Sen. Birch’s daughter applies for vacant seat; so does Al Fogle

By
Suzanne Downing
-
19

Two Alaskans have filed online disclosure forms with the State of Alaska, indicating they will be applying with the Republican Party to fill the vacant seat in Senate District M after Sen. Chris Birch’s passing.

Tali Birch Kindred, the daughter of the late senator, filed her POFD forms with the state, as did Al Fogle, who has been a candidate for both Anchorage Assembly and House of Representatives.

Birch Kindred is an attorney with Oil Search, and formerly with Holland & Hart law firm. She is also a former assistant district attorney with the State of Alaska, worked for Shell Oil for several years, and Crowell and Moring law firm. She graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School in Lake Oswego, Oregon. She confirmed today that she has submitted her paperwork to the party.

Fogle is a sales executive with Moda Health, and most recently worked for the Alaska Chamber of Commerce. He is a U.S. Army veteran who served in combat in Iraq Operation Freedom. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska

The process for replacing Sen. Birch is done by the House District 25 and 26 committees. The applications of interested persons is due on Aug. 16, and the party is not discussing it with the media before all who may be interested have applied before the deadline.

Other names that are floating around as possible replacements are Rep. Josh Revak and Rep. Laddie Shaw, and former Sen. Dave Donley.

[Read: How to replace a senator]

19 COMMENTS

  3. This is not the proper way to remember Chris Birch. Shaming and daring the Republican Party and the Governor to pick her is an insult to the process. Let her run for office on her own merits, not because she is somehow owed the position because her father is recently deceased.

  4. With all due respect to the late Senators family, I think Frank may have ruined it for dynastic appointments with the creation of Lisa. If the Republican party makes the daughter her Fathers heir it reveals how hollow and void of ideas this party has become..

    I like the idea of Dave Donley. Any takers?

    • Definitely shows the “i” in the “A”-hole of teAm.
      Crime, specifically domestic violence, is an indirect price of Alaska’s white collar crime. Alaska is liable for incorrectly drafting laws and then following through with executing them.
      Take a FAR ? at the way Alaska invests, spends, educates, and legislates. For the people. It rules over not represents. Examples: expungements for “ex parte” orders are correctly inferred from the Constitution of the United States as granted by salute, improperly executed property steams (i.e. property taxes parade CAS mismanagement), growth area of social services and about nothing else, overruns in procurement (i.e. University of Alaska Fairbanks CEM Engineering Learning and Innovation Facility (ELIF), expenditures relating to the Superfund, streams from leasing, education system transforming children into adults with the same mental illness as the generation before it, $75,000 contracts for education repairs, and the ultimate crime defining civilized as English (law) over STEM skills.
      Alaska is a cost/price/currency manipulator. Alaska damages capitalistic democracy and demonstrates harm to national security.
      Leave the seat empty.

  5. You pick whoever pisses off the Demoncrats and Weasel Giessel the most. When the ADN writes an oped against the selection, you know you have the right man.

  6. Well I guess the GOP is learning from Trump that there really is no need to hide Nepotism these days so it will probably pass “committee” in our current Kleptocracy at play in Alaska.

  7. The late Senator Don Bennett’s widow was chosen by then Governor Cowper to replace him after Don died in office. That process turned out to be a messy affair, with the widow failing confirmation by the full Senate. Birch’s daughter should NOT be guaranteed the seat as a sympathy appointment. Let her earn her own way up the ladder rather than relying on daddy’s name. Look what Alaska got with Lisa Murkowski.

  8. Good Grief. If Birch’s daughter wants to play Senator let her run in a general election and win fair and square. If the GOP Alaska puts her name forward they will feel the backlash from conservatives tired of this kind of monkey business.

  9. As a lifelong friend of Tali Birch, I assure you that her wit and solution oriented nature are traits not to be bargained with. I admire her courage to finish the job of her loving father and she has nothing to gain personally by pursuing the seat. However if it is possible to judge her as an individual and not compare her to the aforementioned two cases (n=2 = bad statistics), the state can gain an honest, clever individual in Juneau. Does politics need to be such a thankless job? Thank you Tali and Pam for taking a stand to finish the job in such a shockingly sad situation.

    • Merrick, there is no job to be finished. We all thought highly of Chris Birch. It’s time to move on. No more Lisa Murkowski part 2. The governor will not intentionally dis the Birch family by not selecting a family member. But the state of Alaska and its people hangs in the balance, not just one grieving family. The daughter can run on her own later. For now, she is inexperienced and unqualified. The governor needs an ally. He will find it in Laddie Shaw.

  10. Enough of dynastys. Many of us are still disgusted with the Murkowski dynastic Senate seat. And even more so at the corrupt local media that helped enable that farce.

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