The Alaska Republican Party District 29 committee has passed three resolutions, sanctioning Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Republican elected leaders for defying the will of the members and the platform of the party.
The first resolution calls for the party as a whole to sanction U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She has worked against the Republican Party by encouraging voters to vote no on the repeal of ranked-choice voting, and she has worked against President Donald Trump and the Alaska Republican Party platform for years. The resolution says she has a long history of working against the Alaska Republican Party and thus deserves a permanent sanction and censure, making her forever ineligible for support or endorsement by the party or its affiliates.
The U.S. senator has already been sanctioned twice in the past by the state Republican Party, but those sanctions had expiration dates that coincided with elections.
Regardless of whether Murkowski remains a Republican, the district, which covers portions of Wasilla and the Eastern Matanuska-Susitna Valley, asks the Alaska Republican Party recruit a challenger for Murkowski in 2028 and bar her from participating in any formal Republican events.
The Valley Republican Women of Alaska, a subdivision of the Alaska Republican Party, last week issued a similar resolution.
A second resolution passed by the district members calls for sanctioning and censuring Sens. Gary Stevens, Bert Stedman, Cathy Giessel, Kelly Merrick, and Jesse Bjorkman, because they have joined with Democrats to form a majority in the Senate in violation of Alaska Republican Party rules passed in 2024, which says Republicans will not join a majority where more than one-third of the members are not Republicans. (Article VII, Section 1(e)).
“Senators Stevens, Stedman, Giessel, and Merrick have a consistent record of flipping Alaska’s legislative bodies from Republican to Democrat majorities,” the resolution says.
The district is calling upon the party to permanently sanction these elected legislators and find qualified candidates to challenge them, “declaring these elected officials permanently ineligible for endorsement or support by the ARP or its affiliates, and permanently prohibiting participation in ARP events, and any other appropriate sanction not disallowed by ARP or RNC Rules.”
A third resolution calls for the party as a whole to sanction turncoat members of the Alaska House of Representatives.
“Representatives Chuck Kopp and Louise Stutes have joined a Majority Caucus where more than 1/3 of its members are non-Republicans, in violation of ARP 2024 Republican Party Rules, Article VII, Section 1(e),” the resolution says.
As with the resolution on the senators,”District 29 calls for permanent Sanctioning of both Representatives Chuck Kopp
and Louise Stutes, to include permanent censure, declaring both elected officials permanently ineligible for endorsement or support by the ARP or its affiliates, recruiting a challenger, and permanently prohibiting participation in ARP events, and any other appropriate sanction not disallowed by ARP or RNC Rules.”
