Tuckerman Babcock: Transformation of Giessel from Republican to political weasel

By
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Sen. Cathy Giessel

By TUCKERMAN BABCOCK

No transformation has been more profound than that of Sen. Cathy Giessel of south Anchorage.   

Once upon a time, she was pro-life, pro-resource development, pro-PFD, foe of big labor and prototype Republican. Her metamorphosis has shed all but the empty label “Republican.”

What is the new Giessel? 

Death to the PFD; death by abortion; death by taxes/regulation to business; and new best buddies with big labor (who now fund her campaigns).

She holds joint fundraisers with Democrats to raise money to defeat Republicans. She joined the Democrats as soon as she was elected. She was elected with 34% of the vote (due to the weird workings of rank voting – which she loves).

When someone does a 100% about-face, they owe an explanation. But there is none from Giessel.   

The best explanation seems to be a personal lust for power, revenge of perceived personal slights and generally instability.   I think we all remember her unexplained rabid opposition to the appointment of Rep. Laddie Shaw to the State Senate.   Inexcusable, unjustifiable and inexplicable … but typical Giessel.

Giessel pulls pin out of grenade on Laddie Shaw

She is not on the ballot in 2024, so voters will have to wait until 2026 to rid themselves of this basket case. But she does have new “best friends” in the State Senate.

Most are Democrats. This election only one Democrat is in a serious race — incumbent Democrat Sen. Scott Kawasaki who is facing a spirited challenge from an excellent candidate, Republican Leslie Wein Hajdukovich.

Giessel’s wants power, craves power, lusts for her old title, “Senate President.” Never mind that hers was the most dysfunctional and mean-spirited tenure in State history. That is what she wants.   

So who are these “Republican” candidates Giessel needs elected? Coincidentally the same ones being funded by Outside big labor bosses: Senators Jesse Bjorkman of Nikiski and Kelly Merrick of Eagle River.

Voters do have better choices:  Experienced, proven conservatives: Ben Carpenter, running against Bjorkman and Jared Goecker, running against Merrick.

The decision is yours.

Electing those three challengers will tip the Senate and keep Giessel the “weasel” on the back bench, where she belongs and will deny the big labor bosses the control they crave of our Legislature.

Donate and vote. The choice is yours.

Tuckerman Babcock is the former chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, 2016-2018. He lives in Soldotna.

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54 COMMENTS

  1. Friends and I were talking about this over the weekend. Our kids went to school together, we’ve known Cathy and Rich for a long time. I proudly hammered her campaign sign into the ground at the head of my driveway and voted for her because “she would do the right thing.” My friends and I are all perplexed over how she has made this slide into the abyss. It makes zero sense. I’ve since moved out of her district. If I were still living down the street from her, I’d rather be wrapped in bacon and thrown into a fenced yard of hungry pitbulls than vote for her. She has to go.

    • Rollo, even though Trump says bacon is up 5 times I’m willing to purchase a two pound pack and we can proceed with that fenced yard scenario you describe. The Uber driver will pick you up at your convenience.

  2. Valuable insights we wouldn’t have without MRA and its contributors. Thank you for sharing this background and your expertise on the matter.

    History is crucial, and uncovering the truth is key to driving the changes this state so desperately needs. Alaska is in a downward spiral, and it’s dying before our eyes. For anything positive to happen, we must change the leadership in Juneau. This year’s Legislative Session was a complete failure, with nothing meaningful accomplished while people struggled to even get their food stamps. This is unacceptable. The power-hungry individuals you mention are focused only on their own interests. It’s telling that this Senator funded Jesse Bjorkman before the session even started—birds of a feather!

  3. I especially don’t understand how her husband, Rich ENABLES her reverse-Christian, unloving, Holy-Spirit-ignoring, destructive attitudes and actions — how she treats people as an overlord. This baffles me. Does she even STILL call herself a Christian?

    “Not everyone who SAYS to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who *DOES* the will of my Father who is in heaven.” – Jesus in Mt. 7:21

    To be in authority, we must be under authority.

    “For as many as are LED BY THE SPIRIT of God, these are SONS of God” – Romans 8:14. And these bear good fruit.

    Currently, she has no right to rule, and needs to repent and get right with the many she’s hurt, big-time!

    And people need to repent from enabling her — be Holy-Spirit-led themselves — fearing God, not Cathy. They’re partly responsible for the swath of destruction she’s done.

