On Nov. 2, 2022, near the eve of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s reelection, she wrote an opinion piece urging the public to “vote for Alaska’s future.” She touted President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill and proclaimed that we would get $3 billion for roads, bridges, ports, airports, broadband and clean water here in Alaska. On Jan. 25 of this year, she again wrote an opinion piece and again praised the Biden Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, stating that Biden’s dollars “are helping us build, expand and modernize everything from roads, bridges, ports and airports to our water, energy, broadband and ferry systems. In doing so, they’re creating jobs, boosting our economy and transforming lives.” On March 13, Sen. Murkowski issued a news release acknowledging that she, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Mary Peltola welcomed the Biden administration’s decision to reapprove the ConocoPhilllips’ Willow Project. Biden bucked his own party by doing that, and Sen. Murkowski joyously announced that we are “on the cusp of creating thousands of new jobs,” and she thanked the Biden “administration for listening to Alaskans… and having the courage to make the right decision on Willow.”
Back in Washington, D.C., The Hill, a U.S. political website, reported on July 20 that, in an interview with PBS’s Margaret Hoover, Murkowski said that if the 2024 election is “a match-up between Biden and Trump, I know exactly where I’d go. … I am one who doesn’t like to use my vote for the lesser of two evils.” She referred to voting for the new third-party political group No Labels, which has not chosen a candidate for their ticket and for which it has been speculated this ticket may help reelect Donald Trump by peeling votes from the Biden ticket.
After the indictment of Trump, the Anchorage Daily News reported on Aug. 3 that Murkowski said the former president “played a key role in instigating” the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and that her vote to convict the former president for inciting an insurrection was “based on clear evidence that (Trump) attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it.”
A choice between Biden and Trump is not a choice between the lesser of two evils. It would be a choice between democracy and autocracy. Murkowski is trying to play both ends and the middle. This is the same sort of careful political calculation that was responsible for putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. At this time in history, we do not need hypocrisy. We need to keep the calm, competent and stable president who we have in office now.
I think Murkowski might do well to consider whether she herself is the lesser of two evils.
— Holly R. Hill
Anchorage
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