Category Archives: news

How much is the shutdown costing the country?

From the Washington Post: 

“In a research note Tuesday, J.P. Morgan analysts estimated that federal furloughs will reduce national income by a total of $1.3 billion per week. As a result, the shutdown could shave 0.12 percent off fourth quarter GDP growth for each week it goes on. That forecast doesn’t account for any knock-on effects on the private sector or dent in economic confidence, which are harder to quantify. All that lost income could be recouped if Congress later agrees to give those 770,000 furloughed federal workers back pay. But for now, that’s very much uncertain. Republicans in Congress are split on whether to agree to retroactive pay to workers who get furloughed.”

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Palin and Koch brothers make shutdown jokes while children are turned away for cancer treatment

You might have seen Sarah Palin’s supposed “funny” Facebook post about how the government shutdown will affect the country. With the government shut down, who will, “block responsible resource development, spy on me, waste my money…” she posted. The Alaskan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brother-funded political group, also had fun with the federal-workers-are-worthless meme on its Facebook page.

Palin can afford to have fun, and the Koch brothers have enough money to buy fun all around. Others can’t. Not all Americans are spending their days in a Wasilla fortress or in mansions across the country. To some, the shutdown is life or death. The following heartbreaking paragraph from the The Wall Street Journal highlights what the government shutdown means for some Americans:

At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said.

Not so funny now, huh?

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Begich holds fast with Democrats over shutdown

chess moveSince being elected in 2008, Sen. Mark Begich has often bumped heads with his Democratic Senate colleagues. He did so over gun control, for one. He’s repeatedly voted against environmental issues that Democrats have pushed for.

But now, he’s holding fast and true with his fellow Democrats who are blaming Republicans for shutting the federal government down over the funding of the Affordable Care Act, an act, it should be noted, that Congress passed, has been litigated up to the Supreme court, and has gone through an election cycle.

It’s also something that Alaskans are against, by and large, for now at least.

So why is Begich, who’s up for a tough reelection in 2014 sticking with the Dems on this? Principle no doubt plays into it. He likely truly believes that Republican entrenchment on this is wrong for the country. But Begich is nothing if not a political animal. He has one of the best political noses in the state, and the political winds he’s smelling are telling him that this one is a winner.

I couldn’t find anybody who’s polled on the shutdown in Alaska, but feelings here aren’t likely radically different than feelings across the country: no matter how much people object to the health care law, they have consistently told pollsters that they are not in favor of tying government operations to defunding the law. Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake probably put it best when he said, “Obamacare is not popular, but we’ve managed to find the one thing that’s less popular than Obamacare.”

Republican Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who’s running for Begich’s seat, believes otherwise, apparently. He has said that if he were elected, he would “stand” with those Republican senators most entrenched, senators that even Republican stalwarts like John McCain and Richard Burr, to name just a few, believe have gone too far.

He’s since walked some of that back, maybe, although it’s been hard figure out exactly where he stands. Indeed, Roll Call writer Stu Rothenberg, who interviewed four Republican Senate candidates about the shutdown, said that among all of them, Mead was the most “difficult to pin down.”

Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, who is also running, is not difficult to pin down. He’d fight to end the health care law for as long as they’d have him in the Senate.

Former Department of Natural Resources Commissioner, Dan Sullivan, who has for weeks dithered about running, may be the smartest of the three. He’s not answering questions about the mess. He doesn’t have to. For now, he’s a private citizen dithering away like the rest of us. And by the time he might have to, the worst will likely be over, and he’ll get to play statesman.

Begich is holding a telephonic town hall on the government shutdown on Wednesday evening. Expect strong words from him about entrenched Republicans. It’s a winner and he knows it.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.ccom 

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Alaska Railroad asking state for $40 million for safety upgrades

railroadThe Alaska Railroad Corp. is requesting that Gov. Sean Parnell include $40 million in his fiscal year 2015 budget submission for safety improvements to passenger service. The railroad is making the request to comply with federally mandated passenger safety upgrades. According to the railroad’s budget request, more than $150 million total will be required to complete the federal mandate by 2018.

The federal mandate “is too big a lift for our current financial situation to support,” railroad spokesman Tim Sullivan said.

Parnell will present his budget later this year.

The mandates were established by Congress in 2008 in response to train accidents. They are supposed to make rail service safer.

