Former Gov. Bill Walker is attempting a political comeback. After four years on the sidelines, he still believes that Alaska won’t ever have financial stability – and a healthy Permanent Fund – unless someone has the political courage to make decisions that last beyond the next election.

Walker was in Sitka for a couple of days, campaigning before Tuesday’s primary election. He spoke with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey. 

If you’re new to Alaska, Bill Walker is probably just a name on a campaign brochure, but if you were around a decade ago, you may remember him as a well-connected, business-minded independent candidate who outflanked a Republican incumbent, and won the governor’s office with the promise of bringing discipline to Alaska’s finances.

Bringing discipline to Alaska’s legislature was another matter, and although the Senate backed his restraint, the House of Representatives did not, and Walker in 2016 was compelled to use his veto power to halve a proposed dividend check of about $2,000 per Alaskan, to just over $1,000.

That, plus an income tax proposal, comprised the wedge that then-candidate Mike Dunleavy used to hold open the door to push Walker out in 2018. Although it cost him the office, Walker knew exactly what he was doing.

“I want the highest dividend we can possibly pay, but not at the expense of high taxes and not at the expense of weakened government services like education, public safety marine highway system,” Walker said. “We need to be healthy in those areas as well.”

Walker recalls that Dunleavy campaigned on a return to a statutory dividend formula that even hardened conservatives like Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman think is out-of-date, and on checks many thousands of dollars larger than the $2,000 Walker vetoed in 2016. Those checks never materialized, Walker notes, because the governor doesn’t have a checkbook – only the legislature does. And while the governor can downsize the budget, he can’t upsize it. Walker says the governor’s job is to keep things going.

“Governments need stability,” he said. “When oil goes to $26, you know, Conoco Phillips can lay down a drill rig. I can’t lay down education and won’t. I can’t lay down public safety and won’t. I can’t stop the main highway system and won’t. We need stability in our revenue source, not the roller coaster of the highs and lows, because you can’t run government services that way.”

With the Permanent Fund now at $80 billion, it’s within striking distance of the $100- to $120-billion target that Walker believes would fund state government “without a bunch of taxes.” The recent high price of oil is a boon, but Walker – an oil and gas attorney – is not confident it will last. “What goes up, comes down. Every governor spins the Oil Wheel.” He wants to bring back generational thinking into government, and says this separates him from Democrat Les Gara, the former state representative who’s also on the primary ballot.

Walker says his status as an independent is an advantage.

“You know, we had one independent president in the nation’s history, and that was President Washington,” Walker explained. “And what he said was ‘I don’t want to be the president of a party. I want to be president of a nation.’ And so I don’t want to be the governor of a party, I want to be the governor of a state. And so I think that’s one of the differences perhaps that we might have. And although I love how everybody is bipartisan, bipartisanship has an expiration date, and that’s the election. And boy, right after the election, that seems to change quite a bit. I don’t have any choice, I don’t have a party. You work with everybody.”

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has made the right to an abortion a campaign issue for state candidates everywhere. Rep. Gara, the Democrat, describes himself as the only pro-choice candidate among the major contenders on the primary ballot. Walker believes his “Unity Ticket” with Lt. Governor candidate Heidi Drygas balances the question.

“Personally, I am pro-life and Heidi my running mate is pro-choice,” said Walker. “But that’s somewhat irrelevant from the standpoint that we both acknowledge that our constitution is clear: Under our Constitution, the right to privacy is a protected privacy right. And we will protect that, we’ll defend that. And so nothing will change under our watch in that regard. Alaska is fortunate to have the Constitution we have. We are aggressively anti-constitutional convention, we think ‘leave our constitution alone.’ If it needs to be amended at some point down the future for whatever reason, then that’s another process.” 

Heidi Drygas was Walker’s Commissioner of Labor & Workforce Development during his previous four years as governor, a well-known figure in interior Alaska with connections – by marriage – to Southeast. Walker says recent polling suggests the Walker-Drygas ticket can win in a final round of ranked choice voting. In 2014, however, he and Democrat Byron Mallot merged their tickets after the primary to unseat Republican Sean Parnell.

Walker says that dropping Drygas, and forming a similar super-ticket with Les Gara is not in his plans.

“I don’t see that happening,” Walker said. “I’m very honored to be running with Heidi, and I haven’t given a single second thought about creating anything other than the ticket that we have.”

