WHAT TO DO WITH MARK: While Mark Begich, one-term Democrat senator for Alaska, mulls a run for governor, he has asked his supports what they think. Should he run?
Some of them think he’d be handing the win to the Republican nominee, whomever that is.
Meanwhile, Begich was the “Sold Out!” keynote speaker at the Democrats’ Lee Hamilton Dinner in French Lick, Indiana tonight. It’s a cooperative fundraiser held with the Indiana Democratic Editorial Association. You read that right: There is such a thing.
ALASKANS FOR INTEGRITY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY JIM LOTTSFELDT? A new independent expenditure group has filed its first report with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
Alaskans for Integrity, spearheaded by Democrat and campaign strategist Jim Lottsfeldt, shows tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from a liberal Massachusetts firm called “Represent.Us.”
The group wants to end closed primaries (like the Alaska Republican Primary), wants progressive voting (ranking of your preferred winners on the ballot), wants to restructure how redistricting is accomplished (their way is best, surely), and a host of other suggestions.
It’s likely some type of voter initiative will be on the 2018 General Election ballot that will swing the state more to the blue side, as that is the ultimate goal.
Lottsfeldt lobbies for unions, for Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, and he ran former Sen. Mark Begich’s super-PAC Put Alaska First, which spent tens of thousands of dollars opposing Dan Sullivan, who eventually beat Begich.
BYRON MALLOTT TO CHARGE COMMISSION FOR VOTING DATA: The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity can have whatever anyone else can have in the voter database.
Any citizen can get the information from the Division of Elections for $21, so the lieutenant governor going to charge the commission the same. And force the commission to file a public records request for it.
LG Mallott seems unaware that Alaska gets more money from the federal taxpayers than any other state on a per capita basis. Total federal spending per capita in Alaska is $17,762.
But political activist David Nees of Anchorage says, “No problem.” He’s already sent the commission the information it asked for — and didn’t charge a penny.
CECIL ANDRUS, RIP: Former Interior Secretary Cecil V. Andrus, who managed the lock-up of millions of acres of Alaska land during the Jimmy Carter administration, has died at 85.
He served four terms as Idaho governor. Halfway through his second term, he resigned to become Carter’s secretary of the Interior and he stayed in that role through Carter’s term, which ended in 1981. Andrus ran for governor of Idaho again, and became the first four-term governor of the state, but was also the last Democrat to serve in that position.
Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), making 104 million acres of land unavailable for resource development. Much of the land was set aside as wilderness over the objections of Alaskans, including the late Sen. Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young.
DISTRICT 10 HAS A ‘D’ CHALLENGER ALREADY, BUT IS SHE? Patricia Faye-Brazel is a lifelong Democrat living in Houston, Alaska. Last year, she filed to run against Rep. David Eastman, who is her opposite politically. Eastman won.
Faye-Brazel is a Bernie Democrat, and in May, 2017 she filed once again for the Wasilla House District 10 seat, for the 2018 race.
Except now on Facebook she says she’s quit the Democrat party because of what happened during the 2016 primary cycle when the party machine engineered a win for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Has she become one of Bill Walker’s new nonpartisans?