This photo shows the Alaska State Capitol. (Peter Segall / Juneau Empire File)

This photo shows the Alaska State Capitol. (Peter Segall / Juneau Empire File)

Opinion: The GOP doesn’t speak for most Alaskans

Legislators aren’t elected to be a rubber stamp for whatever the governor wants.

  • By Rich Moniak
  • Saturday, August 29, 2020 4:20pm
  • Opinion

By Rich Moniak

According to Tuckerman Babcock, the initial tally from last week’s primary “sent a clear message to many powerful Republican members of the Legislature who opposed the governor.”

That idea is not only an invitation for those members who lose their primary election to leave the party. It’s inconsistent with our form of constitutional government.

Legislators aren’t elected to be a rubber stamp for whatever the governor wants. They belong to an equal branch of government. When their conscience dictates, it’s their duty to challenge the governor’s use of his power. Furthermore, under our constitution, government “is instituted solely for the good of the people as a whole” not the 24% of Alaskans who are registered Republicans.

Cheering on challengers to duly elected Republican representatives isn’t new to Babcock. A month after the 2016 election, Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak and two other House Republicans joined Democrats to from a majority caucus. Babcock was chairman of the Alaska Republican Party at the time. Under his leadership, it voted to withdraw support for all three. And later tried to prohibit them from being candidates in the party’s 2018 primary election.

“I am a strong believer in the basics of the Republican Party” Stutes explained in 2016. “But I am a strong believer in my constituency. My constituency wanted something done with this budget.”

She’s is still a Republican. In the 2018 primary, she beat the two candidates who challenged her. This year she ran unopposed. That says her constituents prefer legislative integrity over the party’s dictatorial rule.

However, the budget problems Stutes was concerned about four years ago haven’t been resolved. Babcock is part of that story, too.

After the 2018 election, he resigned as party chair and became Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s chief of staff. The administration’s plan to balance the budget relied entirely on cutting government spending while paying residents a Permanent Fund Dividend based the statutory formula from 1982.

Senate President Sen. Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican, was among the majority of legislators who believed that was fiscally irresponsible. For the third straight year, they approved a smaller PFD and applied the balance to help close a multibillion-dollar budget gap.

Unofficial results show Giessel lost to Roger Holland by almost 30 percentage points. He may the first Republican candidate in Alaskan history to praise Congress for spending a massive amount of money borrowed against future generations. But “Alaska Legislators just don’t seem to get it!” because, his campaign website falsely claims, they’re “still trying to figure out how to dedicate all Permanent Fund Dividend monies for state government spending.”

Sen. Natasha von Imhof, R-Anchorage, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, is one of the other Republicans who opposed Dunleavy’s budget plan. Unofficial results as of Friday morning showed her with a narrow lead over Stephen Duplantis, however, early in voting Duplantis appeared to be in the lead.

Duplantis promised to protect the PFD, but when asked where the money is going to come from, he answered “I don’t know, because I’m not there.” The only other significant issue he ran on is eliminating the “binding caucus” rule that requires members support the will of the caucus majority regarding the budget.

Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, submitted a bill to make that illegal.

“We have a God-given free will to make decisions that are best for our constituents,” he argues.

That is, unless you’re a Republican like Stutes, Giessel, von Imhof and others whose conscience directed their free will to defy the wishes of the Republican governor.

What’s best for their constituents isn’t defined by the party either. Elected representatives are supposed to consider the viewpoints of any constituent who disagrees with them. And in Shower’s district there’s likely a lot who do. Because the combined totals of registered Democrats, and the number of people unaffiliated with either party outnumber registered Republicans by a margin of two to one.

Giessel should be proud of the way she represented her district for the past 10 years. But she and any other Republican who lose their primary have a choice to make.

They can continue their work advocating for ‘for the good of the people as a whole” by endorsing the Democratic candidate for their seat.

Or risk letting the party that booted them from office hand out a dividend the state can’t afford.


• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.


More in Opinion

Web
Have something to say?

Here’s how to add your voice to the conversation.

The site of the now-closed Tulsequah Chief mine. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
My Turn: Maybe the news is ‘No new news’ on Canada’s plans for Tulsequah Chief mine cleanup

In 2015, the British Columbia government committed to ending Tulsequah Chief’s pollution… Continue reading

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter: Voter fact left out of news

With all the post-election analysis, one fact has escaped much publicity. When… Continue reading

People living in areas affected by flooding from Suicide Basin pick up free sandbags on Oct. 20 at Thunder Mountain Middle School. (City and Borough of Juneau photo)
Opinion: Mired in bureaucracy, CBJ long-term flood fix advances at glacial pace

During meetings in Juneau last week, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)… Continue reading

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. (Alaska Department of Family and Community Services photo)
My Turn: Rights for psychiatric patients must have state enforcement

Kim Kovol, commissioner of the state Department of Family and Community Services,… Continue reading

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. (Alaska Department of Family and Community Services photo)
My Turn: Small wins make big impacts at Alaska Psychiatric Institute

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API), an 80-bed psychiatric hospital located in Anchorage… Continue reading

The settlement of Sermiligaaq in Greenland (Ray Swi-hymn / CC BY-SA 2.0)
My Turn: Making the Arctic great again

It was just over five years ago, in the summer of 2019,… Continue reading

Rosa Parks, whose civil rights legacy has recent been subject to revision in class curriculums. (Public domain photo from the National Archives and Records Administration Records)
My Turn: Proud to be ‘woke’

Wokeness: the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustice… Continue reading

President Donald Trump and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy pose for a photo aboard Air Force One during a stopover at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage in 2019. (Sheila Craighead / White House photo)
Opinion: Dunleavy has the prerequisite incompetence to work for Trump

On Tuesday it appeared that Gov. Mike Dunleavy was going to be… Continue reading

Most Read