House District 2: Sitka/Petersburg/Yakutat
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Rebecca Himschoot
(NON)
How do you plan to address the challenges of funding, teacher recruitment and retention, and ensuring educational equity across remote, rural and urban communities in Alaska in order to improve overall educational outcomes?
According to the U.S. Energy Administration in 2023, Alaska generated about 25% of its total electricity from renewable energy sources. What other alternatives do you think would help with our energy issues?
What options would you suggest where Alaska can increase our state revenue?
What could the Alaska legislature do to help restore voters’ trust in the integrity of our elections system?
Do you support or oppose continuation of our current open primary/ ranked choice voting election system. Why?
A recent task for on Teacher Recruitment and Retention provided recommendations I intend to implement, which include:
• Providing a pension option for retirement
• Creating apprenticeship pathways and streamlining certification
• Developing leadership and strengthening recruitment
• Enhancing recruitment efforts
I support State-Tribal Education compacting and other measures to make learning relevant, as well as maximizing Head Start and other early education programs so more children start school ready to learn. With proper funding locally elected school boards can partner with the education professionals in their districts to make learning opportunities equitable across our vast state.
Communities in Southeast Alaska have done tremendous work in meeting our regional energy needs through renewable sources, reducing our reliance on PCE. Between a recent federal grant to install heat pumps in 6000 homes across coastal communities and previous efforts to harness hydropower and biomass, Southeast Alaska generates far more than 25% of our electricity from renewable sources. Improving transmission and supporting smart metering are ways to leverage the energy we already have in the rest of Alaska and use it in “smarter” ways: moving electrons has become easier and more viable in recent years, and we need to capitalize on existing renewable energy statewide while also exploring solutions for Railbelt energy.
The Legislature’s first order of business should be to create a sustainable fiscal plan based on the findings of the 2021 Fiscal Policy Working Group. Among other suggestions, the Group recommended implementing a broad-based revenue measure.
Many of the more than 120 communities in Alaska that already fund municipal operations through a local sales tax are in House District 2. To avoid adding to this local tax burden through a regressive statewide sales tax, reinstituting Alaska’s income tax would capture revenues on wages earned in Alaska that are currently being paid as income tax in other states.
With a ballot rejection rate of nearly 5%, and closer to 10% in rural Alaska, a method to cure ballots would help restore any trust that has been lost in my region. In the 21 communities of my district, our local poll workers are friends, family and neighbors and our trust in them is strong. I look forward to passing a bill with simple measures to allow for ballot curing, and there are options for refreshing voter rolls I could support.
With fewer than 30% of voters registered in the two major parties it seems fairer to have all Alaskans choosing candidates in the open primary, rather than a minority of party activists choosing for the rest of us. Additionally, being able to rank candidates provides the opportunity to support more than one good option in the final vote. Alaskans are smart and capable of making informed decisions, so I support our current open primary/ranked choice system.
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