Government

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has chosen two Mat-Su Republicans to fill vacant state House seats.

In a statement Wednesday, Dunleavy announced the appointment of Wasilla resident Steve St. Clair and Sutton resident Garret Nelson to the state House of Representatives.

Both seats were vacated when George Rauscher of Sutton and Cathy Tilton of Wasilla were chosen by the governor to fill two vacancies in the Senate. Republican Senators Mike Shower and Shelley Hughes both vacated their seats to focus on gubernatorial campaigns: Shower for lieutenant governor and Hughes for governor.

Nelson will replace Rauscher as representative of House District 29. He’s currently the chair of the Sutton community council and has lived in the area for seven years, according to the governor’s statement. St. Clair will fill Tilton’s seat representing House District 26. Officials with the governor’s office said St. Clair is a retired military police officer who’s lived in Wasilla for 15 years.

Both Nelson and St. Clair will have to be approved by a majority of House Republicans in order to be confirmed. Alaska’s next legislative session begins on Jan. 20 of next year.

One of Rep. Nick Begich III’s uncles is endorsing his main Democratic opponent, Matt Schultz, in next year’s election. Tom Begich’s name was atop a list released to the Alaska Beacon by Schultz’s campaign this month.

Begich’s endorsement of his nephew’s opponent won’t surprise people familiar with Alaska politics — he’s a longtime figure in the state’s Democratic scene, has been publicly critical of his nephew’s actions and is running as a Democrat in the governor’s election — but Schultz’s list and a similar list of endorsements by Republicans for Begich III shows how the state’s political establishment is settling on a two-person race for U.S. House, unlike the crowded contest for governor.

“It will be awkward. It’s always awkward,” Tom Begich said of the endorsement, “ but my mom taught us to learn to live with disagreement, to move beyond it. It doesn’t change the fact that I love my nephew. Just, I’m not supporting him in this election.”

Tom Begich is among 14 people — 12 Republicans and two Democrats — who have registered to run for governor in next year’s election.

Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run.

While there are plenty of candidates for the governor’s seat, the number of people running for federal office is tiny. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, doesn’t have a well-known challenger yet. Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has been rumored as a possible opponent but has yet to file.

In the U.S. House race, as Begich III seeks re-election, he has the endorsement of President Donald Trump and a wide range of state and national Republicans, including those running for governor on different tickets.

The same is true on the Democratic side, where support for Schultz appears almost entirely united.

“I’m very pleased to support him and glad he’s running,” said state Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage and the other Democratic candidate in the governor’s race.

“I think he’s more connected with the general, broad spectrum of values in Alaska, more connected with some of the challenges we’re facing. He’s really looking carefully at how we’re dealing with homelessness, and I think he’s concerned about some of the affordability issues that are particularly a challenge in rural Alaska,” Claman said of Schultz.

Among the other people endorsing Schultz are independent state Rep. Alyse Galvin, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House in 2020 and 2018, and Forrest Dunbar, a Democratic state senator who ran unsuccessfully for House in 2014.

One notable absence is Peltola, who held Alaska’s U.S. House seat for one term before Begich III defeated her in the 2024 election.

Also missing is longtime Democrat Mark Begich, the incumbent Republican’s other uncle and Alaska’s U.S. senator from 2009 to 2015.

“There’s definitely been a lot of support from Democrats all around the state, and I’m very grateful for that. It seems to be a lot of coalescing support,” Schultz said by phone.

A pastor in Anchorage, Schultz spoke on the day that the U.S. House announced that it would not vote to renew subsidies for health insurance policies purchased on the federal marketplace.

Without those subsidies, the prices of many policies will spike with the start of the year.

“That’s really, really sad and disturbing,” Schultz said. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer that you start out by making sure that people can afford their lifesaving medicine.”

Schultz said that as he’s gone around seeking early support for his campaign, he’s found joy and excitement among people who want to find a common good.

