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There is no way to improve public education without increasing funding in a reliable way that districts can count on from year to year. We must therefore substantially increase the base student allocation (BSA). Another important way to improve education is to attract and retain public school employees. 30 years ago, getting a job in an Alaska public school was extremely competitive. What changed? In 2006, we got rid of our defined benefit retirement system for public employees; we must return to it. For too many, the promise of a pension in another state is luring them away from Alaska. Remote Alaska schools need an easier mechanism to credential local folks rather than shipping in folks from outside who do not stay.
The legislature invested an initial $32 million of the $206.5 million in federal match money for the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership, which will upgrade the electrical transmission capability of the entire Railbelt. This will enable, once the Dixon diversion at Bradley Lake is complete, more renewable energy to be transmitted reliably and efficiently from Homer to Fairbanks. Although I am interested in additional hydroelectric options (like the Dixon diversion), I also support additional wind and solar. Obviously, for the time being, these options will not solve the pending loss of natural gas in Cook Inlet, but we must continue to add more renewable sources of energy to the Railbelt as quickly as we can.
A high-earner income tax would be the fairest revenue generator for AK. In the June 2024 issue of Alaska Economic Trends magazine, Dan Robinson explained that when the private sector grows, the public sector should too. In most states this is a given: in AK with our state gov't funded exclusively by stock market earnings & oil/gas revenue, there is a disconnect. Our economy needs to be more closely aligned with its population (an income tax would do that). I introduced a statewide bed tax last year; AK is 1 of 3 states that does not have one. This means that millions in potential tourist revenue is not being collected. I will continue to support a statewide bed tax.
I introduced a bill that would have required the Division of Elections to release all ballot data, including ranking data, the day after the election and whenever new ballot data is released. Alaskans would have a more accurate, real-time picture of who was really in the lead in close races. This bill received wide bipartisan support, and the transparency that this bill would afford is a change I will continue to call for. I also believe we need a way to contact voters who have a problem with their ballot and offer a way for them to correct the issue. Finally, we should do away with the witness requirements on absentee ballots. This serves as a barrier to our most remote Alaskans and does not provide any additional security to our elections
I support our current open primary/ranked choice voting system. The reason is that the old closed primary system led to more extreme candidates winning the closed primaries, and the voters having to choose between two extreme candidates. The open primary leads to more moderate candidates making it to the ballot. Ranked Choice encourages campaigns to focus on the positive rather than the negative. When a candidate hopes to be a voter's second choice they are less likely to demonize their opponent. This leads to a more cordial political atmosphere that will hopefully attract future candidates who may have been dissuaded by the extreme negative campaigns of the past.
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