The railroad has already spent $63.8 million on the program, it says. That number includes $19.1 it received from the legislature last year, an appropriation that was requested by Parnell in the final hours of the legislative session without time for committee review or public comment. All told, the railroad will need an additional $69.7 million from 2015 to 2018 to complete the project.

The $40 million is for both fiscal year 2015 and 2016.

“At stake is the continuation of Alaska Railroad passenger service,” Sullivan said.

Roughly 400,000 people a year ride the railroad. About 60 percent of those passengers come to Alaska via cruise ships. It’s unclear how many Alaskans take the train. The direct financial impact to Alaska if the passenger service is disrupted is also unclear. The railroad is working on an impact study, Sullivan said.

A disruption would undoubtedly impact businesses and communities that rely on tourism.

The railroad and all its assets were transferred from federal to state hands in 1985 and was established as a state-owned corporation. Those assets now total about $989 million and include about 500 miles of railroad line and about 36,000 acres of land, about half of which are available for lease, and which accounted for roughly $10 million of the railroad’s revenue in 2012.

It does not pay state or corporate income taxes, nor any property taxes.

Its total revenue in 2012 was $190.4 million, including about $40 million of federal government grants.

According to the railroad’s annual report, operating revenues exceeded operating expenses by $3.8 million.

Unlike the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., another state corporation, the Legislature has no say over the railroad’s budget, and it doesn’t pay annual dividends to the state. The intent was for the corporation to use any profits to be self-sustaining. However since 1996, it has relied on federal grants to make ends meet, and state appropriations in the last few years for capital projects.

In the past, there have been discussions about giving the Legislature more control over the railroad’s budget through the Executive Budget Act, which the railroad has always strenuously opposed on grounds that they weren’t asking for or needed state appropriations.

Contact Amanda Coyne amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Alaskan politicians playing games with our money and our health

19392277_mAs of October 1, the federal government is shut down. Driving the shutdown are some Republicans intent on repealing or delaying the Affordable Care Act. Come January roughly 66,000 Alaskans, some even with preexisting conditions, will be able to buy affordable health insurance on the private market for the first time ever.

That includes me. According to a broker, I’ll probably be paying about $500 a month for a plan with a $1200 deductible.

For me that’s a great deal. If not for the new health care law, I would be paying about $1500 a month for such insurance.

That’s a $1000 a month difference. That’s real money. That’s a mortgage. That’s money that can be used to support private Alaska businesses.

U.S. Rep. Don Young voted on Monday yet again to delay the program for a year. Senate hopeful Joe Miller would go further. He would repeal the whole thing. The other Republican hopeful, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has indicated that he would do the same.

For decades, Young has been the beneficiary of the best health insurance available, which has been highly subsidized by the tax payers. He’s now on Medicare. However, in 2009, the plan most favored by members of Congress was Blue Cross Blue Shield, which covered a family for about $1,030 a month. Taxpayers paid $700 of that.

Young, and all the members of Congress, also have government-funded private doctors on the Hill available to them.

As a veteran of our armed services, Miller is eligible for tax funded healthcare.

As a state of Alaska official, Treadwell doesn’t have to pay anything for his insurance. The state health insurance plan is better than almost any plan available on the private market. And, it’s all funded by the citizens of Alaska.

Let me repeat that: As a state worker, Treadwell doesn’t have to pay any monthly premiums for a plan that’s better than nearly any plan normal Alaskans get or can buy themselves.

Funny how politicians always seem to know how to get theirs.

If the health care act is delayed and I can’t sign up for it, I’ll be spending roughly more than $12,000 than I would otherwise. And if only 10,000 Alaskans of comparable health, age and income sign up under ObamaCare, it will save us a collective $120 million.

That’s more than Alaska makes off of taxes from mining, cigarettes and alcohol combined.

The federal government shut down at midnight while the House continues to leverage the budget continuing resolution as a means of delaying ObamaCare. Federal workers all across the state will be affected. So will the elderly and the disabled. The stock market has already fallen as the result of instability. Most of Alaskans who have retirement accounts have at least some of it in the stock market. We’ve all lost money that we’ll probably never get back.

The health care law will not be delayed. Obama will not allow it.

So what’s happening is this: Some Republican politicians are playing partisan games with our money and our health.