“It really is this wonderful excitement to say — just like we pulled together as a nation to go to the moon, we can pull together as a state to provide food and health care to people. It’s a goal that matters so much and is so basically good at its heart that people can’t wait to start working for it,” he said. “I think there’s a hope out there that has felt absent in the last decade or so.”

The state is in the early stages of crafting a new plan to guide decisions about Southeast Alaska transit for the next two decades.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities aims to draft a plan for Southeast by the end of summer 2026 and finalize it by this time next year. The document will cover all communities from Yakutat to Metlakatla.

Jill Melcher, DOT’s Southcoast planning chief, said the new version would mark the first complete overhaul in more than 20 years.

“The last adopted plan was in 2004 and an unofficial update was done in 2014 that captured changes over 10 years,” she said. “Our region has changed significantly since 2014, and it’s time for an update.”

Agency staff say that in the early stages, a handful of themes have already emerged. They range from ferry reliability to resiliency amid climate change.

Now the state is asking for public input, both via email and during town halls.

During two virtual open houses this week, residents raised a long list of specific projects and broader issues – many revolving around more reliable ferry service and the Cascade Point ferry terminal project.

Mike Jackson, in Kake, raised sporadic ferry service in his community. He said the state has said Kake rarely gets ferries, in part because the terminal can’t accommodate larger ships. He said there’s been talk about updating the terminal with new catwalks to change that.

“So that is one of the things we talked about doing here,” Jackson said. “But if there’s a way to better serve Kake somehow, we sure would appreciate it.”

Participants also talked about the need for float plane dock maintenance and more airport parking. One raised the need for restoring ferry service from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert, British Columbia – an idea the state is studying now.

Haines local Patty Brown asked about the state’s ongoing study of what it would cost to build a road on the west side of the Lynn Canal that would, at least in theory, better connect Haines and Skagway to Juneau. She wanted to know how that might be incorporated into the 20-year plan.

Southcoast Region Director Christopher Goins replied that the study would wrap up in January.

“Based on that, we’ll look at the data, work with this team and depending on what we see from leadership, include or not include that moving forward,” Goins said.

But it was a related project that kept coming up during the town hall: the Cascade Point ferry terminal. The state says building a new terminal north of Juneau would cut costs and ease travel between Haines, Skagway and the capital city.

The idea has drawn fire from residents in all three communities, who say the state should prioritize improving ferry service instead.

When Wendy Anderson of Skagway made that point in the town hall’s virtual chat, Goins responded that the agency does believe the terminal would reduce travel times. But he stressed that Cascade Point would not replace the Auke Bay terminal for most passengers.

“There will be mainline service that continues up once a week,” Goins said. “What is moving would be the trips to Haines and Skagway from Cascade Point.”

At least two other comments came in regarding Cascade Point. One dubbed the planned terminal a “shameful waste of taxpayer dollars” that would be “harmful” to the general public.

The other asked about the funding that has already been allocated to the project – and whether more will be set aside soon. Goins responded that the state currently has a design-build contract and is carrying out the required public comment and environmental processes.

“If we ultimately can’t make it through that process for various reasons, then the project would not go forward, and the second part of that contract would not be fulfilled. Plain and simple,” Goins said.

Agency staff and contractors thanked participants for their insight and encouraged the public to keep them coming. Comments can be submitted at SEATP@DOWL.com.

A years-old mistake by the Alaska Department of Motor Vehicles voter registration program has endangered the citizenship of two prominent Kodiak residents and could cause them to be deported, according to a newly filed lawsuit in Alaska’s federal court.

The suit, filed Thursday by Eva Benedelova and Pavel Benedela in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services canceled their citizenship oath ceremony because they were erroneously registered to vote in Alaska when they updated their driver’s licenses in 2022.

USCIS is overdue on a decision about their citizenship, the suit claims, and it asks a judge to order final action.

Attorney Margaret Stock, who is representing the couple, said there’s a bigger issue at stake: Many more Alaskans may unknowingly be facing the same problem.

