Kelly Tshibaka: 0:08
Welcome to Stand where we help make courage contagious. I’m Kelly Tshibaka, the chair of the Trump campaign in Alaska and former candidate for US Senate, and I’m joined today by my amazing co-host and daughter, Denali Tshibaka. Welcome to the show, Denali. Thank you.
Kelly Tshibaka: 0:20
Kelly, we’re so happy that you’re here. We’ve got an amazing lineup for you today, but we’re going to start off by saying if you’d like to be one of our standouts, please join us at standshoworg. You can find all of our previous episodes, including one of our top shows with Bill O’Reilly, and see what our stand show is all about. You can also follow us on social media. But let’s not wait on that, let’s get on with the show. We’ve got amazing elections just around the corner and we want to highlight two of our favorite candidates in Alaska. We’re going to start off with Jared Goecker, who is looking to change the balance of power in the Senate in Juneau. Jared, let’s open up with your election and welcome to the show.
Jared Goecker: 1:00
Hey Kelly, hey Denali, Thanks guys so much for having me. Yeah, we’ve got a really exciting race going on here in Chugiak Eagle River. We’re trying to take the state Senate back right. We’ve got an incumbent who ran as a Republican, ran as a conservative and yet has governed completely in the opposite direction. But then you vote with Forrest Dunbar 90% of the time. That’s a problem for a lot of people, and when you put the Democrats in control of the state Senate, that’s another problem for a lot of people. So we’re trying to take the seat back and flip the balance of power in the state Senate so we can get some actual good conservative, common sense things done.
Kelly Tshibaka: 1:38
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. What has been one of the biggest challenges you have faced in this campaign, where Chugiak and Eagle River is one of our most conservative, most Republican strongholds in the state? What’s been one of the big challenges for you?
Jared Goecker: 1:51
Yeah, look, one of the biggest things right is the Merricks are very powerful people. They bring a tremendous amount of name ID. They bring a tremendous amount of money and influence to the table. That’s hard to compete with, right. And so when you’ve got just a normal stand-up, you know, citizen like myself trying to make a difference, it’s a lot to overcome, it’s a lot to battle, for sure, but we’ve put in the work right. And so we launched this campaign in January. We almost immediately started door knocking and I don’t know if anyone’s been outside in Alaska in February, it’s very cold. We started door knocking right away and you know we crossed over 16,000 doors yesterday.

Kelly Tshibaka: 2:32
Wow.
Jared Goecker: 2:32
We’ve done a lot for this campaign because we knew that if we’re going to get outspent, right, we’re probably going to get outraised. We are being outraised but we’re not going to be outworked, and that was our biggest thing is we need to get out there and connect with people, talk with people, hear from them, hear the stories that are most impactful, you know and hear all that stuff, and so that’s what we’ve been doing and that’s been one of the, you know, the biggest challenges, but also the biggest blessing we’ve had is that we’ve run as an underdog the entire time, because we are, and that’s and I think that’s really propelled us to be in a really good spot to actually flip the seat.
Kelly Tshibaka: 3:07
Yeah. So, jared, tell us I know that Denali and I have talked many times that money isn’t the only way to win a race, and I’ve heard through the state that you don’t need any more money. I’d like to know the real truth about that.
Jared Goecker: 3:20
I can always use more money. Look, we’re in the final two and a half weeks here and, yes, we need as much money as we can, honestly, truly, because Kelly’s outraced us a lot. She’s got a tremendous amount of money coming in from special interest groups, the 907 initiative, putting Alaska’s first all of the big labor groups, because her husband happens to be one of the big union bosses here in the state. So they’re outspending me, outraising, raising me probably four to one. At this point, any money we can get is going to be incredibly helpful to pushing, you know, those last messages out, responding to the, you know, the October surprises and whatever else they might, you know, throw our way. So anything that we can raise at this point is going to be incredibly helpful in helping us finish the strong and get over the finish line and take the seat back.
Kelly Tshibaka: 4:06
That’s great, and where can people donate to you at?
Jared Goecker: 4:10
Yeah, so they can go to jaredforalaskacom. The link is very prominently displayed on the website on where to go to donate and, yeah, anything helps at this point.
Kelly Tshibaka: 4:20
Awesome.
Denali Tshibaka: 4:21
So, jared, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how your campaign contrasts with Kelly? So she declares to be a Republican, a conservative. You said she votes with Forrest Dunbar 90% of the time. Can you tell us a couple of ways that you two differ as candidates?