I’m going to go to a broker tomorrow and sign up for health insurance through the exchanges, which will be available on January 1. For the first time, I’ll be able to buy affordable, private health insurance. I won’t be getting as good of a deal as Young, Treadwell or Miller.

But I won’t complain. I’m going to have better and more affordable health insurance. And I’ll pass on some of what I’m going to save to Alaska businesses.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Byron Mallott announces campaign kickoff

MallottSome candidates start their campaigns off with a bang, announcing their candidacy and then immediately traveling around the state on a 24 hour whirlwind tour kicking off their campaign. Other candidates seem to meander to the starting line.

Byron Mallott meandered. Mallott, who is running as a Democrat against Gov. Sean Parnell, first told the media his plans on Sept. 2. On Saturday, more than three weeks later, his campaign has announced a campaign kick-off scheduled for October 16th in Anchorage at the Alaska Experience Theater on 4th Avenue.

Mallott is 70 years old and brings a unique understanding and perspective to both government service and the private sector, as well as to the rural/urban divide that plagues Alaska. At 22, he was the mayor of Yakutat. He was commissioner of the Alaska Department of Community and Regional Affairs under Gov. Bill Egan. He served as mayor of Juneau before becoming the executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund. He was the CEO of Sealaska Corp, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, and has served on the board of many corporations, including Alaska Airlines and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He’s clan leader of the KwaashKiKwaan clan of the Raven tribe of Yakutat. His wife Toni is a retired elementary school teacher.

Given his history, reputation, and his ties to Native corporations, the slow start won’t likely impede his fundraising abilities. The primary reason for state candidates seeking statewide office to announce over a year before the election is to raise money . State campaign finance laws allow individuals to give $500 and political action committees, or PACs, $1000 per calendar year. Corporate contributions are prohibited. Total out of state contributions for a gubernatorial candidate is limited to $20,000 per calendar year as well

By announcing in 2013 for the 2014 election cycle, candidates can get financial support from large and out of state donors both this year and next. Given the high costs of a statewide campaign, the low maximum contribution level, and our small population base, every day and every dollar counts.

Just last week alone, Gov. Sean Parnell had three fundraisers, two in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks, rumored to have raised collectively in the neighborhood of $40,000 – $50,000. Mayor Dan Sullivan, who is running for lieutenant governor, had a fundraising event in Palmer attended by almost 100 people.

You can bet that starting soon, Mallott will hit the campaign fund raising circuit hard.

Contact Amanda Coyne at  Amandamcoyne(at)yahoo.com

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Government shutdown: Treadwell aligns with Joe Miller and Sarah Palin

On her Facebook page, former Gov. Sarah Palin is making light of the potential for a government shutdown, a possibility that appears more and more possible by the hour. She posted a “funny” list of all the possible negative impacts of a shutdown. “If the government shuts down, who will, “block responsible resource development, spy on me, waste my money…” she posted. The list goes on. Sarah Palin has made millions since quitting her job as governor in 2010.

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who is running for the U.S. Senate, also appears to support a shutdown. He called those who were trying to do so “courageous,” and said that if he were a senator, he would “stand” with those who were advocating such a move. Joe Miller, the other candidate running in the Republican primary, also supports those who are advocating a shutdown.

Miller’s financial situation is hazy. Treadwell makes $135,000 as lieutenant governor. He makes as much as $200,000 a year in addition to his salary from investments and other income. In Anchorage, his assessed property values total more than $2 million.

In other words, both Treadwell and Palin can afford a government shutdown. They are doing fine and will continue to do so, regardless of whether the government stays open for business. Those who don’t have those resources that these two have will be the ones who are hurt: many of those “proud men and women” wearing our country’s uniform, the elderly, the disabled, those who are trying to build their retirement accounts. The stock market has already lost value in the last two days, and will likely continue to fall if the government shuts down. It will also likely push up interest rates.

Alaska’s congressional delegation, Sens. Mark Begich, Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, all are trying to avoid the shutdown and the mess that could result. Young for one, has lived through one and didn’t like the experience. Murkowski said a shutdown would put the government in “total disarray.”