According to a timeline provided by the Alaska Division of Elections, between 2022 and 2024, “less than 50” Alaskans, “mostly non citizens,” were “being registered to vote through DMV online transactions such as address updates, license renewals, etc.” despite stating that they were not U.S. citizens and did not want to register to vote.

The Division of Elections admitted the error involving the Kodiak couple, apologized, and wrote a letter saying that Benedelova and Benedela did nothing wrong. The couple never voted and immediately canceled their voter registration when they discovered the problem.

Alaska Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, submitted a letter of support for the couple. The office of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, has also been working on the case and advocating for the couple. The couple’s employer, North Pacific Seafoods, backs them too.

“The errors in 2022 and 2024 were committed by the Alaska DMV, not by these upstanding individuals,” wrote Dave Hambleton, President of North Pacific Seafoods.

Despite that support and extensive documentation about the error, USCIS sent a letter to Pavel Benedela on Dec. 5 stating that the federal agency is seeking further evidence and that “false claims to U.S. citizenship and voting violations … even renders an alien deportable.”

The couple have two children who have grown up in the United States, Stock said. If either one of them becomes a citizen, the children will, too. If they don’t, all could be deported.

“It’s an insane situation,” Stock said. “It shouldn’t be happening. It’s not right. It’s unjust. The state’s at fault, and they shouldn’t be punishing these folks because of errors made by State of Alaska employees.”

According to the complaint, the delay in the Kodiak couple’s citizenship application appears to be due in part to a federal policy implemented by USCIS in May 2025 that requires the agency’s headquarters to approve all matters where an applicant has been registered to vote in the United States.

“By the way, blanket policies like that are unlawful,” Stock said.

According to a timeline of events provided by the Alaska Division of Elections, the errors affecting the Kodiak couple and an unknown number of other Alaskans took place at the DMV between 2022 and 2024.

Alaska law allows people who update their driver’s licenses — or get new ones — to automatically register themselves to vote.

It’s supposed to be an opt-in process, but in 2022, an update to DMV’s system “cause(d) online transactions with DMV to automatically opt-in people who don’t select either yes or no,” an act that sent voter registrations to the Division of Elections, the division’s timeline states.

In the case of Benedelova and Benedela, someone along the process — likely a state employee — filled out the voter registration form in their name, copying their signatures without their knowledge or consent.

“I confirm that Mr. Benedela and Mrs. Benedelova did not specify on any DOE document that they are U.S. citizens,” wrote elections supervisor Ryan Wilson on Dec. 12. “Additionally, your signatures on the voter registration forms are a digital copy of which neither of you was aware of its use.”

Stock said that while Benedela and Benedelova are the only people who have come forward publicly about the issue, she is aware of others in the same position.

“I can tell you that I know other people the same things happen to, so it’s not just a one-off with these two people,” she said.

Stock said that in her career, she’s seen many examples of people mistakenly registered to vote because of a lack of understanding about what a citizen is, but this case is something different.

“The creepy thing is that the registration form says you’re not allowed to use an electronic signature on it, but the state’s been doing that anyway. … We have a copy of their voter registration form, and the state created that on their own, without the immigrants’ knowledge, and submitted it and checked off that they were US citizens. Some employee of the state is really doing bad things, basically,” Stock said.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Administration, which oversees the DMV, did not answer questions by the deadline for this article on Friday.

The Division of Elections, which has been examining the issues for years, provided detailed documentation and explanations, as well as an apology it sent the couple.

According to its timeline of events, Benedelova was registered to vote through the DMV process in September 2022.

The division became aware of noncitizens being registered to vote by the DMV in 2023 or 2024 and worked with the DMV to reword their forms and change the process so people who opted out did not have their information sent to the division.

An additional question was also added to the process: “Are you a U.S. Citizen?”

Despite those changes, the effects of the erroneous process appear to be lingering. This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice asked Alaska and other states to provide copies of their voter rolls in order to identify noncitizens who may have illegally participated in state or local elections.

The data provided by the division and obtained by the Beacon via a public records request included an inactive voters list with 541 people whose records were tagged as “NC” for non-citizen.

