For the moderates in Alaska's races, good policy trumps party
For the moderates in Alaska's races, good policy trumps party
"Closed political primaries made it possible to elect a ham sandwich."
It’s Tuesday, Alaska!
In this edition: We’re into the final stretch of the election season, so let’s get into gear with one of my favorite ongoing threads in Alaska politics: the ever-deepening rifts between Alaska Republicans. There are the loyalists, the extreme right and a growing cohort of moderates willing to buck their party. I recently talked with two such moderate candidates in head-to-head races with incumbent Republican loyalists about how politics have changed and what’s motivating them to run.
Current mood: 🐘
For the moderates in Alaska’s legislative races, good policy trumps party
The general election is just three weeks away, and one of the big storylines underlining this entire election cycle is the ongoing push and pull between the various factions of the Alaska Republican Party. Once relatively united, the last decade has seen deepening rifts between extreme-right Republicans who don’t play nice with others, moderate Republicans who play nice with independents and Democrats, and party loyalists who seem to be members of the Alaska Republican Party first and foremost. While it’s an issue that has long simmered around the edges of state politics, the adoption of open primaries and ranked-choice voting has pushed it into the forefront of this year’s election cycle.
This year, some of the most hot-button and consequential races in shaping the Alaska Legislature are intra-party challenges between moderate Republicans open to forming centrist coalitions across the political aisle and loyalists for whom bipartisanship and compromise are bad words.
In Anchorage, moderate Republican former Rep. Chuck Kopp returned to politics to wipe the floor with Alaska Republican Party Rep. Craig Johnson in the open primary, finishing 20 points ahead of the House Rules Committee chair who has been one of the key GOP loyalists. In Fairbanks, moderate Republican Joy Beth Cottle—a badass long-time firefighter—is pushing to unseat extreme-right Republican Rep. Frank Tomaszewski after debuting just a few points behind him in the primary election. And there are moderate Republican Sens. Jesse Bjorkman and Kelly Merrick, who face tight challenges from extreme-right and party loyalist Republicans (along with some questionably Democratic Democrats).
Plenty of other races still break down along traditional lines, but these are some of the most interesting races to me because they showcase how much Republican politics has changed over the last few years.
As former Rep. Kopp told me in an interview last week, the old semi-closed partisan system made getting elected as a Republican a cakewalk in most districts, producing outright bad candidates in some cases. All you had to do was appeal to Republican primary voters for a free pass in the general election.
The open primary system shortcuts that leverage for the parties, meaning candidates—and their politics—must appeal more broadly. It’s the big driving reason behind the right-wing effort to repeal it via initiative.
“The voters are empowered now. They all have to be listened to,” Kopp said. “It has empowered candidates in a way to run for office who, before that, knew that the closed political primaries made it possible to elect a ham sandwich or an inanimate object who agreed to toe the party line.”
He said the impact it had on legislating is also hard to overlook. Legislators keen on keeping their jobs in safely Republican districts had to maintain their appeal to the party lest they fall out of favor and draw a challenger. That threat of a primary, he said, was one of the party’s most potent tools to instill and maintain loyalty.
“If your highest priority is to be elected and re-elected, you can’t make the tough decisions,” he said. “I’m very willing to not be re-elected, and that’s what makes some Republicans not like me. They know that’s the least of my fears.”
That said, defining what it means to be a moderate Republican in today’s political climate isn’t exactly straightforward. As I’ve come to say, “moderate” should be treated as shorthand for moderate-by-comparison, as the Republicans’ goalposts seem affixed to rocket skates. The rightward shift is like the tide going out, leaving those willing to buck the party standing alone in the moderate shallows.
“I think most people consider me a moderate,” Kopp said. “I’ve been a lifelong registered Republican, and I think the party has changed dramatically. This is not the party of Ronald Reagan or George Bush I or II; it’s almost unrecognizable to me some days. ... I do not believe times have become too desperate for the Constitution, and I don’t like it when I see the hardliners turn against First Amendment principles. ... I think we have a drift toward authoritarianism that concerns me.”
The one policy thread that seems to unite moderate Republicans is the fight for a pension system for public employees. Once one of those issues that Republicans reflexively opposed, Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel successfully carried a public pension bill to passage in the Senate this session.
The measure never got meaningful traction in the House.
Kopp says the House’s refusal to take up the measure, which Rep. Johnson played a crucial role in stymieing as House Rules Chair, was a key reason he entered the race. A former police officer, Kopp says he supports the pension system as an investment in Alaska’s present and future.
The same goes for Joy Beth Cottle, a long-time Fairbanks firefighter challenging Rep. Tomaszewski. I also talked with her last week, and she said the lack of a predictable retirement has contributed to a revolving door of firefighters that has undermined public safety while racking up training costs for the city. It, along with education funding, is why she’s running.
“I’ve seen the employee turnover increase dramatically since 2006,” she said, referring to the year the state did away with pensions in favor of a 401k-style retirement plan. “It’s the top and highest quality employees who realize they can make a life for themselves and have a defined benefit pension in other places.”
For her, her experience of seeing talented firefighters leave for greener pastures trumps whatever the party would have her do and believe in pensions. And that perhaps is one of the most precise ways to define just what it means to be a moderate Republican in today’s political climate.
“I don’t tolerate bullies in the workplace,” Cottle said, “and I’ll stand up to them wherever I am.”
Stay tuned.