On Jan. 22, the Alaska Democrats had their winter auction on Friday, featuring former Sen. Al “The Groper” Franken of Minnesota.
They were celebrating enormous wins — the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House are now under the Democrats’ control, but they were celebrating virtually with an auction and auctioneer Cary Carrigan, who is the executive director at Alaska Marijuana Industry Association.
Franken was accused by radio news anchor Leeann Tweeden of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2006 when they were overseas entertaining U.S. troops before he was elected to the Senate. He left the Senate in 2018 over the scandal and he apologized.
In addition to headliner Franken, special guests included Anchorage Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson, and Carl Johnson, who ran for State Senate to represent District N, and who lost to Roger Holland.
The Alaska Democrats also announced that Alaska Party Chairwoman Casey Steinau was recently elected to the Executive Committee of the DNC, and the Association of State Democratic Committees.
The disgraced former senator became victim to the “me too” movement, when a total of eight women came forward to say he had inappropriately touched or kissed them. No independent investigation has even taken place and Franken has since said he regrets resigning from the Senate.
In a 2019 story in the New Yorker magazine, the author of the profile on the former senator wrote that in “recent months, Franken has witnessed a prominent Democrat survive a similar political storm: this past spring, several women accused Joe Biden of unwanted kissing or touching at rallies and other political events. Biden apologized but never stopped campaigning for President.”
