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Alaska Politics and Parallels: State Senate has Obstructed Progress

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Photo credit: Christie 13In this upcoming election where we will be voting for officials on both the national and state levels, it’s important to discern the parallels between them. Barack Obama has pushed for government to play an extreme role in our society. His push for higher taxes coupled with increased government spending has decimated the national economy. His administration’s anti-development approach to our natural resources has cost us an untold number of jobs; especially in Alaska. Obamacare is a combination of huge taxation and government regulation like we’ve never seen before. Many companies have already started cutting back their labor force to accommodate it.

The U.S. Senate, controlled by the Democrats, hasn’t passed a budget in over three years. They just keep increasing spending, while complaining about how they’re being stopped from raising taxes so that they can spend more. The House has done their duty and passed a number of budgets, all rejected by the Senate because they didn’t increase spending enough. The House has passed a number of bills to allow resource development, repeal Obamacare and bring us closer to energy independence; again all rejected by the Senate.

Our own state Senate, controlled by the Democrat-run coalition, has also spent most of its time rejecting good legislation. A coastal zone management bill was originally passed by the House with a true bipartisan vote of 40-0. It was then sent over to the Senate, where the radical environmentalists who lead the coalition rewrote it as a massive anti-development bill, which in the end the voters had to kill at the polls. While some of the Interior senators in the coalition originally voted for the gas line bill a few years back, this last year they voted down moving it forward, delaying a gas line to Fairbanks one more year. Another good example is oil tax reform: The House passed HB 110 and then the Senate held only a few minutes of committee hearings on it, and never brought in industry or experts to testify on it. The Senate wasted the entire session coming up with a different bill, at that point finally allowing some testimony, and then ended up with a result that it was not able to get consensus on within its own coalition, and so it failed in the Senate. The meat of that bill was then tacked on as an amendment to the ‘middle earth’ oil exploration tax credits bill that the House had sent over to the Senate. This was in the final days of the session, and the House, with no time left to evaluate it, had to put the tax credits in another bill, and remove the non-meaningful oil tax changes.

The real highlight here of how the coalition has operated is that they refuse to deal with the House and come up with compromises. They have just obstructed, stopping any bill that would have moved this state forward. The coalition also hasn’t been a big help for Fairbanks, with all the major leadership roles taken by senators from the south of the state. They killed the storage tax credits that Fairbanks needed to get natural gas here, and those were only saved by hard work in the House by Rep. Steve Thompson, who at the last minute attached it to a bill the leadership of the coalition desperately wanted to pass (same bill they had to put the exploration credits into). Those storage tax credits already have Fairbanks Natural Gas building a large storage tank, and will be probably be used by Golden Valley Electric Association if it moves ahead with a project.

We have a great opportunity this year to stop the progressive agenda that has dominated our state for the past four years and has been strangling the dreams and economy of the Interior. We can choose principled conservatives at the polls who understand the need for resource development, jobs, energy and most importantly, the need for a united Interior delegation. Please vote on Tuesday and send the clear message to the rest of the state that the Interior is united and pro-business.

Alaska’s ‘Bi-Partisan’ Working Group: The Cover for the Progressive Agenda of Obama’s Minions (+video)

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There has been no small shortage of advertising state-wide to support the “Bi-Partisan Working Group,” or sometimes called the Senate Majority. Despite their claim that they are “bi-partisan” or work “in a bi-partisan” way, it is really a cover for a State Senate controlled by Progressive Democrats. While it is true that the Senate President Gary Stevens is a Republican, he can hardly be viewed as a conservative. Proclaiming resource development to conflict with the state constitution, his views would be laughable if they were not hurting the state and blocking legislation that would allow resource development. In exchange for facilitating their agenda, Gary Stevens gets an easy glide from the Democrats to get back into office.

An examination of the rest of the Bi-Partisan Working Group shows they are, in fact, quite partisan. Some of the most radical state democrats are in control of important committees. It is through the committee chairmanships that they control state business, fostering the agenda of the progressive left. All of them worked on Barack Obama’s campaign, and they share his views on resource development. Anna Fairclough, long time state representative, correctly identified the key roles these Democrats play in the state’s legislative process. The term “bi-partisan” is simply a cover for Democrats trying to hide their association with Barack Obama and his policies.

