One year since Republican Party censured Murkowski

By
Suzanne Downing
-
34

On March 13, 2021, the Alaska Republican Party censured Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and asked her to not run as a Republican again. The vote of party leaders was 53-17.

“It wasn’t simply one vote she cast or one statement she made, it was a years-long pattern of consistently contradicting Alaska values and the things that Alaskans support. Murkowski has repeatedly sided with her friends in the Washington, D.C. elite against the interests of Alaskans. That’s why a look at the record proves that in the 2022 Alaska Senate race, there are effectively two Democrats: Murkowski and Democratic State Senator Elvi Gray-Jackson. When I’m the next senator from Alaska, there will be no mistaking that I will fight for the interests of the people of Alaska,” Tshibaka said in a statement. 

The censure was not only about Murkowski voting to impeach a president who was no longer in office. The resolution listed an inventory of faulty actions by Murkowski, including her support of Deb Haaland as President Joe Biden’s Interior Secretary. The party said at the time that Haaland was a well-known opponent of resource development on public land, something that is essential to the Alaska economy. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan also voted to confirm Haaland, but was not censured.

The party also criticized Murkowski for her enduring support of abortion, for voting against repealing Obamacare, for vocal opposition to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and for demanding President Trump’s immediate resignation after the Jan. 6 protest inside the U.S. Capitol.

The resolution that passed a year ago also directed the party to find another Republican candidate to run against Murkowski. Two weeks later, Tshibaka announced her candidacy and by July she had the party’s endorsement, 58-17.

Murkowski has held the seat since her father, Frank Murkowski, awarded it to her when he became governor of Alaska in 2002.

She has been a lightning rod for controversy in the party, after losing the primary to Joe Miller in 2010, but then winning reelection as a write-in candidate in November of that year.

In 2016, the Alaska Republican Party leadership had largely made peace with her, but discontent grew with her again after her continued opposition to President Donald Trump. After Joe Biden became president in 2022, many Republicans felt Murkowski had a role in that nationally, by signaling to Republicans that it was better to vote for Biden over Trump. Murkowski has not said who she voted for in 2020, but is on the record saying she did not vote for Trump.

Since Biden took office, Alaska has experienced the Biden Administration’s shutdown of nearly all of its resource industries — timber, mining, oil and gas.

Murkowski does not have strong support across the electorate in Alaska and is not popular with Republicans nationally. She has never won the majority of the vote of all Alaskan voters, unlike Congressman Don Young and Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Although she has raised more money than Tshibaka, Tshibaka has raised more from Alaskans, while Murkowski’s money is largely from Outside.

34 COMMENTS

  1. She will get the votes of every Democrat and Independent. Given that 17 Republicans voted against the censure, she should have enough RINOs to take her across the finish line.

    • I call myself an independent, i am neither Republican nor Democratic, and i can assure you that she will “never” have my vote.

  2. Time for this BUFFOON to GO! She votes to confirm Deb Haaland and wonders why Brandon shuts down oil and gas around the country DUH?

  3. She is not virtuous and when new candidates run no one really knows if they are in it for self gain, or”a sell out”. No candidates should ever become wealthy serving the people.

  5. Lisa didn’t like my “Kelly T. for US Senate” campaign button that I’ve been wearing around the house. Now I’M censured.

    • Give it to me. I’ll wear it around our house. Nancy won’t censure me because we are both unabashed Kelly T. supporters. In fact, Nancy and I are going to be passing out “Kelly T. for Senate” buttons on Mother’s Day.

  10. Facts are what they are and Lisa lost her compass some time ago and perhaps never really knew how to read one anyway….she has had a good ride but I think in November is is over for her as a Senator from Alaska…

  11. I’m getting a lot of Tweets from Murkowski about utilizing Alaskan oil. She is now being attacked by climate change activists. She needs to sway one way or the other. If she really cared about Alaska, she (and others) would be in DC right now demanding domestic oil production today. No more funding countries with horrific human rights abuses.

