3 in race for District 15 seat

MAT-SU — Ethics in state government will play a large role in the campaigns for a pair of contenders seeking to unseat state Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Wasilla.

The lone Democratic contender for the seat, Lew Dischner III, is the son of the late Lew Dischner Jr., a Democrat and former commissioner of labor who was convicted of 20 counts of extortion, mail and wire fraud and racketeering in 1989 and sentenced to seven years in federal prison.

Dischner said he has learned from his father’s mistakes, but also isn’t running in any way to try and redeem his father.

“I’m going to learn from his mistakes and do the best I can,” he said. “He’s his own guy and did his own things.”

The state’s Division of Elections reports the race for House District 15, which represents the Mat-Su Borough from Wasilla north, also has two Republican hopefuls, including the incumbent.

Neuman’s lone opponent in the Republican primary is April Moore. When asked how ethics will play into her campaign, Moore said that while nobody’s fingering Neuman as being on the FBI’s watch list, he still took campaign money from the same VECO executives from whom former Wasilla representative Vic Kohring was convicted of taking bribes.

“I can’t help but think that that had some influence on his voting,” Moore said.

This is Moore’s second run against Neuman. Asked if her previous campaign was at all financed by VECO, she laughed. “Nobody’s willing to give anything to a person who’s running and hasn’t won yet.”

Neuman, a two-term representative, defended the contributions.

“The campaign contributions I got were all perfectly legal and I have never been contacted by the FBI or talked to by the FBI or anything like that,” he said.

As to his voting record, he pointed out he fought against the oil tax plan VECO favored in negotiations leading up to the investigations, which so far have resulted in the convictions of three former state lawmakers.

“I fought adamantly against that,” Neuman said. “I wanted higher taxes all the time than what VECO was trying to get.”

Moore said she is running because she believes she will do a better job and because she doesn’t like how Neuman has voted on local issues. She said Neuman has not been supportive enough of farmers. He didn’t fight hard enough to secure funding for a failed potato seed program at Point MacKenzie and for the now-defunct Matanuska Maid Dairy, she said.

“I can categorically say I do more with farm issues than any other legislator here,” Neuman said.

State money to help the potato program was cut by other lawmakers, leaving him with little recourse. As to the dairy, Neuman said he fought hard while on the state’s agriculture task force.

“Call the governor’s office and ask them how much I pounded on them,” Neuman said.

Both Neuman and Moore brought up the natural gas pipeline, currently the focus of a special legislative session.

“I feel adamant that we need to get gas passed down to Southcentral as quickly as possible,” Moore said. “I feel that our energy needs are quickly becoming a vital issue in our area.”

Neuman also advocated keeping some of the gas in state, saying he wants to see more programs creating value-added petrochemical products, like plastics manufactured in the state.

“Alaska could be a leading exporter in the nation, in the world,” Neuman said.

Dischner said he hasn’t quite gotten a handle on the complex gas line issue, but likes what he sees coming from Gov. Sarah Palin.

“She has great ideas and I like the opportunity to discuss [the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act],” he said, adding the gas line is “something I should put some more time into researching before I form an opinion.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.