Murkowski's sitting on a fence from a bygone era
Maybe it's time for Alaska’s Congressional delegation to come up with a new motto, because Ted Stevens' words, "To hell with politics. Just do what's right for Alaska," seem out of date.
It's Thursday, Alaska.
In this week's edition: Trump's megabill cleared Congress this morning, making Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's "agonizing" vote to advance the bill with the hope that legislators in the House would fix the bill look that much more foolish. While it'll be months and years for us to really unpack the impact of this one vote, it's a watershed moment for the allegedly moderate, process-focused lawmaker who has been described in the Trump era as one of the few sensible adults left in the room. With a vote that is not only odiously harmful to millions of Americans but also betrays many of her purported values, no amount of secured "commitments" will erase the tarnish. Meanwhile, Gov. Mike Dunleavy unveiled his latest cynical effort to skirt the Legislature with a special session that came with special orders to his Republicans. Also, the reading list and an apt weekend watching.
Current mood: 😒
A broken fence from a bygone era
Days after Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski cast a decisive vote for Trump’s megabill – calling the vote “agonizing,” the process “awful,” and on the House to fix a bill that only advanced because of her – the House did not, in fact, fix the bill.
While there was plenty of late-night drama and back-and-forth vote tallies, its passage ultimately proved inevitable, with the only question being what kind of sideboards, carve-outs and promises legislators could secure from the Trump administration. It frankly seems that everyone got to hear what they wanted to hear, including Murkowski, who boasted about “securing commitments” that may temporarily spare Alaskans from the gut punch that all but the most wealthy of Americans will ultimately feel under the bill’s slate of deeply regressive policies.
Tens of thousands of Alaskans will lose health coverage, and tens of thousands more will be affected by the loss of those dollars in an already struggling health care system. The SNAP carve-out that shields Alaska from devastating funding changes will last only two years, leaving a ticking time bomb for a program that has already struggled to meet the needs of the state's most vulnerable households.
House Republicans were never going to open the bill up for changes, a point that leadership admitted today, when browbeating, arm-twisting and hollow assurances work even better in the world of Trump. The one and only opportunity Murkowski had to dramatically alter the course of a bill, when she knew “there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill,” was with her vote.
Turns out that you can’t bank on the right thing happening when you’re not willing to do the right thing yourself.
Today's House vote is a coda to a watershed moment for Murkowski, whose rigorously process-focused approach to politics has been both her biggest strength and biggest point of frustration for the moderate and progressive coalition that has kept her in office since her historic write-in campaign in 2010. Call it measured pragmatism or call it wishy-washy centrism, but Murkowski's positioning as one of the few sensible adults in the room was broadly appealing.
It's a value that Alaska Public Media's Liz Ruskin captured well in her excellent Alaska At-Large newsletter back in February, writing, "Her analytic approach exasperates Alaskans who have more passionate political impulses. Mobs don't take to the streets shouting 'What do we want? A well-reasoned response! When do we want it? After a thorough process!'"
That's why her decisive vote this week to advance the megabill – along with her woe-is-me statements about the bill's bad bones and even worse process – shatters that image so completely for many. I imagine that many Alaskans are asking themselves: What was the point of voting for this ostensibly moderate, allegedly process-focused lawmaker over Kelly Tshibaka, if not for this moment?
As pollster Ivan Moore said in a viral post on Bluesky: “For years, Lisa Murkowski has survived by sitting on the fence, alternately tossing red meat onto one side, then the other. Well, today, the fence broke.”
Not only did Murkowski show her vote can be secured for so little (many of the carve-outs that she and her few remaining defenders will point to are temporary and conditional), but it also shows she’s clinging to the politics of a long bygone era, ill-suited to our declining democracy.
Her defenders will call it a prisoner’s dilemma; that Murkowski is just as pragmatic as ever because she looked at a bad bill for the country and took the (temporary) offramp for Alaska, rather than letting Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins or Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul dictate the terms that got the bill to passage. It would have been even worse, they say, as if that makes the elimination of health care coverage for millions of Americans to pay for the massive expansion of the ICE police state a more palatable moral choice. And the problem with that, too, is that the prisoner’s dilemma wasn't about extolling the virtues of selling out your fellow man, but about illustrating dangers created by a system that encourages you to minimize harm to yourself by harming another. It's supposed to be a lesson in compassion and empathy; there's value in taking the hard path if it means less pain for all.
But perhaps that, too, is a relic of a bygone era.
Maybe it's time for Alaska’s Congressional delegation to come up with a new motto, because Ted Stevens' words, "To hell with politics. Just do what's right for Alaska," seem out of date.
How about, “To hell with our fellow Americans, just do what is less bad for Alaska.”
Dunleavy's special session and special orders to Republicans
In a brazenly cynical gambit to ensure he gets his way, Gov. Mike Dunleavy called a surprise special session to start next month. Ostensibly, the session is to address two issues legislators have already rejected, but it's really all about forcing legislators to hold a veto override vote when not everyone will be present. Some will be out of the country serving on deployment with the Alaska Army National Guard, such as Anchorage Democratic Sen. Forrest Dunbar, and others will be away following the governor's orders.
In a frankly preposterous story that broke following the announcement of the special session, Dunleavy told his Republicans to skip out on the first five days of the special session altogether. Seems oddly specific until you remember that the Alaska Constitution requires the legislature to take up vetoes within the first five days of any session.
“The Governor has asked house minority members to not show up for the first five days of the special session to prevent his vetoes to be overturned in the special session,” spokesperson for Dunleavy, Jeff Turner, told KTUU in a statement after the call with legislators was leaked.
KTUU also revealed that Dunleavy is essentially offering the $51 million he has already vetoed from the education budget as a bid to get his way on statewide open enrollment, public charter school expansion, and homeschool funding. Hey, I thought the veto was because the budget is so tough? Which is it?
The special session starts Aug. 2 in... Juneau? Huh. Was Wasilla Middle School not available?
Stay tuned.
Reading list
Alena Naiden
Iris Samuels
Matt Acuña Buxton
Corinne Smith, Alaska Beacon
Wil Courtney
Hannah Lee
Ava White
Weekend watching
I think it's one of those weeks for an all-time pick-me-up.
Have a nice weekend, y'all.
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