Here’s just a few of some of the possible effects that it might have on Alaskans:

Unlike Joe Miller, Mead Treadwell is not known as a true believer. But he does appear to believe that advocating for those who are supporting a shutdown will peel off Miller supporters. He can afford to gamble on such a position, financially at least. It’s likely a stupid political move, however. Those thousands of Alaskans who are going to feel the effects are likely going to make him pay at the voting booth. And Miller’s people are nothing if not good at spotting panderers and apostates.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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The Denali Commission: There are often two sides to most stories

The Denali Commission, the recently embattled agency that was established under the late Sen. Ted Stevens, has again become so embattled that its own inspector general has recommended that the agency be shut down and that he himself be fired.

In a letter published in the Washington Post that the inspector general for the agency, Mike Marsh, sent to Congress and to the Post, Marsh said, “I recommend that Congress put its money elsewhere.”

The news has generated lots of headlines. The conservatives particularly love it. A federal bureaucrat recommending that the government fire him makes a good story, particularly as Congress dukes it out over the budget.

Marsh argues that the money spent is going to projects that villages are too small to sustain. In a previous report, he also alluded to the fact that federal dollars from the agency have gone “missing in action.”

The truth, however, is more complicated.

The Denali Commission acts as a coordinator for federal infrastructure dollars that go to rural Alaska. Money from the agency gets funneled to other agencies throughout the state to build projects like rural health clinics, energy infrastructure, and sewer and water systems.

At its apex, when Stevens was at his most powerful, the funding for the commission topped $150 million in 2006. Last year, the agency’s budget was just over $10 million. The commission is asking Congress for $14 million in the upcoming budget.

Inspector General Mike Marsh lives in Arizona. He’s an accountant and a former prosecutor. In his letter, he suggests that the commission be expanded to include Outside states, that it be turned into a nonprofit organization, that it be a cabinet department, or that it just go away.

The first commission members heard about Marsh’s recent pronouncement was in the newspaper on Friday morning. Marsh didn’t attend the last board meeting, in person or telephonically.

Joel Neimeyer, the top federal official at the agency described Marsh as funny, brilliant, and quirky, but he doesn’t agree that the agency should be shuttered.

Neimeyer said that Marsh is using his law enforcement skills to investigate what the agency has done wrong. In contrast, Neimeyer is an engineer. His job is to look to see what the agency needs to do to make things work.

“It’s two different ways of looking at life,” Neimeyer said.

Perhaps nowhere are these differences in approaches more telling than in Marsh’s report earlier this year about what’s called “renewal and replacement” accounts. In the report, Marsh made it sound as if millions, maybe as much as a $100 million federal dollars went “missing in action”, and he has used this as ammunition to advocate shutting the agency down.

Along with other requirements, renewal and replacement accounts, or R&R accounts, were supposed to be established as part of each project that received an energy infrastructure grant as one part of a business plan. They were accounts, paid for by the users of such facilities through fuel surcharges, that would help maintain equipment.

Such funds were not established for 32 of the 67 accounts audited by the commission. Other requirements of business plans were established.

According to a Denali Commission report about the funds, a total of about $6 million should have been in such accounts; but were not for various and complicated reasons, mostly due to lack of communication between the Denali Commission and the state agencies overseeing the projects.

“This one weakness in oversight does not detract from the totality of the Commission’s efforts,” the report says.

The main point however is that although there was confusion about the accounts, no federal dollars went “missing in action,” Neimeyer said.

In any case, the agency is going through an audit by the U.S. General Accountability Office, and Alaska’s congressional delegation is committed to the commission and will work to keep it alive.

Sen. Mark Begich, who is up for reelection in 2014, said “Alaskans want to keep the Denali Commission and I will continue to fight for it.”

Further, Sen. Lisa Murkowski has called for an audit of Marsh himself, who requested $330,720 last year and $292,653 in the current budget to keep his office running and to give himself a paycheck.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Mead Treadwell courts tea party and applauds Ted Cruz

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell posted on his Facebook page that he “applauded” Sen. Ted Cruz’s attempt at defunding the Affordable Care Act. He said that “when” he’s elected, he would “stand and work with Senators like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.”

Treadwell is running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. So far, the only other declared candidate is tea party favorite Joe Miller. For years in Alaska, Treadwell had a reputation as being a moderate Republican. He gave money to liberal Democrats, talked about global warming being at least in part caused by human activity, and worked to get the U.S. to sign on to the Law of the Sea Treaty, all of which, particularly the latter, are verboten to the tea party.

