Borough Assembly president Kelly Cooper of Homer has filed a letter of intent to run for House District 31. Cooper’s second term on the assembly will be up next October. She is registered as undeclared and has not announced whether she’ll run in the Democratic primary. She spoke with KDLL’s Shaylon Cochran from the Alaska Municipal League Conference in Anchorage about what her time on the assembly can mean in Juneau and the need for better communication at the capitol.
With the legislature so divided right now, what do you see as the bridge for that divide?
“I think we’ve had some folks get elected that are completely beholden to their party, and those committee representatives are dictating to them what is being done. And I think if we can step away from the parties a little bit and listen to our constituents and our entire district and have some change in direction on who gets elected where can work with a non-partisan approach, I think we can get things done. We’ve seen it at the assembly level. (It’s) not me sitting here saying ‘I believe this’. We’ve done it at the assembly level where we’ve been pretty imbalanced and we’ve been able to make some progress where we address the issues and we are all working for a common goal. I think education is one of those examples. But when it gets so partisan that you have your party, those committee members, dictating to you how you’re going to perform, that’s when we get splintered.”
I’m curious what you think about all of the special sessions, and how that kind of comes from a legislature that is so divided and can’t get its business done. Do you see those continuing? Will 90 days be enough?
“Because of how extreme the governor’s budget was, I think that it might be a potential for an extended session, but I think they’ll all be in the same city this time....We hear the governor is wanting to continue cuts to education, 30 percent, we can’t absorb that. So I think it may go into a longer session, but if we have them all in the same city, that would be great. We wasted so much time.”
What are some things, issues you can point to from your time on the assembly that you’ve sort of dealt with, had to deal with, that’s good experience, that you could take with you to the legislature?
“In my time on the assembly, I have been really active in reaching out to our legislators. We’ve had a really good relationship with legislators in the past on working together. Which is why I find so much value with AML (Alaska Municipal League). When we sit down and understand that it’s not just black or white for the party, that we have these projects we want to accomplish or these budgets we want to get through and we can work through it that way, then I think we can get things accomplished.”
Does it bother you to get tagged with the liberal label or Democrat label?
“Labels bother me. Period. I don’t like any labels because I don’t fit into any of them 100 percent. I think if we all that are running for office, when we sit at city councils or assemblies or legislatures, if we could lose the labels and focus on our projects and our goals and leave the labels out.”
That was borough assembly president kelly cooper of Homer who has just filed a letter of intent to run in next year’s race for house district 31. The incumbent, Republican Sarah Vance has also filed her letter of intent.
