Election Day is next week, and candidates are ramping up their campaigns. Debra Call is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, and she's running for office with Mark Begich. She visited Bethel on Oct. 23 to check out the region’s top priorities, which include public safety, the Permanent Fund Dividend, the proposed Donlin gold mine, and a controversial salmon habitat ballot initiative.
Lieutenant governor nominee Debra Call took a whirlwind trip to Bethel to listen to concerns in preparation for a tight political race.
"I think much of the concerns have to do with public safety," Call said.
That won’t surprise anyone in the Y-K Delta; the Association of Village Council Presidents picked public safety as the top issue in the region during its annual convention in Bethel earlier in October.
Call is the running mate of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Begich. She’s a member of Knik Village and Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Begich is currently battling with Republican candidate Mike Dunleavy in a very close race.
Earlier in the campaign, Begich was locked in a three-way race with Dunleavy and incumbent governor Bill Walker, an independent. But Walker decided to drop out after his running mate and former lieutenant governor Byron Mallott resigned earlier this month after making inappropriate remarks to an unnamed woman. Walker endorsed Begich, and Begich’s team plans to continue with many of Walker’s initiatives.
"There’s a lot of things that Governor Walker has worked on, like tribal sovereignty," Call said. "He recognizes the tribes, wants to work with the tribes, has compacted many of the services provided, so there’s a lot of good things. So that’s what we want to build off of. The foundation has been set. Why change it?"
That foundation involves funding for public safety, including resources for tribal law enforcement. How do Begich and Call plan to do that? Well, it has to do with the Permanent Fund's Earnings Reserve Account.
"So what he is looking at is constitutionally protecting the Permanent Fund Dividend," Call said.
Begich hopes to do something like this: he wants to push the Alaska Legislature to constitutionally protect the Permanent Fund Dividend. Then he wants to operate the fund like an endowment and divide the earnings from that in half. One half of that will fund education and the other half, the dividend. Call says that operating the fund that way can free up the more than $1 billion that is currently used to fund education, and allow the state to spend that money on other things, such as public safety.
This past year, the state legislature decided for the first time to use funds from the Permanent Fund's Earnings Reserve to pay for government operations. Begich called that a dangerous precedent and vows to protect the PFD. He says that his solution will do just that and free up money to fund critical programs, like public safety and resources for tribal law enforcement.
Call is confident that Begich can persuade lawmakers to join him on his plan, citing the way he was able to work with senators as diverse as Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz. But Begich has a tough line for state lawmakers opposing his plan:
"I think I’m going to make it politically hard for members to say no," Begich said during his visit to Bethel this past summer.
Call refrained from taking a position on the proposed Donlin gold mine. The massive open pit mine could be one of the biggest gold mines in the world, if completed. But she supports a controversial salmon habitat ballot initiative: Ballot Measure 1. The measure would toughen the permitting process for large projects proposed in salmon habitat.
"My understanding is that Title 16, which manages our fish and game, was written in the 50s when we had an abundance of fish and game and fewer population. So the laws fit at the time," Call said. "So move us 50, 60 years later and we have more people and larger urban areas, and we have climate change going on and changes in the environment in terms of our waters, and our habitat is not being as well taken care of as it has in the past."
Major oil and mining companies oppose Ballot Measure 1. Donlin Gold, the company developing the mine, is one of the biggest opponents. Begich has also endorsed the salmon habitat initiative, but also supports the Donlin mine, which already has a permit to damage some salmon habitat. Begich and Call both pledged to respect tribal sovereignty and to work closer with tribes on key issues like public safety.
KYUK has reached out to Republican candidate Mike Dunleavy’s campaign, but he has not scheduled a time to visit the Y-K Delta before the elections on November 6.
Anna Rose MacArthur contributed reporting.