    “WITHOUT VIRTUE there can be NO LIBERTY.” – Benjamin Rush

    “History fails to record a single precedent in which NATIONS SUBJECT TO MORAL DECAY have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a SPIRITUAL AWAKENING to overcome the *MORAL LAPSE*, OR a PROGRESSIVE DETERIORATION leading to ultimate national disaster.” – Douglas MacArthur

    RECONCILIATION IS THE KEY TO REVIVAL:
    (video) Asbury Revival, 1970: RECONCILIATION the KEY! — “‘Dr. Kinlaw, I am a liar. Now what do I do?’ … Three days later, she came to me radiant, and she said, ‘I just hit my 34th person and I’M FREE!’”

    ‘http://onecanhappen.com/2008/01/30/asbury-revival-1970-dr-kinlaw-i-am-a-liar-now-what-do-i-do

    “PUT ANY WRONG DONE TO MAN RIGHT AGAIN”:
    (video) The Welsh Revival of 1904-05 by J. Edwin Orr: A Countrywide Asbury-like REVIVAL! The 4 Points:
    #1 Confess any known sin, and put any wrong done to man right again.
    #2 Put away any doubtful habit.
    #3 Obey the Spirit promptly.
    #4 Confess your faith publicly.

    http://onecanhappen.com/2011/01/15/the-welsh-revival-of-1904-05-by-j-edwin-orr

    Effects of the WELSH REVIVAL 1904-05: Whole communities were radically changed FROM DEPRAVITY TO GLORIOUS GOODNESS. The CRIME RATE dropped, often to nothing. THE POLICE had little more to do than supervise the coming and going of the people to the chapel prayer meetings. The UNDERGROUND MINES echoed with the sounds of PRAYER and HYMNS, instead of nasty jokes and gossip. People who had fallen out became FRIENDS AGAIN!!!!!!!

    “The alcohol trade was decimated, as people were caught up more by what happened in the local chapels than the local public houses [pubs] and bars. Families experienced amazing renewal….

    ‘https://onecanhappen.com/2013/03/08/effects-of-the-welsh-revival-1904-05

  4. She’s never been a conservative. Those beginnings were only to facilitate her into political position and up the ranks. She wants and needs power. Her family upbringing was with unions. That’s her home. Not only a weasel, but a terrible, terrible family member too.

  5. I dated her back in high school and the memories weren’t so great. I had to learn HER ten commandments, which were not in the biblical sense. So glad she moved.

  6. Alaska is on bad shape. Too many years of control by ever-more-radical Republicans, like Tuck. And too many people just dont get it. Tuck has always been a part of the problem. We need more politicians willing to work across party lines for the betterment of Alaska. Tuck should keep his snout out.

    • Commentariat- your post makes too much sense. Most of the followers of this blog would never agree, but you are spot on!

    • It’s unfortunate that the working across party lines is only expected of one party, perchance if Democrats were to share the working across party lines instead of only towards their goals it would actually be for the betterment of Alaska. But then that’s not what working across party lines means, is it.

      • Working across the party lines only means this:
        .
        Allowing the Democrats to control the narrative. That’s why we have RINOs and a very messed-up country. Democrats do not accept any Republican dialogue. Today’s Democrats are nothing but freaks.

    • You are Spot on with that comment! I don’t trust many of the Past politicians and Tuck is one of them…

  7. This all began years ago when she was holding hands under the table with the likes of Bryce Edgemon. She must have rotator cuff right now from throwing so many monkey wrenches into the pfd calculation, or should I say lack of a full payout. I’ve been away from Alaska now for going on five years, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth left from her.

  8. I remember working with Cathy when she was vice-chair of the Republican Party and I served on the Republican Party Central Committee. Those were good years.

    You are quite right, she was a conservative’s conservative then. The free market was important (to not just her but to her entire family). She was a nurse and abortion was something we all wanted to end. Corruption was something worth standing against, and she did.

    The transformation to the Cathy of 2024 is one that should give every conservative pause.

    From where I sit, it was not a voluntary one on her part. She got worked over by the swamp from the moment she won her first election to the senate, not unlike the story in an old episode of the television show Black Sheep Squadron. In the episode “Prisoners of War”, an American pilot gets shot down by the Japanese, is tortured and brainwashed into fighting against the Americans, and is then sent back to the Americans as a spy.

    The transformation has been that complete.

    This should be troubling to all conservatives because the same tactics that were used against Cathy beginning in 2010 are currently being used against all conservatives in the legislature, and I can tell you from personal experience that they are designed to choke the life out of you.

    The result is that however many conservatives we send to Juneau, fewer come back.

    Those in the senate treated her cruelly when she was first elected. From her very first day as a legislator, the swamp started off by putting her in the cooler (slang for solitary confinement for American POW’s in WWII). She had done nothing. She hadn’t had time to. Her crime was getting elected as a conservative. That’s it.

