By Greg Knight, News of the North
News of the North had the chance to sit down this week with Alaska’s Lt. Governor, Nancy Dahlstrom.
In the wide ranging interview we touched on topics from the legislative session, to elections, to what it’s like to work with Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
GK: What do you feel are some of the top issues that your office wants to address during this session, and going forward for the rest of your time in office?
ND: Some very important issues for the whole entire state are being discussed in the legislature right now. Budgetary issues, and then, of course, the education bills that have been moving forward. So, those are going to continue to be very important. Personally, I’m very interested in the election bills that have been introduced. There’s been five of them. It looks like a couple of them are moving forward, one in the House and one in the Senate. And bills change. So, it’ll be interesting to see what it evolves to when we’re all at the finish line, and I’m hopeful that something will get passed this year so we can implement it next year, so it’ll be in place for the next big election.
GK: Your office handles elections, and there’s a move afoot to repeal ranked-choice voting in the state. What are your thoughts?
ND: There’s another set of folks who want to give it another run to repeal ranked choice voting. As I’m sure you know, I just approved their initiative because they followed all the steps, and Department of Law did all the double checks and every step was followed, so I approved that. Just yesterday they received their booklets, so they’re going to be able to start going around statewide and getting signatures and making their case.
As lieutenant governor, I’m required by law to remain neutral, and that is why you’ve never heard me anywhere speaking about ‘I love this,’ or ‘I don’t love this,’ or many other topics for that matter, because my job is to implement the law when it comes to Division of Elections. Whatever the legislature gives us, that’s what we’re going to do, and we try to make it as seamless as possible for the public.
GK: You’re in your second year, and going into your third, as lieutenant governor. What are some of your takeaways from that time in office?
ND: I just love the state of Alaska, and I love serving, and I hope that doesn’t sound cheesy; The best thing about this job is all the people that I get to work with and interact with across our great state. I’ve met so many people. They have very different opinions, but I always appreciate it when people are willing to share their opinions with me, and we learn by listening in everything. And I always say I make my decisions based on the facts that I have. So, that’s why it’s important to always listen and learn, because sometimes we get new facts.
GK: What is it like working with Gov. Mike Dunleavy?
ND: The governor is great in that he always wants to find ways to get to ‘yes.’ You know, how can we get to yes? How can we make this work for Alaskans? How can we improve quality of life for Alaskans? What’s the best thing for Alaskans?
I know from watching him work that he is not in this position because of any sort of personal gain. It’s because he loves Alaska.
His story is a little bit similar to mine, in that we came to Alaska at a pretty young age. He came to Alaska to work, and said, ‘I love it here’ because of the people, and I’m staying here forever. I came to Alaska on a two week vacation, which extended to the summer, which then extended to ‘I’m going to stay here and live.’ And I’ve been here for well over 40 years. I’m here because of the people and the great love of the state of Alaska, but he he loves serving and always wants to find a way to get to yes, for whatever the situation is, and he cares very much about the welfare and the well being of Alaskans.
