Former Gov. Bill Walker is attempting a political comeback. After four years on the sidelines, he still believes that Alaska won’t ever have financial stability – and a healthy Permanent Fund – unless someone has the political courage to make decisions that last beyond the next election.
Walker was in Sitka for a couple of days, campaigning before Tuesday’s primary election. He spoke with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey.
If you’re new to Alaska, Bill Walker is probably just a name on a campaign brochure, but if you were around a decade ago, you may remember him as a well-connected, business-minded independent candidate who outflanked a Republican incumbent, and won the governor’s office with the promise of bringing discipline to Alaska’s finances.
Bringing discipline to Alaska’s legislature was another matter, and although the Senate backed his restraint, the House of Representatives did not, and Walker in 2016 was compelled to use his veto power to halve a proposed dividend check of about $2,000 per Alaskan, to just over $1,000.
That, plus an income tax proposal, comprised the wedge that then-candidate Mike Dunleavy used to hold open the door to push Walker out in 2018. Although it cost him the office, Walker knew exactly what he was doing.
“I want the highest dividend we can possibly pay, but not at the expense of high taxes and not at the expense of weakened government services like education, public safety marine highway system,” Walker said. “We need to be healthy in those areas as well.”
Walker recalls that Dunleavy campaigned on a return to a statutory dividend formula that even hardened conservatives like Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman think is out-of-date, and on checks many thousands of dollars larger than the $2,000 Walker vetoed in 2016. Those checks never materialized, Walker notes, because the governor doesn’t have a checkbook – only the legislature does. And while the governor can downsize the budget, he can’t upsize it. Walker says the governor’s job is to keep things going.
“Governments need stability,” he said. “When oil goes to $26, you know, Conoco Phillips can lay down a drill rig. I can’t lay down education and won’t. I can’t lay down public safety and won’t. I can’t stop the main highway system and won’t. We need stability in our revenue source, not the roller coaster of the highs and lows, because you can’t run government services that way.”
With the Permanent Fund now at $80 billion, it’s within striking distance of the $100- to $120-billion target that Walker believes would fund state government “without a bunch of taxes.” The recent high price of oil is a boon, but Walker – an oil and gas attorney – is not confident it will last. “What goes up, comes down. Every governor spins the Oil Wheel.” He wants to bring back generational thinking into government, and says this separates him from Democrat Les Gara, the former state representative who’s also on the primary ballot.
Walker says his status as an independent is an advantage.
“You know, we had one independent president in the nation’s history, and that was President Washington,” Walker explained. “And what he said was ‘I don’t want to be the president of a party. I want to be president of a nation.’ And so I don’t want to be the governor of a party, I want to be the governor of a state. And so I think that’s one of the differences perhaps that we might have. And although I love how everybody is bipartisan, bipartisanship has an expiration date, and that’s the election. And boy, right after the election, that seems to change quite a bit. I don’t have any choice, I don’t have a party. You work with everybody.”
The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has made the right to an abortion a campaign issue for state candidates everywhere. Rep. Gara, the Democrat, describes himself as the only pro-choice candidate among the major contenders on the primary ballot. Walker believes his “Unity Ticket” with Lt. Governor candidate Heidi Drygas balances the question.
“Personally, I am pro-life and Heidi my running mate is pro-choice,” said Walker. “But that’s somewhat irrelevant from the standpoint that we both acknowledge that our constitution is clear: Under our Constitution, the right to privacy is a protected privacy right. And we will protect that, we’ll defend that. And so nothing will change under our watch in that regard. Alaska is fortunate to have the Constitution we have. We are aggressively anti-constitutional convention, we think ‘leave our constitution alone.’ If it needs to be amended at some point down the future for whatever reason, then that’s another process.”
Heidi Drygas was Walker’s Commissioner of Labor & Workforce Development during his previous four years as governor, a well-known figure in interior Alaska with connections – by marriage – to Southeast. Walker says recent polling suggests the Walker-Drygas ticket can win in a final round of ranked choice voting. In 2014, however, he and Democrat Byron Mallot merged their tickets after the primary to unseat Republican Sean Parnell.
Walker says that dropping Drygas, and forming a similar super-ticket with Les Gara is not in his plans.
“I don’t see that happening,” Walker said. “I’m very honored to be running with Heidi, and I haven’t given a single second thought about creating anything other than the ticket that we have.”
Bill Walker is one of ten candidates for Alaska governor on the ballot in this Tuesday’s primary election. The top four candidates on Tuesday will move on to the General Election in November.
On the back side of the ballot are the names of the three candidates hoping to take the late Don Young’s place in the US Congress – but just until the winner of the November general election is sworn in next January.
Walker on solutions like the Sitka Community Land Trust
“You know, a highlight for me (this trip) was the Sitka Land Trust project. I’m a carpenter. We moved to Valdez from Fairbanks in the early 60s, you know, as a house builder. They had no house builder there. Without housing, you can’t have progress with the economy. So what I saw there with the land trust, it was amazing what they’ve done. I mean, they have figured it out, they have found the secret recipe that I’ve been looking for, for about a year of traveling the state going to every community, Nome to Utqiagvik, to Petersburg – all across the state. And all have the same issue of affordable housing. I think they have figured it out here in Sitka. The model I think is absolutely right.”
Walker on making politically unpopular decisions
“From a voting standpoint, I think who has shown the experience? Who has shown that they will run to the fire and make tough decisions, and has the political courage to do that, but is focused on the next generation, and not the next election? And that’s sometimes the problem: when people focus on the next election, they tend to make very short-sighted commitments and statements rather than generational. We have all we have in Alaska, because of our forefathers and what they did, the courage that they had and what they did to build this great state. So we shouldn’t stop here, just because it’s not good for politics. I mean, they would have been over-the-moon excited to have an $80 billion Permanent Fund. We couldn’t spell from ‘permanent fund’ back in the day, much less have one. So here we are, we fight over what we don’t have, and we don’t celebrate all we do have. It was an honor for me to be governor. I never thought I’d run again. Once you’ve achieved that incredible honor, it was a tough shift. But that’s okay. You don’t control the hand you’re dealt, you play the hand you’re dealt. And I did the best I could. But I just worry that we’re not focused on that again. We’re almost there. I just look around the state and see all the things that aren’t fixed, aren’t even being discussed, aren’t being addressed because it’s politically unpopular to do that. And we’ve become a state I don’t recognize. We used to be all one. You know, when the marine highway system was purchased, it was with a revenue bond that was voted on by people all across the state. People in Kotzebue voted yes on a marine highway system that they probably weren’t going to ride. And that was a crown jewel of our state. One by one, you know, we’re cutting back further and further. So we need to turn that around. And we will.”
