Alaska Public Media

Tok Republican Sen. Mike Cronk is the state Senate’s new minority leader. The six-member minority caucus in the state Legislature’s upper chamber announced Tuesday its members had elected Cronk to replace former Wasilla Republican Sen. Mike Shower, who resigned to run for lieutenant governor earlier this year.

Cronk is a former schoolteacher and construction worker who first joined the state House in 2021. Last year, he won a seat in the Senate representing a massive swath of Interior Alaska that includes Glennallen, Tok, southeast Fairbanks, Delta Junction and much of the Yukon River.

In a phone interview, Cronk said he was looking forward to working on a fiscal plan that Gov. Mike Dunleavy plans to unveil next month.

“Obviously, we are in the minority, but I’m hopeful to, you know, work with the majority, to — can we get some of these things solved?” Cronk said.

The caucus includes six of the 11 Republican members in the Senate. Five others caucus with Democrats in a bipartisan majority that controls the chamber.

Fairbanks Republican Sen. Robb Myers will remain minority whip, the caucus’s the second-in-command.

Cronk will lead a caucus with two new members after Gov. Mike Dunleavy picked two House Republicans, now-Sens. Cathy Tilton and George Rauscher, to replace Shower and former Sen. Shelley Hughes, who is running for governor. Cronk said he would keep his seat on the Senate Finance Committee, but he said the caucus is still finalizing other senators’ committee assignments.

Cronk’s elevation to minority leader follows a leadership shakeup in the House’s minority caucus. That means both minority caucuses will have new leaders when lawmakers return to Juneau next month.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy is dropping a longtime priority ahead of next year’s legislative session.

At his annual holiday open house on Dec. 9, the Republican governor told reporters he isn’t planning to revive his push to reform the state’s schools.

“I’ve always said this, for year after year after year, that once the issue of money is settled, nobody wants to talk about policy,” Dunleavy said. “So, unfortunately for us, I think we’re going to skip over that this year — not from my perspective, but I don’t think the Legislature enough for the people in the Legislature really have a desire to fix the outcomes.”

Improving the state’s public schools was the top issue in the last two legislative sessions. Dunleavy vetoed a series of bills seeking to boost public school funding, saying they didn’t do enough to improve student performance. He instead called for a variety of reforms that he said would help Alaska’s low test scores, in part by boosting charter schools and correspondence homeschool.

But lawmakers overcame Dunleavy’s vetoes to break the stalemate earlier this year.

Sitka independent Rep. Rebecca Himschoot co-chairs the state House Education Committee. She said lawmakers will continue to look at ways to boost students’ test scores — even with budgets expected to be tight this year.

“We need to ensure the best value for the dollar. Obviously, accountability is very important,” Himschoot said. “At the same time, we need to make sure that our kids have opportunities. And if we look to other states, there’s a lot going on in other states that we could be doing here in Alaska.”

She said she’d also like to see a smaller boost to public school funding this year to keep up with inflation.

Rep. Andi Story, a Juneau Democrat who also co-chairs the House Education Committee, said she wants lawmakers to override Dunleavy’s veto of a corporate tax bill tied to education funding.

“Those dollars are scheduled to go for reading intervention and career-tech, and that would just, to me, be a game changer,” Story said.

Backers pitched the tax bill as a way to extract more state money from Outside tech companies who sell to Alaskans. Dunleavy said he couldn’t support it without a larger fiscal plan.

The Senate Education Committee chair, Democratic Anchorage Sen. Loki Tobin, said she planned to introduce a constitutional amendment that would “codify the right for every child in Alaska to learn about Indigenous peoples and cultures.”

“With the largest Indigenous population in the United States, it is high time Alaska guarantee a robust public education rooted in Indigenous knowledge,” she said via email.

Dunleavy said he hoped lawmakers would pass a bill that would launch a pilot program for schools run by Alaska Native tribes. But Dunleavy told reporters his main goals for his final year are largely in other areas, including a forthcoming fiscal plan and preparation for a possible North Slope gas pipeline.