Among those 541 people were Benedelova and Benedela, who had canceled their registrations in 2024 immediately after learning they had been erroneously registered.

At the time the record was released, the director of the Division of Elections said to treat it cautiously because some people might have been erroneously labeled.

“When we have gone in there and looked and contacted them, we have found that usually it was a mistake,” she said.

WASHINGTON — It’s been a rough year for Alaska’s 15,000 federal employees. Along with job losses and funding uncertainty, in March President Trump signed an executive order to take away union protections from a large swath of the federal workforce.

But the U.S. House gave public employee unions a ray of hope last week.

The Republican-led House delivered a rare rebuke of Trump and passed a bill to restore union rights for federal employees.

Twenty Republicans joined Democrats to pass it. Alaska Congressman Nick Begich wasn’t among them.

Stephanie Rice, a federal worker from Anchorage, said she was surprised by his vote, given Alaska’s high number of federal jobs.

“That’s 4.6% of the state’s total employment. That’s a huge chunk of his constituents that are directly impacted by this legislation,” she said. “And so I was very disappointed to see that he didn’t vote to restore our collective bargaining rights.”

Rice is president of National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1945. She works for the Bureau of Land Management’s National Operations Center but said she’s speaking for herself and her union, not the agency.

Begich didn’t respond to an interview request nor provide a statement explaining why he voted no.

But James Comer, R-Ky., who led the debate against the bill on the House floor, said Trump got rid of union contracts to provide more effective personnel management and “more streamlined disciplinary procedures” for federal employees.

“The reality is that pre-existing union agreements the president never signed onto can subvert these efforts,” Comer said. “They provide barriers to accountability beyond basic employee protections that exist in law.”

Begich’s vote, and his position on organized labor more generally, align with most Republicans in Congress, but it marks a departure for Alaska’s congressional delegation.

The AFL-CIO ranked Alaska’s Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski as the Republican senators who most often voted pro-union in the last Congress. And unions were big contributors to the late Congressman Don Young’s political campaigns.

“Congressman Young always said that the unions weren’t the enemy. They were the canary in the coal mine telling Congress when things were wrong in the facilities or the agency,” recalled David Traver, chief steward of AFGE Local 3028, which represents employees at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Anchorage.

Traver said Begich hasn’t shown an inclination to be the champion of organized labor that Young was.

Begich last year won the endorsement of the National Right to Work Committee, a counter force to union power, while the AFL-CIO endorsed his opponent.

Unions like the one at the Anchorage VA are still representing employees, but Trump’s order in essence tore up their contract. Travers said it leaves workers vulnerable to unfair treatment.

The House-passed bill to restore union contracts hasn’t gone before the Senate yet. Labor leaders say a likelier route for becoming law would be as part of a government spending bill next year.

The Alaska Department of Corrections has reported 18 people have died in custody of the state’s prisons and jails so far this year – on par with the state’s highest death count in 2022. Advocates and lawmakers say the number is “devastating” and “preventable,” and are calling for the reinstatement of an independent oversight body to investigate.

The count now brings the total in-custody deaths reported by DOC since 2020 to 84, an increasing number in recent years with at least 15 deaths reported in 2024 and 10 deaths in 2023.

“It’s devastating, it’s preventable, and it’s unacceptable that there haven’t been any changes made to reduce deaths in custody,” said Megan Edge, director of integrated justice with the ACLU of Alaska in an interview.

DOC officials, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the number of the deaths.

The ACLU is calling for the reinstatement of an independent oversight body to investigate the circumstances of in-custody deaths and reduce risks, Edge said.

The state created a special internal investigative unit in DOC in 2016, following a 2015 report that widespread failures and dysfunction within the system led to at least six in-custody deaths. But the unit was dissolved in 2018 during budget cuts under the Dunleavy administration.

Betsy Holley, a spokesperson for DOC, declined an interview but said by email Wednesday that the agency has no plans to resurrect that unit.

“The unit was eliminated, reducing duplicative functions, reducing costs and moving to a more transparent investigative process,” she said.