Jared Goecker: 4:37
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Here’s the thing Prior to getting into this race, I was what Kelly and her allies would call a nobody. In fact, they have called me that. I was just a private citizen living my life, going to work, providing for my family, raising my newborn and, frankly, very happy with life right. However, our story took a bit of a drastic turn. My brother was know, my brother was was was murdered at the end of last year, and it made us realize we had to do something different.
Jared Goecker: 5:10
And because the policies that that Kelly and the people that she’s put in power, the policies that they pursue are, are creating this, is creating this cycle of violence here in the state, and so that’s one of the the biggest things is look, when you say you’re a conservative, but then you’re going to turn around, you’re going to vote with Forrest Dunbar 90, that’s a problem. Um, when you? And so one of the thing big things I’m running on is criminal justice reform, like actually fixing the problem right, because we are releasing dozens of violent. Just last year in Anchorage alone, they released up to 35 people indicted for murder or homicide here in Anchorage with bail as low as zero dollars. That is categorically insane and the person in charge of the judiciary committee in the senate, matt Clayman, one of the original cheerleaders for the soft on crime, catch on, catch and release SB 91 bill from about a decade ago. So you can’t say you’re this while you go and you do that, right, if you are. What you do and what she’s been doing is very destructive for the state. It’s completely out of line with the values of this community, and so that’s what we’ve been highlighting.
Jared Goecker: 6:21
And hey look, if you want somebody that’s going to actually do the things they say they’re going to do, who actually believes the things that they say, then I’m your guy. And that’s the contrast we’ve been making. And obviously it’s been resonating with people. Right, because we had the primary. We dang near tied in the primary. She had me by a little bit, but that was with two other awesome conservative candidates in the race that got about 20% of the vote combined. Now what happened after the primary? Those two candidates withdrew and endorsed me. So it’s looking really good, but we just have to get it over the finish line.
Denali Tshibaka: 6:54
Right, you know. I just want to point out something really interesting you said earlier, Jared, is that first, at the beginning of the interview, you mentioned that the Merricks are powerful, not just Kelly and I think that’s really important to highlight is the fact that Joey Merrick is actually a massive player with labor unions and, even though the campaign has been accusing you of being a nobody, you’re a regular Alaskan. You represent the Alaskan people, what they believe in, their values, what they fight for, what they want. But the Merricks are a labor union family that have bought their way into the Senate and have done catastrophic things for the Valley since then. So I just wanted to point that out for our viewers because if you didn’t know, now you know.
Jared Goecker: 7:36
Yeah, and to that point real quick. You know we had a debate last week and in our closing statements I was talking about hey, here’s the challenges people are having. It’s scary right now. Cost of everything is higher, education system is struggling, crime is soaring and it feels like we’re in a bit of a decline as a state. It feels like we’re sliding, and that is the exact same thing that thousands of people all across this district have told me, and Kelly’s closing statement was actually things are going pretty good here.
Jared Goecker: 8:04
I don’t know what the problem is. Alaska’s doing really well and I was like could you be any more out of touch with regular Alaskans? Because I’m sure too. You at the top, your house is literally on top of the mountain. You live in such an incredibly privileged life. You just couldn’t possibly understand what the average Alaskan is going through and you’ve not put in any work to understand. You’re not out there talking to people like I am.
Kelly Tshibaka: 8:30
Well, speaking of privilege, many people don’t remember that Kelly Merrick was one of those scandalous few who were with Zack Fields and other Democrats at the Pizza Bong Togo party, pongate yeah Pong that absolutely destroyed rooms in the Capitol during the COVID lockdown. When everybody was supposed to sequester and stay apart and separate and wear masks and not fraternize, they decided that the rules didn’t apply to them. And this is when people were getting mass cases of COVID and staff were having to shut down and they were having to shut down committee meetings and the work. In Juneau these Democrats all got together and threw a beer pizza party bash and trashed our Capitol building and it was caught on camera. And then the Democrats, with American leadership, decided never to release those public, those tapes to the public in transparency. And that’s what it means to live that elite privileged life where you’re not held accountable and you don’t live in transparency to your constituents, but you are held to a different standard where all of the other senators and representatives and staff all had to be separated and all had to wear masks. But somehow Merrick and the Democrats like Zack Fields and liberal bloggers who were all in the room, got to party and trash the liberal bloggers who were all in the room got to party and trash the place as if they were all in some kind of a frat party from some nasty movie, and the rules just don’t apply to her.