Lawmakers reconvene in Juneau on Jan. 20.

WASHINGTON — The subject of Thursday’s hearing was one of the biggest political controversies of President Trump’s second term: His use of the National Guard within the United States.

Democrats on the Senate Armed Service Committee railed against the deployment of the National Guard to American cities. Some Republicans on the committee vigorously defended those urban deployments.

Sen. Dan Sullivan did neither. When it was his turn to speak, he vigorously defended Guard deployments that no one is arguing about. He spoke about the National Guard’s role repelling Russian and Chinese forces over the Pacific and the Bering Sea.

“These are front-line operations going directly against our adversaries. Wing to wing, when our fighters go intercept Russian bear bombers and MiGs that are armed,” Sullivan said. “Dangerous work. We do it all the time up in Alaska.”

Sullivan is one of 18 Republican senators running for reelection next year. Trump’s big controversies put them on a political tightrope and how they find balance could determine their political futures. If they lean away from Trump they risk becoming his target on social media. But it could prove dangerous to lean too far toward Trump, too, if some of the president’s actions become toxic to voters.

Sullivan leaned uncharacteristically to the left Thursday afternoon, with a vote to extend health care tax subsidies. That morning, at the Armed Service Committee, he employed another option: the sidestep.

He drew attention to the National Guard’s rescues after fierce storms washed houses away in Western Alaska in October. And, Sullivan said, when he was in the Marines in the 1990s, some of his battalion had domestic deployments, to the southern border and to fight forest fires in the Pacific Northwest.

“We were motivated Marines. President of the United States told us to go different places, and we went,” he said. “That’s what you do in the military.”

Sullivan did not engage Thursday as Democrats, and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, spoke passionately against the urban deployments.

“That the President has the power to, in his own mind, decide what an emergency is and then deploy troops into our cities, I think, is exceedingly dangerous,” King said at the hearing. “And the people who founded this country thought so, too.”

King read the words of several Founding Fathers who warned that if a president has a standing army to use against his own people, he’ll become a tyrant.

Pentagon attorney Charles Young countered that President George Washington himself sent troops to put down the Whisky Rebellion, after Pennsylvanians tarred and feathered a tax collector. And Young cited 19th century Supreme Court decisions to argue that in fact, it IS up to the president to decide what’s an emergency.

Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana was one of the Republicans who gave a full-throated defense of the urban deployments, in support of the Trump administration’s massive deportation campaign. Sheehy addressed another Pentagon witness, Gen. Gregory Guillot, the top officer responsible for the defense of North America.

“As a military commander,” Sheehy asked, “what do you feel is a greater threat to our national security? Five hundred volunteers, trained National Guardsmen walking the streets of our cities, or 20 million illegal immigrants who have entered this country over the past five years?”

Sheehy wasn’t done: “Is the influence of transnational criminal organizations that fill our country with fentanyl, poison, various other drugs, illicit activity, human trafficking? Is that a national security threat?”

The general’s answer did not matter. Sheehy, who doesn’t face voters until the middle of the next president’s term, was taking a stand.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy unveiled his proposed state budget on Thursday — but this year, he skipped the usual press conference.

Instead, the governor released a short YouTube video and Facebook Reel outlining his plan.

“Here are the examples of the larger budget items proposed in this year’s budget,” Dunleavy read, “a full Permanent Fund dividend, as called for in law, full funding for K-12 schools and school transportation, continued funding for public safety.”

That full dividend would be roughly $3,600 per Alaskan. But it’s unlikely to materialize.

Dunleavy’s budget release sets the stage for months of debate in his final legislative session as governor. And lawmakers are already signaling concerns: the plan relies on drawing more than $1.5 billion from the state’s primary rainy-day fund, the Constitutional Budget Reserve — about half of Alaska’s remaining savings, and a deficit nearly identical to what the governor proposed last year.

This year, though, Dunleavy himself says the state’s persistent budget gap is untenable.

“Drawing down our savings is not a sustainable plan, nor is using your PFD year after year a sustainable plan,” he read in his video.

