Politics

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is raising serious money for her re-election bid next year, despite having no serious challenger yet.

Campaign coordinator Scott Kendall said that total contributions for the previous three months were close to a million dollars.

“In the third quarter of the year we raised over $920,000,” he said.

All told, Murkowski has raised more than $3 million for the 2016 election, and has more than $2 million on hand.

Kendall, the only full-time campaign staffer so far, says they don’t plan to open campaign offices until next year but could mobilize sooner if needed. As of today, no challenger had filed with the Federal Election Commission, which is mandatory for any candidate who raises more than $5,000. Still, Kendall says Murkowski has to be ready.

“It’s important to remember the filing deadline is not until early June of next year,” Kendall said. “So up until that date, we have to plan that we will have a challenger both in the primary and the general.”

In 2010, when Murkowski lost the Republican primary, challenger Joe Miller didn’t announce his candidacy until April of that year. Murkowski kept her Senate seat with a write-in campaign. Kendall says they’ve received hundreds of contributions from Alaska, but he acknowledges she is looking outside the state for money.

“The senator has certainly been fundraising, yes,” he said. “And certainly with her position as chair of Energy and Natural Resources, energy companies, many of whom do business and create jobs here in Alaska, are certainly interested in supporting her.”

At least twice in the past two years, Murkowski has missed votes in the Senate while raising campaign cash in Texas.

At the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention on Friday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski kept her speech focused on Alaska Native heroes. While Sullivan mostly discussed military veterans, Murkowski emphasized civic and cultural leaders.

She reeled off scores of names — Sidney Huntington, John Baker, Poldine Carlo, Georgianna Lincoln, Rosita Worl, among others. Murkowski recognized leaders in community health, suicide prevention, education, engineering and business, and one pair of exemplary parents.

“These are heroes, each and every day making a difference,” the senator said. “One person, making a difference. One person saying, ‘I can do something to change the direction.’”

Murkowski also endorsed a passionate cause permeating this year’s convention: “My list of heroes includes friends in the Interior and across the state who seek justice for the Fairbanks Four. We will continue with that.”

During her speech, a dozen or so demonstrators came in, some in animal costumes. They held subsistence- and climate-related signs, like “Don’t roll the dice with my ice” and “Ichthyophonus is upon us.” (That’s a fish parasite.) They told reporters they were protesting the senator’s support of Arctic drilling.

Murkowski did highlight some of her work in the Senate, including a provision in an education bill that would require school districts and the state to let Native communities weigh in on what and how their children are taught.

Murkowski also spoke of her support of a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act. Last month, she was the first Republican to co-sponsor the Senate bill. According to the congressional bill database, she’s still the only one.

KBBI reporter Daysha Eaton contributed to this story.

During Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s speech at the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention in Anchorage Friday, protesters marched dressed as a salmon, a caribou and a walrus. It was part of an effort to call out Murkowski for her support of Arctic oil drilling. It was the second protest at AFN in two days.

Among the protesters in costume was George Pletnikoff Jr., originally from St. Paul Island, and who now lives in Palmer.

“We are here to make a statement that Lisa Murkowski needs to address our demands that we refuse fossil fuel use as continuing it. No drilling in the arctic, no drilling in the National Wildlife Refuge and we must switch towards renewable energies and create a sustainable future.”

Pletnikoff said the protest was organized by members of Alaska Rising Tide and REDOIL, which stands for Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands.

“The walrus said, ‘Eat me, Murkowski, don’t roll the dice with my ice!’”

That’s Faith Gemmill, with REDOIL. AFN officials escorted Gemmill and a protester out after a few minutes.

“We’re losing walrus habitat and their numbers are in decline because of melting ice. We wanted to send her a message that as a decision maker, she can do something to promote and protect indigenous peoples way of life here.”

The senator chairs the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Murkowski said she didn’t hear or see the protest, but she defended her record.

“I challenge people who suggest that my focus is all on development of fossil fuels. Look at what we have been doing to build out renewables not only in this state but from a national perspective. Look at what we’re doing here to encourage microgrids, so that our communities will be sustainable.”

A U.S. House Committee plans to examine whether the EPA unfairly blocked the Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska with a so-called “pre-emptive veto,” before the mine has even applied for permits.

The Science, Space and Technology Committee, chaired by Republican Lamar Smith of Texas, has invited consultant William Cohen as a witness. Cohen, a former Defense secretary hired by Pebble, says the EPA’s actions suggest the agency may have rigged the process to reach the position it wanted to take against the mine.

Mine opponents, though, say the EPA followed a rigorous process and used valid science to conclude the mine would endanger the headwaters of Bristol Bay and its rich salmon runs.

The congressional hearing is scheduled for Nov. 5. It’s unclear if the EPA’s Northwest regional director, Dennis McLerran, will be a witness at the hearing. Chairman Smith wants McLerran to answer questions from committee staff beforehand about the process the EPA followed.

The only witnesses named so far are Cohen and another consultant who worked on the report he authored.

Gov. Bill Walker is replacing the staff of his Washington, D.C., office.

As first reported by Alaska Dispatch News, Kip Knudson, the governor’s director of federal relations, has been given a month’s notice. Two of his deputies will depart with him. Knudson was appointed to the job by Republican governor Sean Parnell in 2011. Political appointments are typically vacated when a new administration takes over. But turnover for the head of the governor’s Washington office has been unusually low.

Knudson’s predecessor, John Katz, held the job through seven governors.

According to a statement from Walker’s office, new appointments are expected this week.

Former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich spoke to First Alaskans Institute’s Elders and Youth Conference Monday, one of his biggest Alaskan audiences since he lost re-election and left office in January.

Begich urged the young attendees to participate in their communities, to vote and to stay positive. He drew on his own life for illustration.

“You know, a lot of people assume that somehow I was born and then I was in public office. Just magically occurred,” Begich said. “That is not the case. I have won elections and I have lost elections. The question is, what do you do?”

Begich recounted his early beginnings in civic life, how he started a non-alcoholic teen nightclub to give Anchorage youth like himself something to do, and why he first ran for public office at the age of 26 and ended up the youngest person serving on assembly.

“The reason I decided to run was not because I said to myself, jeez I want to be an assembly person. I ran because I wanted to do something for the community I lived in. That I felt it had already been good to me, at that young age, and I wanted to give something back,” he said.

If it bore some resemblance to a campaign speech, his spokeswoman, Rachel Barinbaum says the ex-senator was asked to discuss “action and advocacy.” One of his key messages is to remain tenacious and not take rejection as the final word.

“When I ran for mayor and lost twice before winning, it wasn’t sitting around moping and saying, well, the sky has fallen. I lost an election. My life is over,” he said. “No. Got right back up. As I said earlier: persistence, positive attitude, know you can make a difference.”

Begich has been repeatedly asked if he is considering a run against Sen. Lisa Murkowski, or Congressman Don Young. He hasn’t announced any future political plans.

After leaving the Senate, Begich formed a consulting group and signed on with a D.C. lobbying firm to be a strategic advisor. He has also worked as an adviser for the law firm Sonosky Chambers and on a campaign to kill the Iran nuclear deal.

Young and Sen. Dan Sullivan, the man who unseated Begich, are due to address the AFN convention on Thursday, followed by Murkowski on Friday.