Kelly Tshibaka: 9:57
So I think that that’s interesting. I also want to pick up on what you said. You are what your record says you are, and when you say that Matt Klayman is in charge of the Judiciary Committee, that would not have happened had Kelly Merrick not switched sides and given a majority control to the Democrats in the Senate and we all have to remember that there are technically more Republicans in the Senate in Juneau than there are Democrats but because she threw her weight over to the Democrats to create this Democrat led and dominated caucus. That’s why we have these soft on crime policies that we have Jared. We’ll give you the last minute to share your thought on that before we go to a break.
Jared Goecker: 10:36
Yeah, look, that’s, that’s exactly right. You know, and Kelly likes to say, well, if you want to get something done, you have to be in the majority, and she even said that in the debate last week and I remember I said, senator, you were that’s correct of the Senate, that is your record, right. And so that is a huge problem, not just for me as a constituent, but as for the rest of the community. But statewide the people expect conservative, right-of-center governance, and Kelly Merrick decided to completely throw that away and do her own thing and chart her own course. All for power, right. So she could get a really nice committee assignment and make sure that money’s flowing to her crony friends. It’s a problem, it’s a real problem.
Kelly Tshibaka: 11:27
Right To her friends, but not to her district. I think that that’s the point, because her votes don’t align with her constituents, and either you’re representing your people or you’re not. And that’s what elections are about. They’re performance reviews for our elected officials. I want to come back and I want to compare, after this break. I want to compare the various union experiences that you and Kelly Merrick share, and I want to talk about your union experience, one that you and I share and share with the voters what you’ve done, because I think it’s pretty amazing what you’ve done for workers in Alaska. You’re on stand with Kelly, denali Tshibaka and Jared Goecker.
Speaker 4: 12:01
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Kelly Tshibaka: 12:43
You’re back on Stand with Kelly and Denali Tshibaka and we are talking to Jared Goecker, who is running for state Senate in Alaska. He is running against heavily union-backed Kelly Merrick, who claims to be Republican but has voted over 90% of the time with one of the top Democrat liberal leftists in the state our own version of the squad, forrest Dunbar. And so, jared, I want to start out with sharing a little bit about our personal story with the viewers who may not know. Jared and I worked together for the governor, and one of the very first incidents that we found ourselves in together we were kind of in the trenches together on this was the first strike the state of Alaska has seen in 40 years over 40 years and I think that this is relevant because you’re going up against people who claim that they represent workers in Alaska, but what I think I saw when we were negotiating with unions in the state is that so many of the unions that we face actually represent union bosses and they don’t actually represent the needs of the worker.
Kelly Tshibaka: 13:40
So for a little bit of context and then I’ll let you tell your side of the story on this we were negotiating with the union who served on the Alaska Marine Highway System, and I don’t think that the workers ever knew this part of the story, but the negotiator they sent up from California was advocating for a pay raise so high for these workers that what it would have really meant is the workers would have had to have been shut down from work for such a significant part of the year that their take-home pay would have been significantly lower than the pay raise that we were offering them.
Kelly Tshibaka: 14:10
So we were actually trying to offer them higher pay as well as keep our coastal communities open to having access year-round, and the union bosses were arguing for lower pay and shutting down the coastal communities. And suffice it to say that wasn’t going to fly with you and me, and we were willing to go to a strike over it and we won. And it meant a lot of sleepless nights, and not only did we win and get a pay raise for our workers, but we also fought to make sure that the union had to pay the state back for the strike. I want you to talk about how much passion and care you have for workers and making sure that they get what they deserve when it comes to workers’ rights.
Jared Goecker: 14:48
Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. Look, anytime we’re talking labor contracts, there’s two interests at play. On the other side there’s the actual workers’ interest and then there’s the union bosses, and there’s an important distinction to be had here, because, by and large, the people who comprise the workforce, they’re good, god-fearing, regular people, many of whom, you know, republicans. They just want to provide a good living for their family, and that’s commendable. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I encourage that, and that was one of the biggest things that I fought, that you and I fought to protect in all of the labor contracts. We needed fiscal responsibility and we needed to also protect actual workers’ rights.
