of criticizing any of Trump’s policies.
When one caller appeared to question the Trump administration’s use of executive power, the Begich call was dropped mid-sentence. In the Facebook comment section, many Alaskans expressed anger about the types of questions that Begich addressed — and those he didn’t.
Murkowski took a different approach.
“There’s not going to be any questions here tonight that I’m going to say are too hard to answer or we’re going to cut you off,” Murkowski said at the outset of her hourlong town hall, during which she took questions from Alaskans who expressed anger at the Trump administration’s moves to fire federal employees and freeze federal funding, along with other topics.
Murkowski’s comments on Feb. 19 were among her sharpest rebukes of Trump since he was reelected in November. But even as she questioned his policies and their outcomes, she said that she was working to build productive relationships within the Trump administration, explaining in part her decision to vote in favor of confirming Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, which drew pushback from some Alaskans.
“I have to figure out how, as your representative here in Washington, D.C., how I can have a relationship with people in the Trump administration. I need to be able to have people answer my phone call, respond to my texts and help us out. I did that just this weekend with Secretary Kennedy,” she said.
Murkowski said her goal is to rely on relationships with members of the administration “to go back to the executive and say, ‘There is a way to accomplish what you are seeking, but you have to do it within the confines of the law.’”
“If that doesn’t happen, the place of next resort is the court,” said Murkowski.
“You’ve got the legal aspect of it, but you also have just the human side of it,” she said.
“If we feel that we have a bloat in our system or redundancy in our system, or inefficiency, we can address that, but you do it with respect and dignity toward people, and we are just not seeing that,” Murkowski added.
She enumerated potentially catastrophic impacts in Alaska of mass federal firings, including an inability to effectively fight wildland fires; a chilling effect on the state’s tourism industry; worsening of aviation safety; and increased demand for already-stressed social safety net programs.
“It makes me kind of feel like we’re going back to the summer of COVID, when our tourism just got brought to its knees,” she said. “If we don’t have the workers that we need, it could be a tough time for us.”
Murkowski said she had already worked to ensure that seasonal National Park Service employees and wildland firefighters could be hired, after the Trump administration had frozen all seasonal staffing. But she said even if those people could reapply for the jobs, they may not choose to do so.
“What I’m hearing is a real, legitimate, drop in morale. People are looking and having conversations and saying, ‘Why would I even want to go back?’” said Murkowski.
It was not immediately clear if the two other members of Alaska’s congressional delegation would provide a united front in questioning Trump’s policies.
Alaska’s other Republican U.S. senator, Dan Sullivan, has not spoken publicly on the impacts of the federal hiring and funding freeze on Alaska. Through a spokesperson, Sullivan declined interview requests on the federal employee firings.
Begich encouraged fired Alaskans to contact his office with a detailed description of their termination and the work they did before being terminated.
In a presentation to the Alaska Municipal League meeting in Juneau on Feb. 19, Begich said the U.S. has “no choice but to trim government” due to the nation’s federal debt. “Of course, it needs to be done in a thoughtful way. It needs to be done in a way that doesn’t impact our ability to receive core services,” he added.
“While I recognize in the short run, there’s going to be some challenges navigating through this, in the long run, this will be better for the nation,” he said.
Reporter Sean Maguire contributed from Juneau.
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