The crowded field of candidates for Lieutenant Governor spans the political spectrum and features both political veterans and newcomers. Six of them were in Kenai Wednesday for a Chamber of Commerce forum.
As KDLL’s Shaylon Cochran reports, one of the main topics was where the candidates stand on statewide ballot initiatives and, more specifically, ballot measure one.
Stand for Salmon or Stand for Alaska. Those are the two sides in what’s becoming one of the higher profile issues for state candidates this election season, with one side promoting more stringent regulations to protect salmon habitat and the other side claiming those regulations would stymie economic development. The six candidates for Lt. Governor who were in Kenai Wednesday largely agreed that the citizen initiative process that got ballot measure one before voters this year is a good one, however, on this particular initiative, all the candidates supported the status quo. Here’s the incumbent, current Lt. Gov. Byron Mallot.
“I believe that the Stand for Salmon initiative is a bridge too far. We do need to strengthen our habitat and ecosystem management, but this initiative goes too far.”
Sharon Jackson is running in the Republican primary. She’s a former staffer for Senator Dan Sullivan. She says big money needs to stay out of state ballot initiatives and stands for Alaska, despite that side having a sizeable lead in campaign contributions, largely from big industries.
“We need more individual, hard working people to initiate legislation, not special interest groups with big money buying us out. So I say, stand for Alaska.”
Edie Grunwald is also running as a Republican.
“Stand for Alaska is a more balanced and scientific approach. The stand for Salmon, we all want salmon, we love our salmon and we definitely don’t want to do anything to hurt the ecosystem or our fisheries, so I think we need to stand up for Alaska.”
Stephen Wright is a relative newcomer. Also looking for the GOP nod, he’s in the camp that feels more regulation isn’t what healthy salmon need.
“The state needs to look at reducing some of these regulations so that, first of all, we can ensure the safety of the salmon, but also ensure that industry is also productive.”
Senate Majority Leader Kevin Meyer’s stance on the ballot question comes as no surprise as a career oil company employee.
“The way the process is working now is working well, so why do we need to have additional permitting and regulations? We are having hearings on it right now and the various agencies are coming out on it and showing us what the impact is on it to the state and it’s going to be huge. Millions of dollars.”
The lone Democrat, Debra Call, plans to run alongside former Senator Mark Begich. But being on the opposite political side of the other candidates doesn’t put her on the opposite side of this issue, despite work with native villages.
“We’re concerned about the river closures in this area. And the villages that I was working with were saying what have we done as villages to protect the habitat of our fish. We found out habitat was being protected and hatcheries were in production. So, there’s a lot of things we can do with an initiative, but I think it’s more to be done with legislation.”