The contest for a wide-open state Senate seat in South Anchorage pits two former Assembly members against one another.

There's no incumbent in Senate District O, where Sen. John Cowdery, a Republican, has chosen not to run for re-election as he awaits trial in the federal corruption investigation of Alaska politics. Competing for the seat are Republican state Rep. Kevin Meyer, who is trying to move to the Senate after serving four terms in the Alaska House, and Doug Van Etten, a Democrat and, like Meyer, a former Anchorage Assemblyman.

In another contested Anchorage Senate race, two-term incumbent Democrat Bettye Davis is trying to extend a quarter-century in public service and turn back a challenge from Dave Harbour, a Republican with a long history in state and local government jobs, but no elective background.

SENATE SEAT O

Kevin Meyer, 52, is among the best-financed candidates in any of the state House and Senate races. His most recent campaign finance reports, filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission this past week, show he has collected more than $108,000 and has spent more than $67,000.

Van Etten, 56, trails far behind in the money race. He reported no contributions in the most recent reporting period, according to the APOC, and had collected about $22,000 30 days before the election.

Meyer started his political career with eight years on the Assembly. During his last two terms in the House, he has shared the reigns as co-chair of the Finance committee.

Meyer said he's tried to work with legislators from across Alaska and that, as House Finance co-chair, he worked with Senate Finance co-Chair Lyman Hoffman of Bethel to divide the state's largesse in ways that didn't aggravate rifts between different parts of the state, especially with education funding.

"I don't like urban versus rural," Meyer said. "We're all Alaska. What you do is try to look for win-win situations."

Van Etten is a Realtor. He concedes that Meyer, a Conoco-Phillips employee, did a good job bringing home money to his old House district. "He's great at getting money for roads ... speed bumps, but he also has a straight, down-the-line record of voting with the oil industry," Van Etten said.

True, Van Etten said, Meyer voted for the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, a deal opposed by the major oil producers, but the outcome was not in doubt -- "a throw-away vote." Van Etten said he would have voted to award a gas line license to TransCanada Corp., too. "But whether or not a pipeline is built is largely out of our control," he said.

Meyer said he voted against the stiff new oil tax passed this year because he thought the final version was too onerous. He said he supported the initial version dropped on the table by Gov. Sarah Palin, but "as it went through the process (in) both the House and the Senate, we made changes to it that I felt are creating a disincentive for the oil companies to invest in Alaska," already an expensive place to explore and produce.

Van Etten says the oil tax includes incentives to keep the industry active in exploration in Alaska. It's good the Legislature toughened up the tax as the discussions went on, he said. "I think we should have been a little more rigorous in what we asked for up front."

If he's elected, Van Etten said, he'll try to direct some of the state's budget to an urban concern he thinks has been overlooked for years -- public transportation. "Here in Anchorage, People Mover ... gets no contribution from the state whatsoever," he said.

Van Etten said it's important for elected officials to "be in touch on a regular basis with a broad range of constituents," and that he's proud of the outreach he achieved during his four years on the Assembly. If elected to the Legislature, he said, he'd pay more attention to residents of his district than special interests who might contribute to his campaign.

"Doug has been implying that I don't listen to my constituents, that I listen to 'Big Oil,'" Meyer said. "I hope it's obvious that's not true."

He noted that Van Etten was fined $11,000 by the APOC in 2003 for failing to accurately and completely fill out financial disclosure statements required by law. APOC staffers said they didn't think he intended to conceal the missing information, but that there were multiple omissions over multiple years. At the time, Van Etten was apologetic, accepted blame and paid the fine.

District O spans House Districts 29 and 30, and extends roughly from Minnesota Drive on the west to Hillside Drive on the east, and from Raspberry and Tudor roads on the north to O'Malley Road on the south.

SENATE SEAT K

In District K, Bettye Davis is looking to extend a long political career. Her campaign finance reports show she has collected more than $78,000 to date. Harbour sits at about $50,000, according to records on file with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

Davis has spent almost all of the last 25 years either in the Legislature or as a member of the Anchorage School Board.

"I have a 'D' behind my name now," she said, "but when I came into politics it was in local government," a non-partisan job, especially in the 1980s.

Davis said she was happy the Senate was able to fashion a bipartisan majority coalition in the last two years. It's a lot easier to function that way than to try to fight for bills and programs as part of the minority, she said.

"We accomplished more in the last two years than we did in the other six years I was there," she said.

She has focused on education issues for much of her career, and says she plans to continue that drive; but now kids' health care is her first priority if District K voters return her to Juneau.

"The one thing I know we're capable of is having health care for all children," Davis said, "and 70 percent of the money comes from the federal government. All we have to do is come up with the other 30 percent."

Davis, 70, also is proud of her part in chairing the Women's Legislative Caucus, a group comprised of all 13 female House and Senate members.

Davis supported AGIA and licensing TransCanada Corp. as the entity to carry forward the state's gas pipeline hopes. "I was there for the contract when we gave the license to TransCanada and I'm pleased that I was, because that was something very much needed, so we can move forward and try to get the gas pipeline," she said. "It's years away, (but) that's the beginning steps."

And the new oil tax? "I supported that also," Davis said.

Dave Harbour is 66. He has served on the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, Anchorage's Heritage Land Bank, and was executive director of the Anchorage Parking Authority for several years.

He says he's spent a lot of his campaign in small, town-hall type meetings with 20 or so constituents at a time. Among the issues they've brought up are urban Anchorage's interface with wildlife -- bears, wolves, moose.

Harbour has a "common sense" solution: Spring and fall archery seasons for hunters.

"Why should we close down city parks when there's a bear sighting, or a wolf sighting?" he said. Instead, state Fish and Game officials should allow for safely conducted hunts "to thin out undesirable predator populations so that the people can use the parks and at the same time maintain the sustained yield of fish and game."

"The same thing applies to moose," Harbour continued. Archery seasons could cut down on the number of moose killed in traffic collisions, and "put meat on the table for people in the area."

Harbour says he would be an advocate for reinstating a law requiring the consent of parents before underage girls could get abortions. A similar law was overturned by the Alaska Supreme Court last year. A rewrite passed the House this year but failed in the Senate.

"There's no question but what the parents' responsibilities supersede any privacy issue that might accrue to a minor," he said.

Harbour said he thinks AGIA and ACES were mistakes. He said he's worried the higher oil tax approved this year, combined with a comparatively higher cost of doing business in Alaska's climate, "creates a huge barrier to (oil industry) investment."

He said he doubts the next Legislature will want to revisit oil taxes right away, but added that he's hopeful "there might be other ways of improving the incentives for investors."

Senate District K covers a large part of East Anchorage, extending from Lake Otis Parkway and Airport Heights Drive on the west to the Fort Richardson military reserve on the east. Tudor Road is the southern boundary, and the north end zags as far north as Penland Parkway in some places.