An examination of the individual members of this group of “gate-keepers” is very revealing. They are all pro-abortion; Bettye Davis is actually playing the role of Planned Parenthood attack dog on her web page against conservative legislators like Alan Dick, claiming they are leading a war on woman. (Apparently, Senator Davis isn’t familiar with the strong role females have in Rep. Dick’s family and rural Alaska). They favor policies that allow government to intrude into your life; some like Joe Thomas advocate policies so radical that many building school teachers would be horrified (newborn public education, support of student insurrections, belief that brains quit developing after the age of 7). Even Joe Paskvan advocates their radical policies (although Paskvan does not agree with Thomas on brain development and believes brains don’t develop until a person is in their 20s). They worked against Parental Consent legislation, they supported legislation that criminalized parents if their child dropped out of school, and they are firm in their belief that the state can run your life better than you can. They may “claim” they are only about fiscal issues, but they clearly have a social agenda they are hiding, and it is an agenda that is reflective of the over-reaching power of the state into family matters that were the hallmark of the Knowles era.

Others like Hollis French are simply anti-gun at their core, and have led Senators like Paskvan and Woelekowski, who once had stellar gun records, down the gun control path. All of them share Barack Obama’s views on resource development and will do whatever they can to block resource development while making them think it is to YOUR advantage. Even worse, they will lie about the records of the Republican Majority to remain in power. They seem to think that no one remembers that the VECO scandal started with the Democrats and Tony Knowles’s Governor’s fund while Dave Guttenberg was Chairman of the Democratic Party, no one remembers the Knowle’s witch hunts for home school mothers who might drown their children, or the various and sundry big government positions of this group of old school progressives.

The cover for the Progressives as “Bi-Partisan” can be clearly seen with a closer examination of the “gatekeeper” Democrats. Fortunately, there are solid people running against each one of these Democratic “gate-keepers.” Let’s get out there and vote, and get both Barack Obama, and his minions in our state senate, out of office. Take note of their names and vote them out.

Democrats control Alaska’s Senate even though the GOP has the majority

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A majority coalition known as the “Alaska Senate Bipartisan Working Group,” is the controlling power in the state senate. The group consists of ten Democrats and six Republican members. So, although the Alaska Senate is under the leadership of Republicans, the Democratic controlled caucus effectively rules the roost and decides what bills are allowed to come up for committee hearings and before the floor for a vote.

Democrats Hollis French — Senate Judiciary Chair — and Johnny Ellis — Chair of the Senate Rules Committee — are prominent members of this controversial alliance. They’ve stopped tax relief for oil companies wanting to develop oil resources, thereby grinding to a halt resource development and economic growth through jobs that would have been created as well low cost energy for Alaskans.

Another consequence of this band of liberal Democrats and the Republicans who have thrown their hat in with them, is that they have vociferously stifled and blocked virtually all pro-life legislation. Two examples, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban (HB301) and Parental Consent Bill (HB364), were passed in the House but blocked from even getting a hearing by French.

The Democrat coalition comes into sharp focus when looking into the Senate Seat D race, encompassing District 7 & 8 of the Valley. Mike Dunleavy has pledged to not join the current “bi-partisan” Senate majority that is controlled by liberal Democrats. His opponent, incumbent Linda Menard, is a member of this liberal coalition that has turned our State Senate into a “graveyard” for almost all conservative legislation.

Mike has been endorsed by Alaska Right to Life PAC and Alaska Family Action Inc., Conservative Patriots Group and Alaska Outdoor Council.

Mike Dunleavy has a strong family background, extensive business and educational experience in our state and the Valley. Mike’s work history includes serving as a teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent; running the Mat-Su correspondence program; managing the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project; heading up the University of Alaska’s K-12 outreach program; and currently working as the President of the Mat-Su School Board.

Mike Dunleavy has earned respect and strong support because he has proven on a consistent basis that he not only “talks the talk” about conservative values and principle, but he “walks the walk.” Electing Dunleavy may very likely restore control of our state’s Senate to conservative hands.