Jared Goecker: 15:42
The union bosses who were frankly at odds with the actual values and the actual interest of the membership. And, yeah, that was one of the biggest battles that we had and the example with the ferry strike is a really great example of that, because had we given the union bosses what they wanted, a whole bunch of workers would have been laid off, the communities would have been harmed and they didn’t care.
Jared Goecker: 15:59
They had this’s right and they had this lady. She came up from California, she cut her teeth on the Crowley you know labor disputes in the 90s and so a very hardline, very leftist person. And when we said, hey, how in the world do you think we’re supposed to afford this, like, where’s this money coming from? And their response was well, you take it from that $80 billion slush fund the state has. Now they’re talking about the PFD and it’s like, well, hey, wait a second, that’s not my money, that’s not your money. We’re not negotiating with the people’s money like that. And so, yeah, so it’s a real challenge to balance those needs and I’m proud of the work that we did do, because I think we did put the the workers for first, because the contract we got resulted in continued service throughout southeast Alaska and keeping as many employees as possible paid and on the ships and and running and continuing to be able to provide for their families.
Jared Goecker: 16:57
And it’s a delicate balancing act. I get it. But you know another example here locally, take, take a PDA, and it’s a delicate balancing act, I get it. But you know another example here locally, take APDEA. Right, it’s the actual, and they represent the law enforcement, the cops here in Anchorage and they have a tremendous responsibility, right, because our law enforcement does a tremendous job. They put their lives on the line every single day to protect this community. And then they’ve got the union that’s going around and supporting left-wing candidates and causes. That doesn’t actually support the membership and the mission of the membership. Right, I believe they supported La France for mayor and now there’s been a spate of officer-involved shootings here in Anchorage.
Kelly Tshibaka: 17:38
She doesn’t even apologize for the deaths. It’s horrific.
Jared Goecker: 17:42
It’s terrible, yeah, and she’s making it harder for law enforcement to do their job. That’s right, and so it’s just. There’s always that balancing act of interest there and we’ve got to do a better job of actually representing the members, and I think that comes back with being able to push back on the Union of Boston and say, no, this is not what is in the membership’s best interest this is not what’s in the people’s best interest, because, at the end of the day, when you’re negotiating public contracts, that’s one of the main considerations that has to be taken into account as well.
Kelly Tshibaka: 18:10
One of the reasons I wanted to share this story is because oftentimes we’ll have a candidate with ideas against a candidate with experience and I think it’s really important that people understand you’ve got significant experience in Juneau and it’s it’s not easy to walk in as a new person and then have your eyes open to all of the political forces in Juneau that tug at you and pressure you and force you into compromises.
Kelly Tshibaka: 18:34
And a lot of people would say well, you know, jared, how do we know you’re not going to turn out just like Kelly? And I think it’s important that people know you’ve already been tested and through the heat and fire of the pressures of Juneau and you didn’t cave. And when people weren’t looking and you weren’t running for an office and you, you weren’t accountable to the people, you were just accountable to principle, you stood for what you believed and you didn’t cave and you won. And I know a lot of people don’t know that story because it’s a hard story to put on a palm card. So I wanted to make sure to share it because we have record versus record here, not ideas and rhetoric versus record.
Jared Goecker: 19:09
Right, no, that’s exactly right. And look, and I appreciate that. And we went to Juneau to fight the swamp. Kelly went to Juneau to be the swamp. Yeah, that’s right.
Denali Tshibaka: 19:17
That’s a good way to put it Jared with our last couple minutes here, could you dive into your platform a little bit more? Tell us about what kinds of things you’d want to accomplish during your first term for your district.
Jared Goecker: 19:28
Yeah, absolutely. Look, I mentioned bail and pretrial a little bit earlier. That has to be first and foremost when we’re talking about meaningful criminal justice reform. If we don’t deal with bail and pretrial, we’re just continuing to let violent criminals back out on the streets. It’s like trying to add a second layer to your house while the first floor is on fire. So we have to deal with bail and pretrial. It’s completely insane that we’re releasing violent criminals back on the streets with little to no bail. That needs to be reformed. It needs to be cleaned up. Another thing that needs to happen is we need to restructure the public defenders. I think there’s a massive bottleneck there due to a worker shortage and honestly, it’s really tough work and it’s hard to draw people into that. So I’ve got a couple ideas on how to restructure that and really streamline and open up the labor pool to hundreds of more attorneys across the state.
