Abel Bult-Ito, a biochemist and the president of the University of Alaska’s 900-member faculty union, the largest within the university system, wrote a very long, very detailed letter to the chair of the University of Alaska’s Board of regents, Pat Jacobson, objecting to UA president Pat Gamble’s recently-approved $320,000 retention bonus. Among other things, Bult-Ito writes that because details of the bonus were not disclosed prior to the meeting in June where the bonus was approved, the board must take the issue up again when it next meets in September. Read the full letter here.

The bonus was offered by the Board of Regents on the condition that Gamble stay until 2016. It was offered during a time when the university system is facing budget deficits and is in the process of laying off faculty. Continue reading →

If the first Senate debate of the general election could be boiled down to a few lines from the candidates, it would be these:

Sen. Mark Begich: Regardless of the party I belong to, we’re all friends. I’m working for you. Let’s keep that friendship going.

Dan Sullivan: We need different friends. You might not know me yet, but in the long run, I’ll be better for you than Begich. And besides, I want to repeal ObamaCare.

The debate, only eight days after the primary, was sponsored by the libertarian/tea party group, United for Liberty, and was moderated by Dave Cuddy, from the First National Bank of Alaska family. Cuddy ran against Ted Stevens in the 1996 and the 2008 Republican primaries. However, save for a young man in the audience who, at the end of the night started screaming about saving babies, the crowd seemed relatively tea-party free. If anything, Begich supporters dominated.

Who won? It depends on whether or not you’re inclined to want to continue on with the relationship with Begich. Continue reading →

The first Senate debate of the general election is being held tonight between Sen. Mark Begich and Dan Sullivan. It’ll start at 7 p.m. at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium at the UAA campus. It’ll be live-streamed on ADN’s website here. I’ll be tweeting @Amanda_Coyne and will post a story post-debate. The debate is moderated by United For Liberty, a libertarian/tea party group. The moderator is Dave Cuddy, from the First National Bank of Alaska family, who ran against Ted Stevens in the 1996 and the 2008 Republican primaries. Cuddy moderated a Senate debate before the Republican primary.

Below is GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s new ad, his second of the general election season. It’s unclear how wise it is to run a political ad telling you how aggravating political ads are. But then again, it’s one eye-catching way to get the public to watch Sullivan shoot a gun. It’s also a reminder that Sen. Mark Begich declined an agreement offered by Sullivan in June that would have kept super-PAC money out of the race. An internal Sullivan poll conducted in June by Moore Information found that 65 percent of those polled said that Begich should sign the agreement. Even 52 percent of those who are supporting Begich said he should. Begich’s campaign shot back on Tuesday afternoon, noting Sullivan’s support for Citizens United, the Supreme Court case that allowed unlimited spending by super-PACs.

The ad made Politico’s list of the political season’s most bizarre ads.

The April 2015 Anchorage mayoral race just got one-more-person interesting. First term Chugiak/Eagle River Assemblywoman Amy Demboski, a rising star in conservative circles, is throwing her hat in the ring. Demboski is a paralegal with an MBA from Columbia Southern University. She said in a statement that she will be “a stoic voice for the taxpayers, focusing on fiscal restraint, essential city services, accountability, and ethical leadership.”

Demboski has agreed with, and campaigned on, Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan’s proposals  to rein in the power of the unions. Demboski’s husband is a fire captain and a member of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which is part of a strong coalition of union members that have fought Sullivan’s proposals. Continue reading →

Vilifying the billionaire Koch brothers, who have been top contributors to conservative, free market causes and candidates, is a major goal of the national Democrats , in order to undercut the brothers’ messages and influence. Some, like the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel, thinks that it’s working. She cites decreased giving to the Republican Party and Republican super-PACs as evidence, saying that such attacks against the Koch brothers have made Republican donors “skittish.”  (The hundreds of millions they put in Mitt Romney’s losing campaign also didn’t help). In any case, as the ADN’s Nat Herz first wrote, it’s unclear if this latest attempt to go after Sullivan via the Kochs is going to work in Fairbanks, where the ad, courtesy of the International Association of Firefighters’ super-PAC, is running. It is perhaps too much of a step removed, and as many in Fairbanks know, there’s lots of blame to go around in that Koch-brothers refinery closure. Then again, it’s Fairbanks, and it’s always been hard to predict what the people up there are going to do and what’s going to take hold.  It’s conservative country, but not corporate-conservative country, as evidenced by the whopping 56 percent who voted to repeal Ballot Measure 1. That vote doesn’t bode well for Sullivan, who fought against repealing the measure, and more problematic yet, doesn’t at all exude a populist vibe.