Since oil prices collapsed in the mid-2010s, Alaska has struggled to make ends meet. That’s despite efforts to slash government spending and the 2018 decision to use Permanent Fund earnings to fund state programs, like state troopers, jails and public schools.

Dunleavy says he’ll introduce his latest attempt at a plan to stabilize the state’s finances sometime next month. A required 10-year plan released alongside the budget includes about $1.6 billion in unspecified “New Revenue Measures” starting in mid-2027. His office declined to say what those would be, and also declined a request to interview the governor.

Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, a Republican who co-chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee, said he was skeptical Dunleavy could push through a fiscal plan in his last year in office.

“Quite frankly, he’s out of time,” Stedman said.

He said lawmakers tried to reduce the state’s budget deficit during this year’s session — but Dunleavy said no.

“We tried to take a couple of small steps to deal with some revenue enhancements or taxes, and then hold back the spending, and he vetoed the revenue measure,” Stedman said.

And Stedman said there’s not much left to cut when it comes to state services. So he’s skeptical Dunleavy will be able to push through a resolution to the decade-long issue during his final year in office.

Plus, he said the governor’s decision to again propose spending half the state’s savings on large Permanent Fund dividends is unwise with oil prices stubbornly low.

“If we would have followed his plan, after this year, we’d be completely broke,” Stedman said. “So it’s not acceptable, and we’re going to have to work through our process. And like I said, we need to veto that $1.5 billion dollar deficit.”

Stedman said he’d like to see a balanced budget, not a draw from savings. He said he does not want to see a Permanent Fund dividend smaller than this year’s $1,000 payout — but low oil prices will make that difficult to achieve.

“We’ve got to make payroll,” he said.

Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, who co-chairs the House Finance Committee, isn’t quite as put off by the drawdown — but he said he wouldn’t use it to pay a large dividend.

“That isn’t how I would spend half of the CBR, right, for example, but I might still spend half the CBR,” he said.

He said he sees lots of needs around the state.

“The Municipality of Anchorage’s school district needs $75 million to maintain the status quo in funding of K through 12,” he said. “That’s where I would spend the money. That’s example one.”

Dunleavy’s proposed budget fully funds the state’s education funding formula, which lawmakers increased by $700 last year despite a veto from Dunleavy.

Josephson said he’d also like to see the state invest in capital projects and beef up things like the Division of Public Assistance.

Like Stedman, Josephson said he’s viewing the governor’s forthcoming fiscal plan with a skeptical eye.

“He told me and others, two years ago, he was filing a sales tax bill,” Josephson said. “He never did.”

Lawmakers return to the Capitol Jan. 20.

WASHINGTON — Both of Alaska’s U.S senators crossed the aisle Thursday to vote to advance a Democratic bill that would’ve extended health insurance subsidies for three years.

The Alaskans and two other senators were the only Republicans to back the plan, which failed to get the 60 votes needed.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s vote was not a surprise. She’s known for often voting with Democrats, and she’s been saying for months that Congress needs to extend Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies beyond the year-end expiration date, to avoid a massive price hike for Alaskans who buy their own insurance plans.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, on the other hand, rarely bucks GOP leadership or President Trump. He has said in recent months that he’s working on a plan for “extending and reforming” the enhanced subsidies. But Sullivan has voted repeatedly against extensions and, over the course of his Senate career, argued strenuously that “Obamacare” should be repealed entirely.

Sullivan did not respond to an interview request, but his office issued a statement in which he castigates “Obamacare” as unaffordable and portrays the enhanced tax credits as partisan, Democratic slapdashery.

“Nevertheless, there is little doubt that a lot of hard-working Alaskans, families, entrepreneurs and small business owners will be negatively impacted if these enhanced premium tax credits expire,” Sullivan’s statement says, adding that he’ll continue to try to forge a compromise.

Alaskans already face some of the highest insurance premiums in the country, and Sullivan is up for re-election next year.

“He’s feeling the heat,” said Alaska Democratic Party Chair Eric Croft.

Nationally and in Alaska, the Democratic Party has been hitting Sullivan hard on this point.