That began to change when he ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 and began to court the conservative and tea party vote. In 2010, he declined to endorse Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was a long time friend of Treadwell’s, against Joe Miller.

He did, however, support her during her write-in campaign against Miller, which infuriated many tea party activists.

Treadwell is now staunchly anti-abortion, repeatedly rails against federal encroachment, and has made repealing the Affordable Care Act a major part of his platform.

A spokesman for Miller indicated that Miller would not readily cede the tea party vote to Treadwell. “Joe has been standing strongly with fellow tea partiers Cruz and Lee and has signed the Senate Conservatives Fund pledge to defund Obamacare,” the spokesman told the conservative site The Daily Caller. ”Unless, Mead just signed on today, he has not. He is shown as a thumbs down on their site.”

While Treadwell’s embrace of Cruz’s “filibusterer” is designed to get him some traction with tea party activists in Alaska, it’s questionable if he will succeed. It also runs counter to the views of some in the Senate Republican leadership, who are increasingly vocal about Cruz “burning bridges” in that organization.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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And now they don’t like our salmon

salmonPoor Alaska. It just can’t get a break. Its coal is watery. Its oil is depleting. Its natural gas is too expensive. lts gold unmineable. Nobody wants its potatoes or barley. Once there was an idea that people might really want its water. Nobody much seems to now. Nobody wants its weather, or its politicians. Nobody wants its people, either. When its people go to other places and say they are from this state, they get funny you’re-weird-get-away-from-us looks.

The one thing it did have going for it, the one thing that it prided itself on above all else, was its salmon.

Nobody, not the biggest mining companies in the world, not the Japanese, the Russians, nor the Canadians were going to take that away from Alaska. Alaska’s salmon was a driver for statehood. Beers are named in their honor. People wear tattoos in tribute to Alaska salmon. Whole lives revolve around the catching, processing and eating of the fish.

And a cottage industry has sprung up and millions of state dollars have been spent trying to convince the world that it tastes better than all other salmon.

The problem? According to a panel that the Washington Post put together of noted D.C. seafood chefs and a seafood wholesaler, it doesn’t taste better. In fact, the two Alaska species on the table scored second to last and last place compared to salmon from eight other regions.

Adding insult to injury, salmon from Alaska was among the most expensive of all they tried.

Number 1 on the list? Farm raised, frozen salmon from Norway, sold and packaged by Costco. Number two, farmed raised salmon from Norway. In fact, the top five on the list were all farm raised.

Here’s the complete list:

1. Costco farmed Atlantic, frozen in 4 percent salt solution, from Norway; $6 per pound (7.6 out of 10)

2. Trader Joe’s farmed Atlantic, from Norway; $10.99 per pound (6.4)

3. Loch Duart farmed Atlantic, from Scotland; $15 to $18 per pound (6.1)

4. Verlasso farmed Atlantic, from Chile; $12 to $15 per pound (6)

5. Whole Foods farmed Atlantic salmon, from Scotland; $14.99 per pound (5.6)

6. ProFish wild king (netted), from Willapa Bay, Wash.; $16 to $20 per pound (5.3)

7. AquaChile farmed Atlantic, from Chile; $12 to $15 per pound (4.9)

8. ProFish wild coho (trolled), from Alaska; $16 to $20 per pound. (4.4)

9. ProFish wild king (trolled), from Willapa Bay; $16 to $20 per pound (4)

10. Costco wild coho, from Alaska; $10.99 per pound (3.9)

But really, what do those stupid, D.C. chefs know? Nothing. They know nothing at all. They’re stupid and so are their taste buds and we don’t care what they think because we know our salmon is the best in the world. End of discussion.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Palin on why Republicans in Alaska don’t like her

On Fox News Tuesday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin likened what’s going on with Sen. Ted Cruz with what happened to her in Alaska:

“Am I surprised that RINOs would turn on one who would stand strong on [conservative] planks? No, because some of us have lived through that,” Palin said. “I’ve always been very, very independent. Up here in Alaska, it’s why I’m not in the good graces of the Alaskan political party when it comes to republican machinery.”

Palin spent much time Tuesday urging Cruz to continue to try to delay a Senate vote on whether or not to defund the Affordable Care Act as part of a budget package.

