Congresswoman Mary Peltola knows which side of the bread her campaign butter is on. She has embedded her Juneau campaign office in the suites of the Alaska Public Employees Association – AFT – AFL-CIO, which is located in a building owned by the Alaska Legislature, right across from the Alaska Capitol.
The art-deco style building was once known as the Assembly Apartments. It was given to the Legislature by the Juneau Community Foundation to be used for 33 studio apartments for legislators and staff. The building needs a lot of renovation before it can be restored to apartments and it won’t be ready to lease until 2024, according to the Legislative Council.
While it was built as an apartment building, in recent years it has been a hotbed of lobbying offices, and during the Covid pandemic, the state had a Covid testing site set up in the building for people to go through before they came through the doors of the Capitol.
The Alaska Public Employees Association-American Federation of Teachers is the largest lobby for government workers in Alaska and is always one of the largest contributors to campaigns and independent expenditure groups that exclusively support Democrats for elected office.
It’s possible that Peltola could not find someone in the private sector to rent an office from in Juneau, and it’s also possible the lease that APEA-AFT has with the Legislature allows them to sublease their space to political campaigns. But to be embedded in the Alaska Public Employees Association is certainly a strong message about Peltola priorities.
Under ranked choice voting, Peltola, a Democrat, was able to win the seat in Congress, even though as a Democrat, she represents a minority of Alaska voters. Her campaign is presenting her as a bipartisan person who can represent all Alaskans, but her links to unions and lobbyists are a growing concern to regular Alaskans.
She is running against three conservatives – Nick Begich, Sarah Palin, and Chris Bye. Conservative voters have not effectively ranked other conservatives on their ballots, which led to the August special election victory of Peltola, whose party has only 77,038 registered Democrats in Alaska, while the Alaska Republican Party has 144,045 registrants.
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