Louise Stutes was in Homer this past Friday to hold a meet-and-greet with voters, and her visit was very illuminating. Both her position on the issues and the location where she held her campaign event tell voters all they need to know about this candidate running for the Alaska Senate District C seat. There are three candidates in this race, and Stutes will not be receiving my vote.

The first shocker was the location for the gathering. She chose to meet with voters in the temporary local offices of “Alaska Democrats/Alaska First,” a political campaign and advocacy organization that supports Democrat Candidates. The wall of the office was covered with campaign signs for liberal left-of-center candidates, all Democrats. Not one conservative Republican is being supported by this group. If the old saying that you know people by who their friends are holds true, Stutes is more comfortable among partisan Democrats than with members of her own party.

The location for the event was actually one of the first questions that Stutes faced from the voters in attendance. One woman, identified as a Republican, wanted to know why Stutes chose to meet in Democratic Party offices if she was a Republican. Stutes replied that she had been a Republican for 50 years but was more of a centrist. She doesn’t believe in all the planks of the GOP platform and has been willing to work with Democrats down in Juneau to get bills passed. She said that she does not get along with the local District 6 Republicans; in fact, she has heard that the local GOP leadership is planning on censuring her. Stutes says she chose a location independent of the local party organization, basically saying she was in friendly territory when surrounded by Democrats. This choice says a lot about which voters Stutes is trying to appeal to.

The first campaign issue that came up was about teachers and school funding, and it didn’t go as Stutes expected. When two women in the audience introduced themselves as schoolteachers, you could tell Rep Stutes was ready to pander to them. Stutes said she knew it was difficult to find good teachers, and we need to provide a retirement program for them to attract more good ones. However, Stutes was stopped cold in her tracks. The two teachers, one still teaching and the other retired, indicated that they did not support NEA Alaska and did not enter teaching as a means to get rich. Their biggest complaint was not about their compensation; it was disagreement that they were forced to pay union dues of $1,400 per year to a union that did not represent their values. They said that only about 30% of teachers believed and supported the NEA, but all teachers had to pay union dues, and they didn’t think this was fair. They also said that when it came to school funding increases, the teachers said in their observation that there was significant waste in the current school system, and throwing more money at it was not the solution. Their comments set Stutes aback; she was not ready to hear this message.

There were lots of other issues discussed, but the main one crucial to District 6 voters is the subject of how she would represent both House districts 5 and 6 equally, and the issue of trawl fishing was used as an example. The Kodiak trawl fleet is important to Kodiak economically, but it catches and kills King Salmon as bycatch. In fact, the fleet reached its quota of king salmon bycatch in one day just a couple of years ago and had to be shut down. While trawling is an important industry in Kodiak, king salmon fishing is important to the Kenai, and we are currently experiencing declining returns and have had to shut down king salmon fishing on the Kenai Peninsula. This negatively impacts fishing guides and other local businesses that depend on the fishery. Stutes was asked how she would balance these two conflicting issues and did not provide a very good answer.

Stutes first denied that the trawl fleet was responsible for any king salmon bycatch. Then, when confronted with the facts, she said, even if it catches king salmon, there is no way to be sure that they are Kenai king salmon. Then she went off on a long history of trawl fishing on Kodiak, how her husband participated in it for many years, but didn’t provide a meaningful answer about how, if she were elected, she would balance the competing interests of her Kenai and Kodiak voters. Like they say in poker, her answer to this question was a tell. Stutes is not running to support the interests of all voters in Senate District C. If elected, she will be representing Kodiak, and only Kodiak, and voters on the Kenai need to be aware of this.

After spending an hour and a half with Louise Stutes, I was able to form a pretty solid impression of her and what kind of Senator she would make. Stutes is a well-spoken individual, knows what she wants to accomplish, and is willing to step on some toes to do so. However, she is not a conservative Republican and does not believe in all planks of the GOP platform. Stutes does not like the leadership of the District 6 GOP and will not work with them if elected. Her election as our next state senator would not bode well for conservatives living on the Kenai Peninsula. Stutes’s message might resonate with Democrats who hope to keep advancing a left-of-center agenda down in Juneau and see Stutes as their best hope of doing so. Voters who want a conservative Republican representing them in Juneau should look elsewhere.

The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.

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