Ewing joins state House race

WASILLA — Though he’s been making noise about wanting to enter the race since at least July, Mark Ewing made it official this past week, filing to run for the state House of Representatives.

“Basically, my goal besides supporting the new District 9 and making sure we get the funding for the bonds that the people approved is it’s going to be exciting to get an all-Alaska gas line,” Ewing said.

Ewing is a former Mat-Su Borough assemblyman who decided not to run for a second term in order to try for the seat representing part of Wasilla and the surrounding area in House District 9.

Before his stint on the assembly, Ewing also served on the borough’s planning commission, and before that he was a Wasilla City Councilman. He’s a worked at Matanuska Telephone Association for 17 years and did an equal stretch working on the North Slope. He’s a Little League coach and umpire and a former student government president at Mat-Su College.

To say the seat has no incumbent is kind of misleading, given that all but one Alaskan in the Legislature has to run for re-election next year due to redrawn district lines following the 2010 U.S. Census. But District 9 is a brand new seat for the Valley, which gained enough population to get another district when the lines were re-drawn.

Ewing already has an opponent, though. School board member Lynn Gattis has filed to run for the seat. Noting Gattis’ recent standing as assistant secretary of the state Republican Party, Ewing said he thinks he’ll have an uphill battle ahead of him.

“I think the voters need to make the call. Do you want somebody who’s picked by the Republican Party out of Anchorage or do you want someone who’s picked by the voters of the Valley?” he said.

State Republicans haven’t officially picked anyone, and party chair Randy Ruedrich said the party generally stays out of primary elections. This year is an exception to that rule in that Alan Dick in the Interior and Lance Pruitt in East Anchorage have already won Republican Party endorsements.

“They were endorsed early, pre-primary, for one reason and one reason only — they have a Democrat incumbent in their House districts,” Ruedrich said.

Both are also serving legislators but wound up, when the lines were redrawn, sharing a district with a serving Democrat.

He added that Gattis resigned her seat as assistant secretary because of party rules forbidding officers from running for partisan office.

At any rate, Ewing said thinks he has a very good chance at winning, but even if he didn’t the race will be worth the effort.

“At least I’ll get my message out,” he said.

Ewing said he thinks resource development is the biggest issue he wants to tackle as a state lawmaker. He said he has a plan that he won’t release until closer to Election Day to get a gas pipeline built.

“I look on TV and they show you if it’s red you’ve got to turn your thermostat down,” Ewing said, referencing the campaign to conserve gas in the Railbelt. “We’re sitting on billions of cubic feet of natural gas and we should be the last state in the union that has a shortage on natural gas.”

He said the trans-Alaska pipeline system is aging and isn’t being maintained properly.

As for local priorities, Ewing said he thinks voters in the Valley spoke pretty loudly at the last election that they see roads and schools as priorities. Dueling rafts of bond propositions passed for upgrades and new facilities in both those arenas.

“You use that as the litmus test of what’s on their priority list, and it’s schools and roads right now,” Ewing said. “And that’s what government’s for. Government’s not here to give a bunch of handouts. We’ve got to maintain our roads and our schools and make sure our kids get a quality education.”

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