The Alaska State Troopers, with the Alaska Department of Public Safety, investigate death incidents, not DOC, she said. “DPS is the investigative agency assigned to review incidents and because they are not affiliated with DOC, investigations are conducted independently, ensuring neutrality and objectivity,” Holley said.

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he will look into the process of creating such a system in the next legislative session. He said it should be external and independent from DOC. “There’s just no doubt that the way we currently have it, which is that there’s not really any organized official oversight happening, it’s just unacceptable,” he said.

Gray said he would like to see an independent unit created to investigate DOC deaths, so that details and reports can be verified, and best practices are in use.

“We can’t verify that they are following the correct protocols, that there are ways of reporting warning signs, or assessing folks who are at risk. We have no way of knowing,” he said. “And when we have a death toll that’s high, we have a right to question if there are mistakes being made, and we are questioning whether mistakes have been made.”

The ACLU is also calling for changes in Alaska law to allow more people who are elderly and with terminal illnesses to be released on medical and geriatric parole, which Gray said his office would be pursuing in the next legislative session starting in January.

At least 18 reported deaths by DOC in 2025, one more by the ACLU

Most recently, DOC reported the death of Kane Huff, 46, on Dec. 15 in Goose Creek Correctional Center, bringing the state’s total in-custody deaths for this year to 18 people.

DOC releases limited information on the causes and circumstances around in-custody deaths. But the department included a note when it announced eight of this year’s deaths — nearly half of them, including Kane’s — saying in the case of an “expected death” the Alaska State Troopers and State Medical Examiner’s office are notified. That office determines the cause of death.

Alaska’s prison population is aging, with an estimated 21% being 55 and older, according to DOC data. DOC officials testified to the Alaska State Legislature earlier this year that more in custody deaths were due to “natural causes,” including acute and chronic disease and illness — or 68% of deaths since 2016.

Over half of this year’s in-custody deaths, or ten people, were over the age of 60. The oldest was Keith Landers, at 94 years old, who died on Nov. 24, and the youngest was Christopher Ligons, 30 years old who died on June 28.

At least four of the deaths have been ruled suicides, according to Alaska State Troopers, news reports and investigation by the ACLU of Alaska. One was Aaron Merritt, who died on Nov. 26 and was a Kenai church member, as reported by KDLL Public Radio.

Seven people died this year while under arrest and awaiting trial – one person in custody for less than a day – and two people were convicted and awaiting sentencing.

At least two in-custody deaths followed violent altercations. Jeffrey Foreman, 53, died on Jul. 11 after being restrained by correctional officers after a fight with a cellmate in the Anchorage Correctional Complex, according to Alaska Public Media.

Not on the DOC list this year is William Farmer, 36, who died in an Anchorage hospital on Jan. 6, after an assault by a cellmate in the Anchorage Correctional Complex. The case involved mental health issues and DOC failed to release the cellmate who was found incompetent to stand trial. Both families have questioned why the two men were placed in the same cell, according to reporting by the Anchorage Daily News.

DOC has said the case was not reported as an in-custody death because Farmer was released on bail after he was hospitalized. The ACLU has criticized DOC for a pattern of releasing inmates who are hospitalized or dying.

DOC attributes more deaths to natural causes

DOC medical and correctional officials testified to the Legislature earlier this year that more in-custody deaths were due to natural causes, like chronic disease and illness, whereas in previous years more deaths were attributed to drug overdoses.

Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Robert Lawrence, who previously served as the chief medical officer for DOC from 2013 to 2024, said in an interview last year that the state’s inmate population has higher needs for care than the state’s population as a whole.

“Prisons are not just warehouses where we put people. These are neighborhoods within the larger community. And one of the things that we recognize about this unique neighborhood that is a correctional institution is that it tends to have a concentrating effect, meaning that any of the issues that we’re dealing with in the community get concentrated within this prison environment,” he said.

ACLU’s Edge said the increasing physical and mental health care needs of inmates is well known, and DOC should be doing more to provide adequate care.

