Harry Crawford, a former Alaska state legislator and contender for the U.S. Congress, said on Thursday that he’s going to challenge Republican Alaska state Sen. Cathy Giessel in 2014. “Unless something drastic happens, that’s how I’m going to spend 2014,” Crawford said.

Crawford was in the House from 2001 to 2011 when he stepped down to run against U.S. Rep. Don Young, to whom he lost by a large margin. He also ran for the state Senate primary in another district in 2012 against fellow Democrat Bettye Davis. Davis lost to Sen. Anna Fairclough in the general.

District boundaries have since changed, and some say that the new district lines, which includes the upper Hillside area and Girdwood, are more favorable to a Democrat generally, and specifically to Crawford.

Crawford is a pro-resource development Democrat, an increasingly rare breed in Alaska. Although he wants to repeal the tax breaks made to the oil industry last session, he voted against ACES in 2007, believing that we should tax more on the low end and less on the upper end.

But he’s highly supportive of “getting Alaska back to work” and of big projects: the gas line, damns and mines, to name a few. Or, as he puts it: “Getting the projects out of the ground and the iron in the air.”

Crawford came to Alaska in the 1970s to work on the trans-Alaska pipeline, and was an iron worker for 37 years. He’s from Louisiana and although he said he’s worked in every state west of the Mississippi, he hasn’t lost his home state’s accent.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com