Primary race to replace Stoltze heats up in Chugiak, Mat-Su

PALMER — A heated three-way primary race is underway to replace retiring state senator Bill Stoltze, a conservative Chugiak native who served more than a decade in the Alaska Legislature.

The Republican primary for the seat pits Rep. Shelley Hughes, a House member from Palmer, against well-connected young business owner Adam Crum and retired military police officer and tea party activist Steve St. Clair.

The district, Senate F, runs from Chugiak to Palmer and other parts of the Matanuska Valley. The Republican primary winner will face Democrat Samantha Laudert-Rodgers of Chugiak and independent candidate Tim Hale of Palmer in November.

Stoltze, who'd spent 20 years as a legislative aide before his 2002 House election and 2014 election to the Senate, stunned some fellow legislators when he announced last session he wouldn't seek a second Senate term due to health problems.

Crum and St. Clair are portraying Hughes as an incumbent though she's never held the Senate seat, ramping off the public's frustration with a perceived lack of action in Juneau on Alaska's $4 billion budget gap.

Hughes acknowledges that in "normal" times, her legislative experience would be a plus.

"This is a challenging time in Alaska. It's a historic time in Alaska. And Alaskans are understandably frustrated," she said.

But it's not true the Alaska Legislature didn't get its work done in the last session, Hughes said. Rather, it was an "active decision" to take no action on Walker's different proposals to close the fiscal gap.

Hughes, a longtime Palmer resident, was appointed by former Gov. Sean Parnell to fill the remainder of the late Carl Gatto's House term after Gatto died of complications related to cancer in 2012. She won election to the House seat that fall.

Hughes has described her first career as being a stay-at-home mom. She worked as an aide to Gatto and as government affairs director for the Alaska Primary Care Association.

She said she opted to run for Stoltze's open Senate seat after getting calls and text messages from people encouraging her to shift from the House.

"I feel like I've done a doggone good job and my heart's been in the right place," she said. "I don't have any self-interest except for the future of my grandchildren that everyone else has."

Her run got off to a rocky start — at least on paper. Crum's fundraising total was more than twice Hughes', $32,800 to her roughly $14,400, according to campaign disclosure reports filed by candidates last month. Hughes said her fundraising efforts were hurt by two special sessions convened by Gov. Bill Walker to address the fiscal crisis.

Crum's fundraising includes $5,100 of his own money but also contributions from oil field contractors and Alaska Native corporations; Hughes' includes $5,000 of her own money and contributions from a range of sources from Valley builders to a Southeast tour operator as well as Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Anchorage.

St. Clair had raised nearly $5,000, including $3,000 of his own money, according to his 30-day report. He said he came late to the race and is "forward funding" his campaign as donations come in. This week, he said, he just bought campaign signs.

Crum is the co-owner of Northern Industrial Training, a Palmer company his father founded. Crum and his brothers run it. He attended Northwestern University on a football scholarship and later earned a master's degree in occupational and environmental hygiene from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He's never held office but said he's learned the process in Juneau by testifying on training program funding.

His campaign signs say, "Businessman. Outdoorsman. Beardsmith."

Crum said he decided to run for Stoltze's Senate seat to bring a business perspective to the Legislature.

He said the "challenge behind it and the necessity" of serving in the Legislature drew him to run despite a capital budget that's dropped below $1 billion from $2.5 billion four years ago. He said he leaned on Stoltze for advice.

"I'm going down now to do this, eyes wide open, knowing full well this is not going to be fun. This is going to hurt," he said. "We're hemorrhaging through our savings. On either side, we haven't had much as far as leadership and pulling together and unifying as Alaskans."

St. Clair, a U.S. Army veteran and retired military police officer who lives in Wasilla, is former president of the Conservative Patriots Group. He holds a master's degree in business from Trident University, a for-profit school based in California that offers an online program.

St. Clair said he opted to run for Stoltze's seat to bring his budget knowledge to Juneau. He worked on the libertarian-leaning United for Liberty budget plan and prides himself on his fiscal acumen.

"I'm an outsider. I don't have the money that Adam has. I don't have the name recognition that Shelley has," St. Clair said. "I bring something different to the table."

The three differ on their proposals to close Alaska's $4 billion fiscal gap amid free-falling oil prices.

Hughes said she supports additional spending cuts before any other action is taken, specifically in the areas of school funding formula and Medicaid. Once cuts are enacted, she said, she could support a statewide sales tax that exempts groceries and medicines, in part to capitalize on Alaska's summer tourist rush.

Economists say sales taxes affect low-income people more than the wealthy, though exempting food and other necessities reduces the imbalance. Income taxes can be graduated like federal taxes to take a higher percentage of income as a person's income rises.

Crum said he favors a predictable tax climate to encourage business investment. He said he doesn't favor any of Walker's revenue-generating proposals. When it comes to spending, Crum said, the state needs to "provide for the most vulnerable populations": children and seniors.

"Then from there, work down. What can we adjust?" he said.

St. Clair favors the United for Liberty budget proposal. It calls for $3.8 billion in unrestricted general fund spending, as opposed to the more than $5 billion in Walker's budget. The United for Liberty plan also calls for a yearly draw from the Permanent Fund earnings reserve. He doesn't think current spending cuts go far enough and says that a new criminal justice reform law adds costs instead of cutting them.

St. Clair doesn't favor revenue generators until "the budget is cut to something we can afford," he said, referencing the $3.8 billion United for Liberty proposal. "It seems Alaskans are giving and being asked to give even more and all the state's doing is taking."