“It’s not new and is not unique. People in prison are some of the often sickest people in our society and in Alaska especially, because we have such limited resources for physical and mental health care and substance use treatment,” Edge said. “Often the response in our communities is to incarcerate people. If people are homeless, they are taken to jail. People with mental illness are often put in jail. People experiencing substance use disorder are put in jail.”

She pointed to the state of Alaska’s legal obligation to provide people with health care while they’re in custody, including access to mental health care resources and treatment.

“We hear stories from people who are experiencing suicidal ideation and thrown into solitary confinement, stripped of their clothing and placed in a suicide smock till they say they feel better,” she said. “That’s not mental health care.”

On average, 4,500 people are incarcerated in Alaska’s jails and prisons each year, either awaiting trial or sentencing, or serving criminal sentences. That average population has been steady over the last decade. Edge pointed out that the death rate is growing, while the overall population is not.

“Our death numbers continue to rise and stay disproportionately high for the amount of people that we actually have incarcerated,” she said.

Deaths prompt legal action

The ACLU filed a federal class-action lawsuit in May challenging DOC’s health care system as inadequate and inhumane, which includes an investigation and documentation of a variety of cases where inmates’ failed to be treated, resulting in deteriorating health conditions.

The civil rights group is also part of two wrongful death lawsuits, one for Lewis Jordan Jr. who suffered an untreated ear infection while incarcerated at Goose Creek Correctional Center in 2023 that developed into fatal meningitis.

The lawsuit claims “deliberate indifference” from DOC, and that Jordan’s death was preventable. The families of James Rider and Mark Cook Jr., who died in pretrial custody in 2022 and 2023, have also filed lawsuits seeking restitution and damages.

Expanding opportunities for medical and geriatric parole

For the elderly and those with severe or terminal illnesses, Gray said he would like to see Alaska move toward a compassionate release program, which would also be a cost saving measure for the state.

“I think people kind of know this intuitively. Folks in their sixties and seventies need to see the doctor more than folks in their twenties and thirties, and so if we’re incarcerating a large population of folks who are older, they’re going to require a lot more health care, and that health care is more expensive,” Gray said.

The cost to the state for incarceration is estimated to be $202 per person per day in Alaska, compared to an estimated $13 per day on parole.

“It is extraordinarily expensive. We cannot afford to be running basically nursing homes in our prisons,” Gray said. “We have a mechanism in Alaska for those folks who are very, very, very unlikely to be able to commit any more crimes, let’s get them out of our system. Let’s get them back to their families.”

Alaska has a special medical and geriatric parole to release those who are elderly and with a terminal illness, and have been found to no longer pose a risk to the public.

But that system is not currently being used – the Alaska Parole Board has not granted anyone medical or geriatric release in the last five years, since 2020.

Edge said due to restrictions in the current law for those convicted of unclassified felonies – like first-degree murder and sexual assault – people may not be eligible for parole. It would require the legislature to take action to change the law.

“So it’s really inaccessible for the people that actually need it,” Edge said. “I’m thinking of one person in particular who was wheelchair bound, blind and in his eighties. And his family, his children, had a plan to take care of him, and he could not get out. He was denied discretionary parole, and was ineligible for geriatric and special medical parole because he was convicted of an unclassified felony.”

Deaths reported by DOC in 2025:

Pedro George Rubke, 78

Reginald Eugene Childers, Jr., 42

Nathaniel David Leask, 49

Marcias Zoritas Reinhold, 83

Lena Lola Lynn, 63

Alvin Lynn Archa Jr., 62

Carl K Thompson, 68

Christopher Ligons, 30

Jeffrey Daniel Foreman, 53

Mattfi Abruska, 78

Robert Ahvik, 62

Joshua Paul Keeling, 35

Kurt Charles Malutin, 37

Barry John McCormack, 74

Donald Scott Hotch Sr., 78

Keith Landers, 93

Aaron Scott Merritt, 45

Kane William Huff, 46