    In Juneau, if you don’t step away from your conservative constituents, you will be treated the same.

    She sat in the cooler for two years. She emerged a completely different person, and the transformation has only continued since then.

    The swamp is constantly working to transform conservative legislators more into the image of Lisa Murkowski. As the most powerful Republican in Alaska, she is the example of political “success”.

    The swamp rewards those who become more like Lisa, and punishes those who don’t. The rewards you can probably figure out. They are often the same from state to state, but the punishments here are a different story.

    In Juneau, they are particularly cruel. If you don’t join the swamp, you will be told continually that you are worthless as a human being. Even some of those back home will echo the mantra that if you don’t play ball with the swamp you serve no purpose in the legislature.

    If you continue to vote with your constituents, sooner or later they will begin threatening the livelihood of your staff. They fired Dunleavy’s staff. They fired Shower’s staff. They fired my staff. It’s a long list.

    Being told you are worthless for two years at a time is a difficult thing for any legislator. They put you in the corner. They give your staff to other legislators. In my case, they took my staffer who normally answers the phones, and suddenly she and her family were without health insurance.

    They punish you by only letting your bills pass if someone else’s name is on them. They take away your titles. You get a smaller office. Legislative travel becomes more expensive.

    If you persist, they will start hauling you before the ethics committee for frivolous reasons, or even no reason at all. All of the above makes it more expensive, financially and psychologically, for you to continue in office. It puts added strain on your family. Few conservative legislators pull through. Many leave office. Dunleavy self-ejected by running for governor. Reinbold didn’t run for re-election. Others become less conservative in order to stay.

    These are the forces that are right now working against your conservative legislators in office. Think of the three Republicans in the senate who have been in the cooler for the last two years. They and their constituents have experienced some of the same treatment my constituents have.

    They will have a choice to make when they get out of the cooler. If they follow the path of others before them, they will be less conservative when they come out. That’s the way the system works. The incentives in Juneau all point in that direction. In fact, we are already seeing some of the transformation through the public statements being made in the current election cycle. Cooling your heels in the corner for two years is a powerful motivation for any politician. Few conservatives survive.

    To help conservatives survive in Juneau, we need to protect them, as best we can, and remind them, in both large and small ways, that we value their being conservative even if the swamp is deathly allergic.

    Once the transformation has taken place, it is too late. There are very few examples (I can’t personally think of any) of legislators like Cathy coming back to the light.

    Like it or not, as the conservative community, we bear some responsibility for letting it happen. We sent her (and others) to Juneau as conservatives, and Juneau wrecked her. And Juneau is working on every conservative legislator to accomplish the same transformation, to make each of us a little more like Lisa Murkowski, day by day.

    Voters be warned. This could happen to your legislator as well.

    • Thank you for being very honest is describing the difficulties of staying consevative in the legistlation. I’ve heard strange things from some highly valued people and this explains alot.. Especially how you are treated and like others who are conservative. I hope WE ALL have a deeper understanding in of some of your actions that seem strange and unlike you and the other conservative who try to do the same.

    • Eye opening and I have read and heard bits and pieces of scenario from others. We pray daily for our elected leadership.

    • Interesting… appreciate the insight.
      .
      Would you be okay, David, with putting names to persons and groups who do this?

      • Some votes are more notable than others.

        Cathy’s vote as senate president to join with Senate Democrats to punish more conservative senators was notable to me, as was her using Democrat votes to shoot down the Libertarian appointee to APOC so that he could be replaced with a Democrat.

        Those who voted in secret to legally block the appointment of Laddie Shaw to the senate. That was pretty notable, in my opinion. The results of the vote were eventually leaked. Even so, how do you defend hiding the record of a legally binding vote from the public? (https://mustreadalaska.com/no-go-laddie-shaw-passed-over-by-senate-republicans/)

        The house did so in its votes on the confirmation of appointees Baker, Prax, and Lincoln to vacancies in the state house as well.

        An interesting anecdote that is personally very meaningful to me. At present, I am the only legislator who has not voted to publicly punish a conservative legislator by either blocking them from serving on an active committee, stripping them of a committee chairmanship, booting them from a legislative committee, etc.

        When LeDoux was indicted, they didn’t strip her of committees (and well they shouldn’t, she is legally presumed innocent until proven otherwise). Reinbold was given no such courtesy when they removed her as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and kicked her off her committee completely. When a Democrat or a RINO is assigned to a committee that assignment is sacrosanct. When a conservative is assigned to a committee that assignment is dependent on whether or not they play ball.

