State candidates fundraising reports are due to APOC by mid February and will include all monies raised in 2013 as well as for January 2014. Pundits are guessing that Gov. Parnell will likely report between $300,000 – $400,000 and that his two opponents, Byron Mallott and Bill Walker, combined won’t equal Parnell’s totals. Such is the power of incumbency in a state with $500 per-calendar year campaign limits. The limits were enacted in 1996, when Democrats thought it was a really good idea to handicap their big donors, the one fundraising advantage they had. They were like, we’ll be the party of ethics! Republicans, who were working hard, and succeeding, at building the party’s registration, were like, you take the ethics, we’ll take the money for the people and we’ll win! And they did, and continue to do so.
Voted the best name for incoming legislative staffer: “Alectra,” who reportedly will work for House Majority Leader Lance Pruitt. Speaking of legislative staff comings-and-goings, there’ll be at least one legislative office that has had 100 percent turnover since last year.
And then there’s the true American hero joining the ranks of legislative staffers. Senate President Charlie Huggins, co-chair of the Alaska Legislative Veterans Caucus, recently added Eric Hollen to his staff as a veterans affairs specialist. Hollen was a ranger in the U.S. Army and later, after sustaining a life-altering injury, went on to represent the United States in shooting at the 2012 Paralympic Games.
Quote of the day courtesy of Jimmy Fallon: “Alaska may legalize marijuana. Which would bring a whole new meaning to the term, “Baked Alaska.” Speaking of pot, Chris Rempert, from the Marijuana Policy Project, has moved to Alaska to run the campaign. Let’s give him a the usual big Alaska welcome by telling him we don’t like Outsiders.
Irony alert of the day: Shalon Harrington, who works for Mayor Dan Sullivan and traveled with him on the now controversial D.C. trip, used to work as Sen. Lesil McGuire’s chief of staff when she was Shalon Szymanski. Both are vying for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination. Using some mysterious formula, Sullivan recently paid the city back $214 for the trip. He said he was “going the extra mile,” to do things right. $214? 2014? If some opponent can’t make something of that, then we all deserve to remain perpetually baked in Alaska.
Correcting hyperbole: In an earlier version, I called Mayor Dan Sullivan’s trip “infamous.” It’s not infamous yet, as was pointed out. It’s merely controversial.
Correction: An earlier version of this post spelled Alectra’s name as “Electra.” And here I thought it couldn’t get any better.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
First you have to have the gas to sell. Why not ask Governor Parnell why he did not insist that the producers and the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission clearly state that the gas was available for AGIA because without the gas you get no successful open season and therefore no funding from commercial sources. Same question now applies for his latest scheme (son of AGIA?). Why is Bill Walkerdescribing Parnell’s “new plan” as the Frank Murkowski plan redux?
I’m no expert on gas but I do know that the sale of commodities is governed by market forces, chief of which is price. Selling gas requires the ability to negotiate long-term contracts that transpire in the future and last for a specific length of time. It’s my understanding that there is much cheaper gas available to gas buyers, from other sources. That said, I’m glad we are finally out from under AGIA. It was a really bad idea but it wasn’t Sean’s bad idea. Unless you’re an insider you have no idea what went into the calculus about which you speculate.
My chief complaint about Parnell is his unsustainable levels of spending; however regarding AGIA. which was created in 2008 . Who has been Governor the last five years? Who refused to demand a terminus location be declared long after gas shale made the canadian option not possible? Who refused to announce the results of the failed open season during the 2010 election campaign? Who failed to insist that the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission periodically announce estimates of gas available for export? He is totally responsible for this fiasco not because he created it, but because he sustained it even to the point of where legislators had to create an alternate option with the now AGDA/ASAP line.. Parnell has participated in the efforts to keep Alaskan gas off the market and has now probably succeeded.
Not sure why your are eviscerating Sean over AGIA. That’s Sarah Palin’s tar baby.
Like……? Give an example of what he has done.
I do not support Sean Parnell, who has taken us from a significant budget surplus to deficit spending by approving the greatest budgets in Alaska history.
I am a fiscal conservative who actually doesn’t care what the government funds. Funding the government is like giving your child an allowance. You hope they would save some and only spend on items of value. The one certainty is that you are not going to get any of the money back.
I only care that the government, absent a declaration of war or similar crisis, not spend more than then it earns so we can leave future generations unburdened by debt. In any event, after five years of this Governor what do we have to show for all his spending? Look at AGIA alone which since 2008 has cost the state 280 million dollars and yet only a few months ago did we learn where the line would finally terminate just before we withdrew from the project and years after shale gas had eliminated the Alberta terminus option.
Sean Parnell does not subscribe to any belief in fiscal discipline in any manner other than to deny funding to political opponents- that is his idea of fiscal discipline. Otherwise his supporters are in line for as much government largess as he can create for them. Therefore donations to Sean Parnell make perfect sense as a financial investment and I can understand the motive.
If only the whole truth told were told about the mayor. His kind of politics isn’t acceptable in this day and age.
Point taken. See revisions.
Now infamous trip? The Mayor of Anchorage has traveled to D.C. one or more times per year for decades. This one is a little dramatic Amanda.
Awesome, Amanda. Good piece.