What other important issue would you like to discuss?
Governor
Bill Walker
Nonpartisan candidate for Governor
The high cost of energy remains a significant impediment to economic growth in Alaska. We have a plan to reduce Alaska’s cost of energy to $2 a gallon, something that is entirely achievable because of our vast oil reserves on the North Slope. Nothing would have a greater effect on our economy than low-cost energy.
Imagine an Alaska where all of our natural resources were processed and refined right here in Alaska rather than being shipped outside as raw materials, along with high-paying processing jobs. Imagine an Alaska with direct international flights with year-round tourism that attracts people from all over the world to enjoy winter’s spectacular northern lights in Alaska, just as millions of people do each winter in Iceland. Imagine an Alaska where every community had affordable housing. Imagine an Alaska that takes full advantage of the recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that funded the much needed infrastructure to all areas of Alaska, like never before. These things are achievable with real leadership that’s rooted in a commitment to doing what’s best for Alaskans.
Charlie Pierce
Republican candidate for Governor
Other issues near to my heart include the urgent need to completely overhaul the Office of Children’s Services, support medical freedoms, see the judicial selection process revised through a constitutional convention, move the Legislature to the road system, support parents’ rights in their child’s education, and streamline our elections process. I’m also keenly aware of the need for Alaska to be less reliant on the “outside” for our daily survival. Most of us are now aware of the state’s food insecurity, but what about other materials? For example, we currently import 90% of our lumber, either from Canada or the Lower 48. I want to see a permitting process created through DNR, where we can grade our own lumber and harvest from Alaska’s state and federal lands.
Les Gara
Democratic candidate for Governor
We should solve the problems this governor has been silent on. We need fair school funding and teacher, police, firefighter and public servant benefits, so we can attract and retain the best professionals. Right now teachers, police, child protection workers, Marine Highway workers and firefighters just train in Alaska, at our cost, and then move to one of the 49 states with better pay, and that offer attractive pension benefits.
I’m the only candidate who, when in office, proposed keeping school, including school busing funds up with the most of inflation and who proposed reinstating a cost-effective pension plan. Today we are over $100 behind inflation on school funding just since 2014.
I voted against the end of public servant pensions, knowing it would hurt our ability to hire and retain teachers, police and other workers. I’m the only candidate who has tried to add them back.
We also need to get police to the dozens of rural communities that have none. That’s 19th century law enforcement, and is dangerous.
And we have to solve Alaska’s major shortage of mental health, counseling, children’s mental health and substance abuse treatment professionals. That is harming lives.
Mike Dunleavy
Republican candidate for Governor
Along with education reform and fighting for the PFD, I ran for office in 2018 on a pledge to protect public safety. I took office during a historic crime wave, with record levels of property crime and murder in our largest city, state trooper posts were being closed around the state, and VPSO numbers had fallen from more than 100 under Gov. Parnell to just 45 when I took over from Gov. Walker. In my first State of the State address, I declared war on criminals and a few months later we repealed the catch-and-release policies of SB 91. In the next two years our crime rates fell by 30% according to the FBI, and we’ve put a record amount of resources into public safety under each of my budgets.
(Editor’s note: Dunleavy signed legislation repealing and replacing Senate Bill 91 in July 2019. There was a 30.9% decrease in overall crime from 2019 to 2021 as reported by the Alaska Department of Public Safety using FBI data. This follows a downward trend in crime rates that started in 2018, before the repeal of SB 91. The decrease in crime rates cited here also coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic.)
While Lower 48 jurisdictions are struggling to recruit police officers, we will graduate two full academies this year to keep growing our ranks of troopers and VPSOs. We’ve authorized six major crimes investigators for our rural hub trooper posts in Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue and Dillingham; we’ve added Tribal liaisons; and as part of my People First initiatives we’ve created the first dedicated investigator into missing and murdered Indigenous persons. We’re collecting owed DNA, we cleared the inexcusable backlog of sexual assault kits, and we instituted policies to prevent such a backlog from ever happening again. We fixed our outdated consent laws this year, but much work remains to be done to protect our most vulnerable and I take that responsibility seriously as governor.