In an attempt to delay the vote, Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee spent more than 20 hours in front of a mic on the Senate floor. Here’s her tweet from last night as he was speaking:

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com 

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Why are some Republicans so nervous about Brad Keithley?

Brad Keithley, one of the potential independent candidates for governor, must have the Republican establishment scared. I know this because I get texts and emails from those political activists who appear to be scared. They are going through his voting record, trying to make the case that he’s a Democratic operative who moved to Alaska just to sabotage Gov. Sean Parnell, much like Vic Vickers, who moved to Alaska to run against Ted Stevens in 2008.

In order to run for governor, a person has had to live in Alaska for seven years. Keithley has said that he will have been here seven years if and when he files for governor.

Republicans are also trying to make his voting habits an issue. It appears that the first time Keithley voted in Alaska was in 2010. He freely admits this and says that he didn’t register to vote in Alaska when he first moved here from Texas and he doesn’t recall voting in Texas since 2000.

Their fear is understandable. Keithley has been talking and writing to an increasingly growing audience about the spending problem in Alaska. His point is a simple one: since oil prices began to rise in the mid 2000s, Alaska has been on a spending spree that rivals the last big spree the state went on in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

You can still see bumper stickers on cars that were made in the earlier spree’s honor. “Dear God, give us another oil boom and, this time, we promise we won’t piss it away,” it reads.

Keithley’s point: we have had another oil boom, and we’re pissing it away. A fact that he is continually hammering away on is that since Parnell took office, the budget has increased by 55 percent.

Parnell, it should be noted, calls himself a fiscal conservative.

It’s a simple message, and although we can argue about the best way to cut spending, it’s hard to argue that we shouldn’t at least try, unless you’re Parnell, who has no plans to significantly cut the budget for the next five years, or for as long as he’s in office if he gets a second term.

The people who benefit from all the state government largess —  people like the developer Mark Pfeffer, the master of sole source government contracts, and a prolific campaign contributor—aren’t likely happy about what Keithley is preaching. Those people are arguing that the state’s spending keeps Alaskans working. Which, as Keithley points out, sounds suspiciously like Obama’s stimulus plan. Unlike the federal government, however, nearly all of Alaska’s revenue comes from one source, and that one source is continually declining. Even if the producers do start to pump more oil because of the recent tax cut, the state is heading for a fiscal cliff.

According to UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research, Alaska doesn’t have the savings to forestall a fiscal crisis much after 2023.

Keithley thinks that it’s important that Alaskans hear that message.

Keithley is threatening to run for governor, but hasn’t yet filed. If he does, there will be all sorts of time to dig deeply into his past. For now, however, he’s a private citizen speaking what he feels is a message that needs to be heard. Some, apparently, don’t want him to tell it.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Romney’s money-tree shaker signs on with Treadwell

11196328_mLt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has hired the high-powered D.C.–based Republican fundraiser Lisa Spies to help open up pockets. She has already organized at least nine national fundraisers for him through Nov. 5.

Most recently, Spies was the Director of Women for Romney Victory where, according to her website, she led the effort to raise over $23 million. She also served as the Director of Jewish Outreach for the Romney for President campaign.

Her husband Charlie Spies founded the Restore Our Future super PAC, which raised $153 million throughout the 2012 election cycle. It’s been rumored that he is forming a super PAC for Treadwell.

FEC rules dictate that anyone officially part of the campaign, including the candidate, cannot communicate about the campaign with those who are involved with super PACs.

Treadwell is running in the U.S. Senate Republican primary. So far, Joe Miller is the only other declared candidate. Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan is expected to enter the race and is expected to announce soon after his resignation from that job on Tuesday.

Sullivan will have some catching up to do. Below is a list of Treadwell fundraisers that Lisa Spies has organized.

September 25th
North Dakota
Reception: Captain Freddy’s Riverside Restaurant & Bar in Mandan, North Dakota. Hosted by Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley.

September 26th
Seattle, Washington
Luncheon at the Washington Athletic Club. Hosted by Senator Slade Gorton, The Hon. Rob McKenna, The Hon. George Nethercutt, The Hon. Sam Reed, Chris Bayley, Svend Brandt-Erichsen, Brent Paine, John Stanton, Alan Walker, and Rob Wurm.