Jared Goecker: 20:18
So, criminal justice reform that’s number one. Number two we need a realistic fiscal plan. We don’t have one, really, and instead what they’ve been doing for years is they’ve been drawing money from the PFD to continue to feed and grow government government spending. They haven’t really cut anything too much, and so we need to have a serious conversation about what that looks like, and a part of that has to be a realistic spending cap, because otherwise, if we don’t stop the growth of government and put it within a box you know like, let it grow with inflation, you know that sort of thing, of course. But if we don’t artificially say, no, this is how much it’s going to be, then the government’s just going to keep growing and growing and growing. And we’re seeing that, you know, with what this legislature is doing right now, and you know they’re continuing to grow government. They passed a massive $9 billion defined benefits pension plan out of the Senate last year with zero new revenues identified.
Jared Goecker: 21:18
So what does that mean? Well, that means the PFD is gone first and foremost. That’s going to go first. And then we’re going to have an income tax and then a sales tax, and then we might have to increase the income tax a few years later because it’s not quite performing as well. And then, if we’re going to increase the sales tax and now we’re going to need, you know, this tax and that tax we just need to put we can put all of that to rest if we have a realistic spending cap that caps the growth of government and then we won’t really need all these new revenues. Right, we can bring some finality. We can bring a little bit of structure, a little bit of actual protection to the PFD, because right now, at the rate it’s going, they’re taking 75% of it. Right now, 75 to 100 is not that far and we’re just a couple years out from that. So a fiscal plan has to encapsulate all of that. Legislature doesn’t have one and we desperately need one.
Kelly Tshibaka: 22:05
Yeah, it really baffles me when these incumbents say that they’re pro-PFD and yet they have taken not a single step to cut the budget or cap spending. And we all know that the only way that they are funding their wish list of budget items is by taking the money from the people that is statutorily protected. So they are violating the law laws they’ve created in order to spend down our money to fund their pet projects, their pork bills, but with no regard for the future. And then they’ll come back and campaign on I’m pro PFD, but they won’t actually do the hard work of being pro PFD.
Kelly Tshibaka: 22:44
I am absolutely uninterested in what a politician says. I am only interested in what policy makers do, because results speak so much louder than rhetoric. And that’s what I appreciate is that you actually articulated a real plan to drive real results, and that is hard to do in Juneau, but I know that plan to drive real results and that is hard to do in Juneau, but I know that you’ve already done it and that’s why I am so excited to have to be supporting you and to be endorsing you for this race. We’ll let you take it away with a wrap up, but I want to just remind people support Jared at jaredforalaskacom. Jared, what are your last words for us?
Jared Goecker: 23:18
Yeah, look, here’s the thing. This is what I want to tell everybody Alaska is on a path of decline and we don’t have to be right. It’s a choice. We can choose a different path and we present a very stark contrast between myself and Kelly Merrick and the paths that Alaska has. And so if you think that Alaska is doing okay, if you’re in the Kelly America, everything’s going perfectly, then you’re probably not really dealing with what’s actually going on.
Jared Goecker: 23:48
And most Alaskans realize that. Most Alaskans see this that we’re on a path of decline and it’s time for a reversal. And so early voting starts in a few days and we’re going to be pushing it really hard, getting our get-out-the-vote ready and rolling so we can get out there and really drive the message home um, we’re almost here at the finish line. We just need to get over. We just need to get over that last little hump and um and a lot of people see it, a lot of people see that this is a very consequential election for the state, not only for the state but also for the nation, like what’s going on at the presidential level yeah, and so.
Jared Goecker: 24:20
Yeah, so we’ve got a, we’ve got a real big choice here. Uh, the the contrast could not be any more stark, and we’re really looking forward to it.
Kelly Tshibaka: 24:27
Yeah, that’s right. I appreciate that, jared, and we’re glad that you’ve been on the show. This is Jared Goecker jaredforalaskacom. We’re supporting him for Senate and thank you so much for being on the show, jared, we appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it. Yeah, we’re coming up to our break, so stand by, we’ll be right back with representative ben carpenter, running for senate in the kenai peninsula. You’re not going to want to miss this. Stand by. Welcome back to stand with kelly and denali chivaka, as promised. We have with us representative ben carpenter, who is currently representing the kenai peninsula area, and he is Welcome back to Stand with Kelly and Denali Tshibaka, as promised, we have with us Representative Ben Carpenter, who is currently representing the Kenai Peninsula area, and he is running for Senate. Ben, thank you so much for being with us today.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 25:14
It’s good to be with you both.