  13. Murky has robbed our state long enough
    Bought and paid for by George Soros and hos evil dark money
    Put her at the bottom of the ballot, last choice to rid ourselves of this evil, vile, despot
    Lisa, you are evil, pure evil

  14. thankfully most Alaskans are not registered Republican. They could care less what Tuckerman Babcock thinks.
    This is definitely an opinion piece. Under the previous president our oil production declined every year. All though I do not support some of Biden’s oil and gas policies it is hard to deny the fact oil companies are profiting and it should lead to more investment in Alaska. Timber was hit hard by Trump’s trade war with China. The Biden administration is working with timber contractors. In Alaska, the USDA will allow contractors to request up to three years’ extension in light of the impacts of China’s retaliatory tariffs on Alaska spruce exports. I have not heard of mines shutting down in Alaska only trying to expand. The mining stocks that have interests in Alaska that I invest in are all doing well under Biden.
    All this The party talk sounds like communism to me.

    • You have one valid point. Tuckerman Babcock is a large part of why Alaska Republicans are so feckless.

      Beyond that, I suggest a class In basic economics. You clearly do not understand how the oil industry works, the costs of doing business, the need to project for the uncertain future, ect ect ect.

      Trump was, effort wise, the best friend Alaska ever has had in the White House. Had he been re-elected we would have seen an economic golden age for the legislature to steal.

      • I think I understand basic economics pretty well. Simply look at the rig counts. When the price of oil is low the oi companies are not drilling. When the price is high they like to spend money as they are making it. I don’t think linking is aloud here but here you go.
        ‘https://ycharts.com/indicators/reports/baker_hughes_rotary_rig_count

  15. I’ve never been so embarrassed for Alaska then when she gave the speech in congress about why she was voting against Kavanaugh for SCOTUS. What a weak and pathetic speech she barely managed to mumble out embarrassing the State in front of the entire country. She’s a NO VOTE.

  16. Prop 2. The Princess election protection act.

    You did this to yourself Alaska. You voted that crap into law. Princess is secure until she dies.

  17. “……..Although she has raised more money than Tshibaka, Tshibaka has raised more from Alaskans, while Murkowski’s money is largely from Outside.”
    Foreign collusion. Impeach her. Multiple times.

  19. Not long after I moved to Alaska in late 2004, I recall that Lisa Murkowski was involved in some sketchy “sweetheart” deal for riverside property on the Kenai. I referenced an ADN article: ‘https://www.adn.com/politics/article/murkowski-still-sees-no-problem-2006-kenai-land-deal/2010/10/13/
    calling into question the unlikely event she would be re-elected as a write-in candidate after smearing the mud on Joe Miller, who had just beat her in the Republican primary. With enough Outside money, a very aggressive smear campaign against Miller in the ADN and in local talk radio and advertising, and highly questionable and blatantly illegal tactics recruiting people in the bush who didn’t actually fill in their own ballots, she did “win.” That’s the con-artist and modern-day Carpetbagger who only makes the news doing something right for Alaska just before the next election rolls around.

  20. How’d that work out for GOP Inc.?
    .
    Only a hardened cynic would believe ranked-choice voting was forced on Alaskan voters in part to assure Senator Murkowski’s job security.

    • Well, while not a hardened cynic on most issues, since ranked choice voting was developed and promoted by her former chief of staff Scott Kendall, it’s hard not to believe that there was some thought to the 2022 election. She will get the vote of moderate Republicans and the second choice of Democrats who vote first for Jackson. That’s the goal – avoid losing in a closed primary and being forced to do a write in campaign again. The fact that ranked choice voting, which required a 28 page ‘summary’ in the election pamphlet and illegally covered multiple subjects actually passed would make anyone a cynic.

  21. Senator Murkowski will easily win re-election, and, if we are lucky as a party, Trump, Chewbacca, Greene, and others of that ilk will fade to oblivion.

    • berv, serious stupid? That’s quite a charge coming from someone who is jealous of Kelly T’s ,hair. Wait! is this Lisa?

  24. I used to empathize with Murkowski. But she has drifted way from ideals I believed in error we shared in common. She has decided against working in support and defense of the US Constitution and these rights of Alaskans and Alaskans merchants and industries. Alaska could have 25 states of the union and development funds for parity but for the foreign corporations masquerading as “American agents”. We are done with this foolishness. Kelly Tschibaka resoundingly supports the rights enshrined in our foundational documents. We need Kelly who will defend the US Constitution and is motivated to do so unflinchingly.

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