The race to replace Anchorage Republican Rep. Mike Hawker is heating up, with Anchorage Assembly member Jennifer Johnston filing on Wednesday to run for the seat.
"I had a number of people encouraging me to run and I'm ready to go down with that energy," said Johnston, 61, who's barred by term limits from seeking re-election when her third three-year Assembly term expires in April. "I had to think long and hard, because going to Juneau is a lot different than being in local office where you can go and sleep in your own bed every day."
Hawker, who was elected to his South Anchorage seat in 2002, announced last month that he would not seek re-election, citing a fight with cancer and a desire to become a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. He has also faced criticism over his negotiation of an expensive, no-bid lease extension for the Legislature's Anchorage office space.
Johnston, one of the Assembly's more conservative members, will run in the Republican primary against Ross Bieling, an entrepreneur who owns two different medical businesses. She said her candidacy is "not about him."
"It's what folks said that I could bring to the table," she said.
The winner of the Republican primary will face a Democratic opponent. Shirley Cote, the former director of the state's alcohol board, has filed to run in the Democratic primary.
Johnston said her plan to fix the state's $3.5 billion budget deficit is to do "strategic cutting," though she refused to identify specific areas where she thought savings could be found.
"I have some in my mind but I think it's better that I don't go down there today," she said, adding that she preferred to "fully scope" out her ideas before proposing them.
Asked about Gov. Bill Walker's proposal to restructure the Permanent Fund to help pay for government, which would result in smaller dividend payments for Alaskans, Johnston said the idea "has to be part of the discussion."
This year, Alaska plans to spend $5.2 billion while bringing in just $1.6 billion in revenue, and Walker and fiscal experts say that new forms of state revenue -- like from the Permanent Fund -- are needed to balance the budget.
Asked about Johnston's candidacy, Bieling said he'd been "going through her background on the Assembly." Bieling described himself as a fiscal conservative, adding that it's clear Johnston "supports a different agenda and her record speaks to that."
He wouldn't elaborate beyond saying that Johnston had worked on revisions to the city's land use laws, and supported spending state money on tennis courts.
"Those are the kind of things she's going to have to stand by and explain," he said.