Primary preview: Three-way battle for House District 9

MAT-SU — With the primary election coming up on Aug. 21, there are three contested races to determine who will represent the party in the general election later this fall. Each candidate was interviewed separately and asked, among others, these questions:

What qualifies you to run for this position? What are your thoughts on SB91, the Permanent Fund Dividend, and the budget? Each candidate was asked if they would join a caucus if elected, and each candidate was asked about running against their particular opponent.

House District 9 features the area’s only three-way battle, which includes Delta’s Pam Goode, former District 9 Rep. Jim Colver, of Palmer, and incumbent George Rauscher of Sutton.

Pam Goode

Goode has run for office twice before, in 2014 and 2016. Goode was raised in a military family and circumnavigated the globe with her husband on a boat for more than a decade before settling in Delta. Goode is president of the Deltana Community Council, and has served on the Deltana Community Corporation for six years. Goode ran as the Alaska Constitution Party’s nominee for the seat in 2014.

“I would like to see there be such a profound statement of getting rid of incumbents, that it will make those who do not have opponents running against them start paying attention to the people. The people are mad. If they’re an incumbent, look at their voting records! Look what they have done. Has the state gotten better or worse? Have they contributed to financial disarray with unsustainable budgets or a bonding bill or have they not? If you're not willing to put your name on their voting record, then you should probably not vote for them,” Goode said. “I don’t see that through their votes, I would not have done that. I’m extremely principled. I would have never voted on things my opponents had, like two unsustainable budgets.”

Goode is known for calling in to give testimony in committee. Goode monitors the activities within Juneau closely from Delta. Goode is very involved in the Delta community as a local lawmaker. Goode has also unsuccessfully run for the School Board.

“I’m a very highly-principled person. My oath of office is extremely important to me,” Goode said.

Goode was one of many who wanted to return to the original formula of PFD distribution.

“The bottom line is that money belongs to them. The original calculation is still in law. It’s still on the books, so is the inflation proofing. I am not an advocate for automatically taking money and giving it to the government for general fund spending above a targeted number. Their behavior is unsustainable,” Goode said.

Goode believes that the money taken out of the PFD would be $ 3 Billion taken out of the hands of Alaskans.

“I think the people are looking for a state that shines,” Goode said. “Keeping the people as free as possible from an overreaching government is paramount. If they would have lived within their means a long time ago, this wouldn’t be an issue. A high level of liberty has to be done with economic and financial freedoms.”

Jim Colver

Colver served as an assemblyman from 2009-2015 and touts the ‘Z-Tag’ permanent registration as the most popular piece of legislation he has ever worked on. He was appointed to the District 9 seat in the House in 2015, but lost his bid for re-election to Rauscher. Colver’s father served as the Attorney General in the infancy of Alaska’s Statehood, and Colver himself works as a surveyor.

“Two other sub issues that are equally as important, that’s fixing our dangerous roads. With the rapid growth and of course fisheries, salmon which is very important too,” Colver said.

Colver is a lifelong Alaskan whose community service began as a Road Service Supervisor and also worked on the School Board.

“I know that when it comes to DOT projects, I’m up on all the different funding sources available. What projects fit into what funding source, repaving, safety improvement funding, also being able to work with the project managers and the officials in the DOT to get the projects moving and discussing what tasks need to happen,” Colver said.

Colver touts his experience in how what he calls ‘sweetheart deals’ in Juneau can affect taxpayers.

“We’ve got to get Alaska moving again, we have the highest unemployment in the nation, rated last to do business in the country, and no longer the place of opportunity. We need to create opportunity for our future generation, so our kids and grandkids have good paying jobs. Crime will be much less of an issue if we get people put to work,” Colver said.

Colver would like to see a streamlined budget process void of special interest involvement.

“If we have more development, revenue, economic activity, more money coming into state coffers, then we get more troopers. There’s very much a ripple effect in putting Alaskans back to work,” he said.

Colver was also instrumental behind the scenes in getting the Government Peak Recreation Area started.

“I was a part of the House Republican majority. I think you need to be. Having been a member of the House Republican majority and been a committee chair, if you want any influence for your constituents and being able to achieve goals, you need to be in the majority. Whereas we may not all like the rules where you have to vote for the budget, I think it’s in the best interest of the constituency,” he said.

George Rauscher

Rauscher served on the Sutton Community Council for eight years prior to being elected to the House in 2017.

“We’ve got to take a bite out of crime,” Rauscher said. “Not only that end of it, but the judicial system, how we carry that out that process, I believe is completely flawed. There’s so many aspects to this whole situation. We’re not going to hang it on troopers. I’ve always been a proponent of repealing SB91 and I’m probably going to still wave that flag unless we can start to work on legislation that actually will correct what’s wrong. I don’t believe any one piece of legislation that we’ve voted for, and we’ve voted for a lot of them. I don’t believe any one piece of them fix enough. I think we could do it in 90 days and I’m looking forward to that and if the conservatives get back into the majority, I think that will be important.”

Rauscher is a supporter of returning the money from PFD’s used by the state government.

“Working across the aisle is an accomplishment. I don’t know whether you think that’s an accomplishment or not, and not giving up a vote to do it because if you look at my record, I’m pretty hard conservative. So it’s because I didn’t have to give up a vote to accomplish what I accomplished when I was there. I think it’s all about building relationships, it’s all about being able to work with people. It’s got to do with personality. It’s got to do with understanding other personalities. It’s about the idea that you’re going to work hard,” he said.

Though the ‘Big 3’ issues of crime, the PFD, and the budget were discussed with each candidate, Rauscher added Resource Development to his list. Pro Life issues are very important to Rep. Rauscher.

“Interacting, meeting and talking to people, it may be a challenge for others, but if you’re a good representative you’re there doing it,” Rauscher said.