FIRST ON FOX – The Republican senate” target=”_blank”>Senate< of Alaska argues that the longtime senator has voted to confirm “radical leftists” and then acts surprised when those confirmed take actions detrimental to her home state.
Kelly Tshibaka, the former us-regionscommissioner of administration who enjoys the backing of former President donald-trump” target=”_blank”>Donald Trump<
“She votes to confirm radical leftists and then acts shocked when they behave like radical leftists! She even predicts that they’ll be harmful to Alaska, but votes for them anyway,” Tshibaka emphasized. “And then she issues a press release pretending to worry about all the damage being done to Alaska without ever mentioning that she voted to confirm the person in the first place. In several cases, she was the tie-breaking vote that put them in office!”
Former Alaska commissioner of administration is supported by former President Donald Trump as she primary challenges GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in the 2022 midterm elections.
(Tshibaka Senate campaign)
Tshibaka’s campaign points to Murkowski’s April 2013 vote in favor of confirm Sally Jewell as Department of Interior secretary in then President Obama’s second term.
Murkowski had initially held up the nomination because of the Interior Department’s opposition to putting a road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The senator had pushed for construction of a gravel road through the wilderness area to give people in the remote community of King Cove easier access to a nearby all-weather airport for medical emergencies.
After the Interior Department agreed to prepare a report on the necessity of the road, Murkowski supported the nomination, which passed the Senate 87-11.
TARGETED BY TRUMP, ALASKA’S MURKOWSKI ANNOUNCES 2022 SENATE REELECTION BID
Noting that Jewell had not “run the full gamut” of Interior Department issues during her career, Murkowski said “perhaps that’s a good thing, because perhaps she is able to look through these issues with a fresh perspective, a different lens,” according to a Washington Post report.
Eight months later Jewell rejected the road and two weeks ago, on the eighth anniversary of that rejection, Murkowski said in a statement that “Sally Jewell made a horrible decision eight years ago, and it is the good people of King Cove who have paid the price ever since.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) asks questions during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss reopening schools during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 30, 2021. Greg Nash/Pool via REUTERS
(Reuters)
Tshibaka’s campaign also points to Murkowski’s crucial Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee vote last year to confirm President Biden’s nominee for Interior secretary, then-Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico. Murkowski’s support helped Haaland make history as the first Native American to serve as Interior secretary, but the nominee’s past opposition to new leases for drilling oil and gas on federal lands were very troubling in a carbon-rich state like Alaska.
Murkowski noted that the time that “Alaska Natives in particular – are enormously proud to have a Native American nominated to this position. It is truly a historic nomination and they believe Alaska Native issues can be elevated to one of the highest levels of government.”
TRUMP BACKED TSHIBAKA ENDORSED BY PRO-FEMALE CANDIDATES CONSERVATIVE GROUP
But she added that “I am going to place my trust in Representative Haaland and her team, despite some very real misgivings. And Representative Haaland, if you are listening, know that I intend to work with you because I want you to be successful and need you to be successful, but I am also going to hold you to your commitments to ensure that Alaska is allowed to prosper.”
But in late November, after an Interior Department report called for reductions in gas and oil production and to “restrict access and make energy production less viable in federal areas,” the senator called the move “especially upsetting” and urged Democrats to “drop the harmful resource provisions.”
In this July 14, 2021, file photo, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland meets with young people from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe after a ceremony of the disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
The Tshibaka campaign also spotlighted Murkowski’s 2011 vote to confirm Sharon Gleason as the first woman from Alaska on the federal bench. Later rulings by Gleason and the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska that placed limits on the oil and gas industry were heavily criticized by many in the state.
And they spotlighted Murkowski’s vote last February to confirm former Iowa governor and former Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack to steer the department once again in the Biden administration. Vilsack later reversed a Trump administration policy that relaxed federal restrictions on road construction on federal lands.
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The 2022 Senate showdown in Alaska will have some new rules. Alaskans, in a ballot measure last year, changed how they run their elections. The scrapped party primaries, and going forward with the top four voter getters in a nonpartisan primary will advance to the general election, where ranked-choice voting will be used to determine the winner.
Pundits speculate that could help Murkowski, who enjoys strong name recognition.