“Over 24,000 Alaskans will see their health care premiums skyrocket next year if Dan Sullivan does not stand with working families and vote to extend these lifesaving credits,” the Democratic National Committee said in one recent media blitz.

Croft said that Alaskans shouldn’t mistake Sullivan’s vote for a true change of position.

“He’s voted, I think, seven times in the last two months against it, and now, when he knows it’s going to fail, votes for it. Are you kidding me?” Croft said.

A Republican plan to substitute Health Savings Accounts for the expiring tax credits also failed to advance Thursday, despite the votes of both Alaska senators.

Murkowski took to the Senate floor after the votes and declared that the Senate failed.

“We failed to work together. We failed to reach consensus,” she said. “We failed to help all those who are facing these shockingly, completely unaffordable increases in their health care premiums as they’re looking at the new year.”

She says there’s still time to pass an extension before open enrollment for insurance plans closes on Jan. 15.

In Alaska, about 24,000 people buy subsidized insurance plans and those who earn as much as $78,000 can qualify for the enhanced tax credits. If the subsidy expires, which they are set to do at the end of this year, Alaskans will be among the hardest hit. A 60-year-old with a silver-level plan would see a 295% increase in premiums, according to independent health policy research group KFF.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he will roll out a new plan to stabilize Alaska’s tumultuous state finances in the coming weeks ahead of next month’s legislative session. The upcoming session provides Dunleavy his last chance to address an issue that has vexed his seven years in office.

“(The) next three, four, five years are going to be tough,” Dunleavy told reporters Tuesday ahead of his annual holiday open house. “We’re going to have to make some tough decisions, and that’s why we will roll out, in a fiscal plan, solutions for the next five years.”

The state’s fiscal issues are structural. Since oil prices collapsed in the mid-2010s, Alaska has spent more money than it has taken in despite years of aggressive cost-cutting and a 2018 move to tap Permanent Fund earnings to fund state services.

Dunleavy said a boom in oil and gas drilling and growing interest in a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to an export terminal will likely ease the fiscal pressure in the coming years. He said his plan would serve as a bridge.

“I think the next five years, we’re going to have to be real careful, and we’re going to have to have in place things that will pay for government,” he said.

Dunleavy, a Republican, declined to reveal even the broad strokes of his plan, saying he plans to hold news conferences in the coming weeks to discuss it.

Prior efforts by Dunleavy and the Legislature to come to an agreement on a long-term fiscal plan have failed.

Dunleavy’s early plans for deep cuts led to an effort to recall him. He has also backed attempts to cap state spending and constitutionalize the Permanent Fund dividend.

A prior Dunleavy revenue commissioner floated a few tax proposals during talks with a legislative committee in 2021, but Dunleavy has since distanced himself from those ideas. Alaska is one of two states with no state-level sales or income tax, and asked directly whether his plan would include a sales tax, he declined to say.

“You’re just going to have to just wait a couple more weeks, and we’ll have that entire fiscal plan laid out, so you guys can take a look at it, and the people of Alaska can take a look at it,” he said.

In recent years, Dunleavy has proposed budgets with large deficits that require spending from savings. His most recent budget would have drained about half of the savings in the state’s $3 billion rainy-day fund, the Constitutional Budget Reserve, or CBR.

Still, Dunleavy says he wants to find a sustainable fiscal path forward for the state.

“We are determined to help solve this longstanding issue of, how do you deal with balancing the budget, and not just on the backs of the PFD or the CBR — what other methods are we going to employ to be able to do that?” he said.

Whether lawmakers will be receptive is an open question. Democrat-heavy bipartisan coalitions control both the state House and Senate, and even some minority Republicans crossed over to override Dunleavy’s vetoes repeatedly this year.

Dunleavy’s budget proposal is likely to offer some clues about the governor’s fiscal plan. He has until Dec. 15 to unveil it.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that Alaska was the only state with no state-level income or sales tax. In fact, as of 2025, it is one of two. New Hampshire recently did away with its interest and dividends tax, a type of income tax.