Bill Walker is one of ten candidates for Alaska governor on the ballot in this Tuesday’s primary election. The top four candidates on Tuesday will move on to the General Election in November.

On the back side of the ballot are the names of the three candidates hoping to take the late Don Young’s place in the US Congress – but just until the winner of the November general election is sworn in next January.

Walker on solutions like the Sitka Community Land Trust

“You know, a highlight for me (this trip) was the Sitka Land Trust project. I’m a carpenter. We moved to Valdez from Fairbanks in the early 60s, you know, as a house builder. They had no house builder there. Without housing, you can’t have progress with the economy. So what I saw there with the land trust, it was amazing what they’ve done. I mean, they have figured it out, they have found the secret recipe that I’ve been looking for, for about a year of traveling the state going to every community, Nome to Utqiagvik, to Petersburg – all across the state. And all have the same issue of affordable housing. I think they have figured it out here in Sitka. The model I think is absolutely right.”

Walker on making politically unpopular decisions

“From a voting standpoint, I think who has shown the experience? Who has shown that they will run to the fire and make tough decisions, and has the political courage to do that, but is focused on the next generation, and not the next election? And that’s sometimes the problem: when people focus on the next election, they tend to make very short-sighted commitments and statements rather than generational. We have all we have in Alaska, because of our forefathers and what they did, the courage that they had and what they did to build this great state. So we shouldn’t stop here, just because it’s not good for politics. I mean, they would have been over-the-moon excited to have an $80 billion Permanent Fund. We couldn’t spell from ‘permanent fund’ back in the day, much less have one. So here we are, we fight over what we don’t have, and we don’t celebrate all we do have. It was an honor for me to be governor. I never thought I’d run again. Once you’ve achieved that incredible honor, it was a tough shift. But that’s okay. You don’t control the hand you’re dealt, you play the hand you’re dealt. And I did the best I could. But I just worry that we’re not focused on that again. We’re almost there. I just look around the state and see all the things that aren’t fixed, aren’t even being discussed, aren’t being addressed because it’s politically unpopular to do that. And we’ve become a state I don’t recognize. We used to be all one. You know, when the marine highway system was purchased, it was with a revenue bond that was voted on by people all across the state. People in Kotzebue voted yes on a marine highway system that they probably weren’t going to ride. And that was a crown jewel of our state. One by one, you know, we’re cutting back further and further. So we need to turn that around. And we will.”

Former state legislator Les Gara is the only Democrat in a field of ten candidates vying for the job of Alaska’s governor this fall.

He left his seat representing Anchorage in 2019, after serving in the House for 13 years.

That same year, Michael Dunleavy defeated incumbent Bill Walker to win the governor’s office, and Gara has not been pleased with Dunleavy’s policies or leadership so far.

Gara was on a whistlestop tour of Southeast last week (6-10-22), including Sitka, where he spoke with  KCAW’s Robert Woolsey.

Listen to an extended interview with Democratic candidate for governor Rep. Les Gara.

The challenge for anyone running against the current governor is money. Gov. Dunleavy favors the largest possible dividends from Alaska’s Permanent Fund. The legislature controls the state’s purse however, and has consistently held the governor in check in order to not drain the state’s savings accounts, and dividends have been a bit more modest as a result.  

Still, a big check from the state is the only campaign promise many voters will need to hear this year. Les Gara thinks Gov. Dunleavy is not disclosing the full cost of large dividends.

“Well, first, it’s a false promise. And that’s why I’m running,” Gara said. “This governor has made the state poor. He’s made a resource-rich state poor, by giving away our oil for almost nothing. So we have $1.3 billion less in state funds, because we give away $1.3 billion in oil companies subsidies the oil industry does not need. And without that money, he makes false promises about the PFD, which he knows he can only fund by cutting schools, cutting our construction budget, cutting reimbursement to communities for school construction, cutting Senior Services, cutting Children’s Services, and not building a single state sponsored renewable energy project anywhere in the state in his whole three years. He’s done nothing.”

Gara is the only Democrat that voters will see on the August 16 primary election ballot for governor. Outside of the Republican incumbent, of the other eight candidates Gara’s major rival is likely former Gov. Bill Walker, an independent. Nowadays when politics can seem polarized to the point of hostility, Gara says he found common ground with Walker during the latter’s term in office.

