Editor’s note: This story was updated and expanded on Aug. 7 with the candidate’s party affiliation, recent developments in the primary, and campaign finance information.
Haines resident and former reporter Tom Morphet is running for Alaska House District 33. The Democrat was one of the first candidates to file his paperwork to run in what’s now a three-way Democratic primary on Aug. 21.
“It was never my dream to go into politics. But I just get frustrated being on the receiving end of a lot of bad policies,” Morphet said.
Morphet’s spent decades reporting and editing for the Chilkat Valley News. Morphet owned the paper for about five years, but sold the publication after getting elected to the Haines Borough Assembly.
He’s been on the Assembly almost two years.
“I’ve tried to be honest with people,” Morphet said. “I’ve tried to find my place on the assembly. What I found is that often times, for whatever reason, people don’t want to address the elephant in the room. And I’m not afraid to address the elephant in the room, or to speak unpopular truths.”
Morphet wants to step into the state Legislature, to tackle issues he doesn’t feel can be dealt with on strictly a local level.
“So much of what we have to deal with in Haines is a loss of services, or cuts to services by a government that hasn’t even begun to develop revenues,” Morphet said.
Recently, Morphet has been looking for ways to restore funding to the Haines chapter of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.
The organization closed offices in four Alaska communities earlier this year.
He points to education more broadly as an issue of particular importance to him.
“We need to be sure that our children are smart enough to take on some rather complex problems,” Morphet said. “You can’t do that without funding the schools adequately.”
He said that ties into a need to invest in people.
“That’s what we have to solve our problems, is people,” Morphet said. “We need educated kids. We need healthy fisheries. We need basic public safety services. If I was elected for one term and we got a payroll tax passed, I’d be fine with that.”
Speaking of issues, Morphet also points to ferry service.
“The ferry service used to be a source of pride,” Morphet said. “Something we boasted about. I don’t know how it went from being something we treasured to a liability.”
He’s “adamantly” against the Juneau Access Road.
And, thinks the state is turning too much responsibility and infrastructure over to local communities, something he attributes to lack of efficient funding sources.
“The state has basically foisted onto these communities responsibilities or obligations or needs that it’s saying oh we don’t have money to fund those — well you have no income tax, you have no sales tax, you have the lowest gas tax in the country,” Morphet said. “So of course you have no money, you haven’t tried to get any money.”
Morphet wants the chance to make things better.
“This place is worth fighting for,” Morphet said. “Alaska’s worth fighting for. And Alaskans are better than this. We’re better than what we’ve been told we are by the Legislature.”
Morphet does not have to give up his position on the Haines Assembly while campaigning for state office.
He will maintain his Assembly seat during that time.
Morphet’s campaign finance disclosures have irregularities, but in terms of contributions raised, he appears to be ahead of candidate Steve Handy but behind Sara Hannan, both of Douglas.
Alaska’s primary election day is Aug. 21. The general election is Nov. 6.
For more candidate profiles and election information, visit ktoo.org/elections.