Whether the ad works or not, the photoshoppped ghost-of-Sullivan at the end of the ad is kind of fun. Watch the ad here.

Independent gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker released the results of a poll that he commissioned by Anchorage-based Hays Research Group that shows that if the choice were between Walker and Gov. Sean Parnell, Walker would be beating Parnell by 2 points. The spread is even wider if those “leaning” toward Walker are included. Democratic candidate Byron Mallott was not mentioned in the survey.

The poll of 474 voters was conducted August 20 – 22. It says that about 39 percent would vote for Walker, and that 4.4 percent are leaning Walker. Parnell would get about 37 percent of the vote with another 2.7 percent leaning Parnell. The margin of error is 4.5 percent. Fifteen percent of the electorate is still undecided.

From a Walker statement on the results: Continue reading →

All the writing and talking about Brad Keithley’s pledge not to join a caucus that requires them to vote on the budget as a condition of membership, may be moot, for incumbent legislators anyway. Incumbents are guided by the Legislative Ethics Act. (Non-incumbents go to APOC for guidance and opinions, which don’t always comport to Ethics. It’s a mess. But that’s another story.) In April, the Legislative Ethics Committee addressed the issue of pledges in exchange for monetary support, which Keithley is offering. Keithley said that he will put up to $200,000 of his own money into supporting candidates who demonstrate support for a sustainable budget. One key way to demonstrate that is to sign the pledge, he wrote.

Legislators have been in touch with Legislative Ethics, looking for guidance. When they do, they have been sent to the following opinion that seems to indicate that signing such pledge under such conditions violates the Legislative Ethics Act: Continue reading →

Most people can agree, even, it appears, the candidate himself, that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Byron Mallott has gotten a slow start in the race. Here’s his first radio ad of the general election. Will it help to ignite some sort of spark? I think it’s pretty good. I played it for a friend of mine who thought it’s soft and vague, and that there’s nothing that clings to the ribs. What do you guys think?

As I wrote last week, Brad Keithley, an Anchorage-based politically active lawyer and consultant, sent out a questionnaire to candidates, testing their fiscally conservative creds. For a few years now, Keithley has been focused on the state’s budget problems. He was toying at taking a run for governor, but decided against it. However, he still wants to make a difference. He has said that he is willing to put up to $200,000 of his own money trying to elect candidates who are serious about cutting the budget. To that end, he sent all the candidates that questionnaire. He’ll use those answers, along with the results of a poll that he commissioned, to choose the candidates.

One of the 11 questions is the following about a pledge: “Will you publicly commit prior to the election not to join any legislative caucus that conditions your membership upon your support of and vote for whatever budget is sent to the floor by the Finance Committee?”

Keithley hasn’t said if an affirmative answer is requisite for his support. It is, however, implied.

Like many of the plethora of pledges, Continue reading →

Below are some interesting questions that a reader was asked from a polling firm testing the strengths of various messages, which could potentially both support and/or work against Senate candidates Dan Sullivan and Sen. Mark Begich. It’s unclear who paid for the survey. In any case, who’s paying for it is less interesting than the questions themselves, which give a preview into what’s likely to come to a television screen near you. (An interesting note: although the questions run the gamut, nothing was asked about the Pebble Mine, which, as the pro-Begich super-PAC Put Alaska First is well aware, will be a big issue in the race.)

Keep in mind that some of them are rough and may not be transcribed perfectly. The reader was typing them as fast as his or her fingers could go. Also note that my job here wasn’t to fact check statements or the assumptions embedded in the questions, some of which are patently false. (Dan Sullivan did not defraud the VA, for instance. There’s absolutely no proof that Mark Begich did anything nefarious in business deals with local developer Jon Rubini. And I’ve never once heard about him keeping a helicopter here.)

Here it goes: Continue reading →

Since Dan Sullivan won the GOP Senate primary race on Tuesday, it’s been unclear how much Joe Miller, who saw a late surge and came in second in the race, was going to be involved in Sullivan’s campaign. Sullivan and Miller had a “positive” meeting on Wednesday, Sullivan’s campaign spokesperson said. But that’s as far as he would go. Miller’s spokesperson didn’t immediately return a call.

Miller said during the last debate of the campaign that he would support the Republican nominee. But support comes in all degrees. Miller got 29,173 votes on Tuesday night. Those are numbers to pay attention to. Sen. Mark Begich beat then Sen. Ted Stevens by about 4,000 votes in 2008. Many of Miller’s tea party supporters will vote for Sullivan anyway in the general. But not all of them without Miller’s full-throttled endorsement.

A release that Miller sent today (in full below) appears to indicate that Miller at least will fight back against Begich when his name his used by Begich to attack Sullivan, Continue reading →