“Bill and I get along fine,” he said. “The thing that we have in common is we both believe that you should put your politics to the side when you can build something better for the greater good. And there there are times where both of us were able to do that.”

Nevertheless, Gara has to draw a hard line between himself and Walker. Among other issues, Gara is staking out marriage equality, a woman’s right to choose, and school funding.

“I’m pro choice, he’s pro life,” Gara said, bluntly. “I believe that it’s not my business who marries whom. I believe in equal rights for all. He believes marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe in strong educational funding every year that doesn’t go down. His first two years as governor, he cut education funding by over $80 million at a time when we should have been cutting oil company cash credit payments that we were giving them instead. That was the disagreement we had back then.”

If elected governor, Gara would likely be sworn in along with a Republican majority in the Alaska Senate. He says he’ll have allies like Republican Sen. Bert Stedman of Sitka, who’s been a consistent fiscal conservative, often at odds with Gov. Dunleavy, and some of the more extreme views of the senate majority. (Note: Sen. Bert Stedman is being challenged this year by fellow Republican Michael Sheldon of Petersburg.)

“Bert and I both agree we’re not getting a fair share for our oil,” Gara explained. “The choices this governor has made people make are false: He’s made you choose a permanent fund dividend or schools, or a marine highway, or a university, or job training, or a construction budget that we could use to build renewable energy across the state. He’s left over 50 communities with no police whatsoever. That’s 19th Century policing for a community that has no police where somebody is assaulted or God forbid, even raped, and the aggressor gets to lord over them for a day or two days until a trooper flies and that’s injustice, not justice. And that’s what this governor has done. And it’s a false choice to say we have to pick between those things, and turn people against each other, turn permanent fund supporters against school supporters, against university supporters, against marine highway supporters, against rural Alaska supporters. We don’t have to turn people against each other.”

During his visit to Southeast, Gara traveled between communities by air. With cutbacks to the Alaska Marine Highway, surface transportation has become impractical for quick hops. Gara says he never balked when Sitka legislators Stedman, or Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, pushed for a better deal for the ferry system.

“I always worked with the Southeast legislators, Jonathan, Bert, and others,” Gara said, “and when they said ‘this is what we need to make the very system vibrant,’ I said ‘I support you.’ Right? Because in Southcentral Alaska, the state subsidizes asphalt. It’s not like those roads are free. The state subsidizes them. So people who live on the road system cannot complain that the ferry system also costs money. The mode of transportation down here is water. The mode of transportation between communities on the road system is asphalt. Both deserve support. And so I’ve always been a strong marine highway supporter.”

Gara’s visit to Sitka coincided with the June meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council – five of whose seven members are nominated by the governor of Alaska. Gara understands that this is far from an inconsequential responsibility – and he understands those consequences.

“And you know, you’ve got people like Linda Behnken in this community who are taking the lead and saying dumping 1,000 tons of halibut dead to the bottom of the Bering Sea — that’s not rational fisheries policy,” said Gara. “Killing 550,000 chums just on the Bering Sea, when the western Alaska communities don’t have chums to to eat, to put on their table for subsistence, or to commercial fish. That’s not sane fishing policy, we can change that. As governor, I get to appoint the majority of the members to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. I get to nominate them, they’ll get appointed. And so we get the majority of the seats as Alaskans. As Governor, I can change that — I couldn’t change that as a legislator. This governor has given away our fisheries, to outside interests, to Seattle-based factory trawlers. This fishery belongs to the people of the State of Alaska, so we can have vibrant communities where people who rely on fish for food get fish for food, where people who rely on fish for income get fish for income, and even more people rely on fish just to have a little bit of fun get to have some fun.”

Gara so far is trailing former Gov. Bill Walker in fundraising, by about $170,000 – having raised $539,000 to Walker’s $712,000 – but as of March this year he reported having raised over $200,000 more than incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Gara’s running mate for Lt. Governor is Jessica Cook, a sixth-grade teacher from Palmer.

Note: The 2022 Alaska Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, August 16, to narrow down the field of candidates not only for governor, but also for the US Congress and the Alaska Legislature.  The Primary Election will coincide with a Special Election to determine who will take the late Don Young’s seat in Congress just until January of next year.