Thursday, June 20, 2013

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Primary Results Leave Doubt State Senate Bipartisan Coalition Will Survive
Primary election eliminated two members of the Senate Bipartisan Working Group
By Bill McAllister
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ANCHORAGE - Tuesday's primary election eliminated two members of the Senate's Bipartisan Working Group.

Now the question is whether the coalition itself can survive the general election.

Republican Senator Linda Menard of Wasilla and Republican Senator Tom Wagoner of Kenai lost their primary races.

While both were in the working group, the candidates who defeated them say they would not have joined it.

Democratic Senator Bill Wielechowski of Anchorage said he's not worried.

"I don't think it means anything. Each race is personality-based; it's based on individual circumstances. In a closed Republican primary, you can get candidates who are elected who don't necessarily reflect what people in the rest of the state are thinking. You need 11 members to organize the Senate. We had 16. We've lost two. We've still got 14."

But former Republican Representative Bob Roses says if he defeats Wielechowski in November, he would not join a coalition in which Democrats chair most committees.

"Strangely enough, they call it a working group, which I really found that to be quite comical, but if it's in a bipartisan coalition as they call it, if you have a majority of the seats in there, you control the majority of the chairmanships in the committees. And the way you kill a piece of legislation is you kill it in the committee if you don't want it to go. The Senate is notorious for counting their votes on a bill before they take it to the floor."

Wielechowski said the coalition delivered.

"We have a fair oil tax structure; we're finally getting our fair share for our oil resources. That's not about being a Republican or a Democrat. That's just about good government."

But Roses said debate is stifled.

"If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it for the reason that most of them pretend that it is, which is to show bipartisan working relations. It's about power. I'm not going there for power."

Voters will decide if the working group worked.

Both Governor Sean Parnell and the state's Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich have said breaking up the coalition is their central priority in this election cycle.

The main reason? The Senate's refusal to reduce oil taxes.

In a Fairbanks Republican primary, former Labor Commissioner Click Bishop, who said he's open to joining a coalition, defeated former Senator Ralph Seekins, who said he would'nt join.

But in Southeast, one coalition member definitely will be defeated in November, due to a face-off between Republican incumbent Senator Bert Stedman of Sitka and Democratic incumbent Senator Albert Kookesh of Angoon.