        This year I was removed from a committee (it happens every election year). I did not even ask to be on that particular committee. I was asked by my Republican colleagues to do so and I only agreed to serve on the committee after they first committed to end the practice of removing me from at least one committee every election year. In the end, the temptation was too great and they voted (all of them) to remove me from the committee anyway.

        You want names? Who hasn’t voted publicly to block or remove a conservative legislator from a chairmanship or from a committee assignment on an active committee? There is no one else. They all have.

        Who has voted publicly to remove a liberal legislator from a chairmanship or from a committee assignment? No one. Only conservatives are punished.

    • And that’s why we need a reset because these part time jobs are now full time power and money grabs by our elected officials.

    • Why do we send our elected officials to a remote retreat run by swamp monsters? We will never be in a position to kill the snake on its home turf. We will only win if we change the venue. Kotzebue or Bethel? Or rent lodging for summer cruise ship passengers.

    • Mr. Eastman,
      Failing on principles and going over to the dark side makes her no better than the enemy that you are dedicated to fight against. The bottom line is that Giessel likes power and control more than she likes standing for what is righteous. And that makes her an enemy of ours.

    • Says the legislator who has done more harm to the conservative side than any other during his time in office. Says the legislator who is seen helping leftists legislate against conservatives. Says the legislator who consistently votes against conservative legislation. Says the legislator who uses leftists tactics to gaslight his constituency at every turn.

      Indeed the Juneau swamp has changed legislators and Representative Eastman has just described his transformation in surprising detail.

    • Right you are David. I contributed to her first Senate campaign – she was a solid candidate, and her family were such nice people. I’ve heard similar explanations as to “why”, but even then, it just doesn’t add up. I am still shocked at her 180 – on just about everything.

  9. Good on you getting smeared by Babcock, Cathy! The Tuckster’s last meaningful and quite weaselly contribution to Alaska was coming up with the Dunleavy budget cuts of 2019 along with that good old sourdough Alaskan, Donna Arduin. Both Arduin and Babcock lost their jobs for being so spectacularly out of touch, even with their core Republican base… and Dunleavy came within a whisker of being recalled.

    Oh and it’s Leslie WIEN Hajdukovich! I didn’t think you’d misspell such a historically significant Alaskan name.

    • Ivan………it’s retirement time. Your game clock is long over, buddy. Everyone else has left the field.
      Head to the showers before the hot water runs out.

    • The Tuck calls em as he sees em, and says it like IT is. Better than you, Mr. Moore, who stacks the numbers for Dems, and tries to look neutral. HA!

    • That you are on these pages and complaining indicates that Tuckerman is over the target and doing damage. The article hits the correct notes. I am one of Ms. Giessel’s constituents. I have no idea what she believes in anymore, other than holding political office.

  10. I don’t believe that there’s a functioning republican party in Alaska. They are infested with to many self-serving rino’s and the party leadership just looks the other way. Most politicians here seem to represent themselves and not the people. Fortunately that is not the case in my district.

    • Click Bishop is another loser who thinks he has the creds to be governor. You people up in Fairbanks need to vett out your candidates better. Bishop was one of the stupid ones who snuck in as a labor commish. At most, Bishop has about 10th grade education.

      • Bishop for governor? As a Republican?
        He looks too old. He’s a Democrat. And dumber than a box of rocks. I’ve seen him in Juneau this past decade. He couldn’t govern a small zoo of chimps.

  14. Ivan Moore is part of the lefty, communist gang of Democrats. But he’ll take money from good conservatives like Tuckerman just to stay in the game. A long, long ago has been pollster. I guess he’s trying to find a few friends at MRAK now? Everyone else knows his game.

  15. Senator Giessel has always been pro privacy, pro education and pro public safety all in support of the Alaska Constitution. Tuckerman has resorted to name calling instead of policy that will benefit Alaskans and follow our Constitution

    • Again you show how blatantly out of touch you are Frank.
      The Giessel kids went to private school, meaning she doesn’t support public education enough to teach her kids…
      Being “pro public safety” is about as original as saying your pro headlights on cars..
      And what in the —- exactly is “pro privacy”??
      Please give an example of her “pro privacy” legislation.

    • Sorry Frank, Cathy Giessel is pro-Cathy Giessel. That’s it.
      We used to be in her district many years ago. Even back then she always gave me the “smug superior” vibe. When you emailed her about a particular legislation or rule, many times the answer you received was in so many words “you are too stupid to understand the issues and you need to leave making the decisions of what is good for you, up to me”
      That is Cathy Giessel in a nutshell!

  18. Why the division? Giessel is simply reaching across the aisle in order to get things done. Don’t hate her because she’s not an obstructionist! If I have to /sarc/ that, god help us all.

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