September 29th
Lana’I, Hawaii
Reception at the Four Seasons Hotel

October 2nd
Honolulu, Hawaii
Reception at the home of Candes Meijide Gentry and Steve Shropshire. Hosted by Congressman Charles Djou, State House Leader Aaron Ling Johanson, State House Floor Leader Beth Fukumoto Chang, and Hawaii GOP Chair David Chang

November 5th
Denver, Colorado
Reception at the Cherry Hills Country Club

Fundraisers have also been set for Oct. 9, and Oct. 10 in California. Also Oct. 28, and Oct. 29 in D.C. Details are still being worked out for these.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com 

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Palin likely won’t run for Senate, but won’t shy from endorsing candidate in primary

palinOn Fox News Sunday, former Gov. Sarah Palin indicated that it was unlikely she would run for U.S. Senate, but said she wouldn’t shy from endorsing a candidate in the GOP primary. She said that although Sen. Ted Cruz and other “good guys” in the Senate need “reinforcements,” any reinforcement likely won’t include her.

“It takes someone who has the stomach and the patience that are necessary to live and dwell in the cesspool that is D.C., which is really quite corrupt,” she said. “I have young children. I want to keep them nice and pure.”

She did, however, suggest that she’s going to endorse another candidate in the GOP primary.

“I would endorse someone,” she said. “I’ve never been one to shy away from calling it like I see it, and putting my money on someone who is willing to serve for the right reasons, do the right thing, and not be a typical go-along-to-get-along politician. Certainly not a RINO,” Palin said.

It’s unclear who would get her endorsement. So far, former candidate Joe Miller and current Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell have officially announced that they are running. Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan is also expected to jump in.

Palin had been a Miller supporter in 2010, but that relationship might have irrevocably soured when Miller failed to say whether or not Palin was qualified to be president.

If she has a personal relationship with Treadwell, it’s gone under the radar. He wasn’t part of her administration and she and Treadwell’s mentor Wally Hickel had a strained relationship. Too, Treadwell told Politico that he would be “surprised” if Palin made an endorsement in the GOP primary. Palin doesn’t cotton well to politicians saying what she will and won’t do.

However, Treadwell is positioning himself as a family values candidate, and has made repealing ObamaCare one of his main campaign issues, as has Palin.

Palin recruited Sullivan to be Alaska’s attorney general, but it’s unclear if his ideology will align with hers.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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State board rules gay partners are ‘family’ over objection of Rep. Lora Reinbold

gay rights State of Alaska employees who are in same sex relationships will now be able to take leave due to a serious health condition of a same-sex partner. Like employees in heterosexual relationships, gay partners of state employees will now be defined as “immediate family,” the state personnel board decided on Thursday.

The rule goes into effect Oct. 16 19.

Gay marriage is constitutionally banned in Alaska. However, in 2005, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that because of the prohibition, it was unconstitutional to deny gay couples benefits that the state provides to heterosexual couples.

The state has mostly complied with the order. But it took the ACLU of Alaska to write a letter on behalf of a corrections officer to bring this to the court-ordered standard.

No matter that the state was complying with a Supreme Court decision, this issue still wrought controversy.

Alaska state Rep. Lora Reinbold, a Republican from Eagle River and chair of the Administrative Review Committee, wrote a letter to the board, urging it to delay voting on the issue. She said that the decision would be giving “special privileges to individuals who have in fact made a Life-Style Choice.” It’s a choice, she asserts, that has “no legal standing;” however, she provides no supporting documentation. She appears either unaware of the Supreme Court decision or chooses to disregard it.

She also wrote that calling gay couples “family” is “not in keeping with my interpretation of statue or the legislative intent.”

The State of Alaska Personnel Board is a three member board appointed by the governor and approved by the Legislature, which does not oversee the board.

Others wrote in support of the decision. A local medical doctor wrote that the Alaska Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatricians all have stated that equal rights for same sex partners and their families “create a more healthy family environment.”

Another wrote that her partner of 13 years has breast cancer, and that this proposal is “not giving any special rights but an equal right to all employees.”

In 2006, Gov. Sarah Palin vetoed a bill that would have prohibited the state from adopting the court-ordered, same-sex regulations. The law was unconstitutional, she said.

Palin is against same sex marriage. However, she said that “signing his bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office.”

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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