Kelly Tshibaka: 25:15
I’m happy to announce to everybody that you have the endorsement of President Trump’s campaign here in Alaska, and that is a really big deal in the Kenai Peninsula. So congratulations for having a voting record that has earned you that endorsement.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 25:29
Thank you very much. I appreciate that and I very much look forward to seeing a successful campaign and election for President Trump. I think the alternative is very dangerous for the state of Alaska. So absolutely. And I would say this, make a good team.
Kelly Tshibaka: 25:44
I’d say the same is true about your election and the alternative, your opponent for the Kenai Peninsula, because we can see both of your records. You are what your record says you are, and fortunately, in this situation we have two candidates who have two records and what they have done in Juneau. And so I’d like to talk a little bit about your record, but I want to tee it up by saying one of the things that’s interesting about your opponent. For those who don’t know, that is Senator Bjorkman. Senator Bjorkman has a record of lying to the citizens of the Kenai Peninsula, and so, for those who haven’t followed some of this story, I thought it was really interesting this back and forth that happened with one of my good friends, senator Mike Schauer, where Bjorkman went on KSRM with my friend Dwayne Bannock and claimed that he was doing one thing in Juneau for Kenai Peninsula, and then Bannock interviewed Schauer and he said no, bjorkman did this and that on my bill to stall it and kill it. And then Bannock interviewed Bjorkman again and said hey, man, did you lie? And Bjorkman adamantly denied no. And then he got Schauer back on and Schauer said that’s exactly what Bjorkman did. And then Bjorkman went and threatened Schauer in his office. And then Schauer came back on the radio and said this is what happened with Bjorkman.
Kelly Tshibaka: 26:57
And so we have all this documented live on KSRM Bjorkman actively lying to the peninsula citizens trying to convince them that he’s one person in the Kenai Peninsula, and he’s doing something completely different in Juneau and I see that happening in the campaign as well that he’s representing, that he is one kind of politician and senator to the residents of the Kenai, but then he has a completely different voting record. He’s voting what did we find? Was it 95% of the time with the squad leftist Forrest Dunbar? It’s insane. And so I wanted to ask you, ben Carpenter, what is your record in Juneau? And talk straight with the people of the Kenai Peninsula.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 27:38
Well, you know, when I go door to door and talk with folks, the number one issue that everybody is talking about is our economy and how it’s suffering, and next after that is basically the state budget and how we’re spending too much. And for six years I have promoted and tried to get us the state legislature to reduce spending in our state legislature. And we have grown our budgets. We’ve added 650 positions and about $600 million in pay and benefits for state workers, and all of that’s on the back of the dividend. We don’t have a growing economy, we don’t have a growing tax base that supports the growth of government, and so when somebody says, hey, we need these programs and we need all of these good things that government can do, bjorkman is not asking who pays for it. He knows who pays for it. He has voted twice the dividend in order to pay for growth of government, and I am adamantly opposed to that.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 28:38
I think that the best thing that we could do for permanent fund earnings is to spend it in our private sector economy and spend it in our small businesses.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 28:47
And if the state government needs to grow, if it wants to grow, and Alaskans and special interests want the state government to grow, then they ought to come to the people and ask for a tax, just like every other state and every other citizen does in the state or in the nation.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 29:03
So we’re having a conversation down in Juneau about growing state government, and that’s what is succeeding down in Juneau, because we don’t have to come to ask for a tax, we just take more of the permanent fund earnings and we don’t have a constraint on our spending, such that only our finance division is telling us within a few years maybe as little as three or four years that permanent fund earnings will be completely consumed by state spending.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 29:29
And then we will have to ask the question then what? Who pays then for additional state spending? If it’s just to pay for inflationary spending, well, that means there’s going to be some sort of tax. It’s the only option that we have because we will have consumed all the permanent fund earnings. So the stark difference between the two candidates is I am in favor of a long-term fiscal plan that reorders our spending and revenue priorities, institutes a spending limit and pays a full statutory dividend and then looks for additional revenue that requires less from all Alaskans, instead of taking all of the permanent fund dividend out of the private sector. That is a worst case scenario for our state and that is where we’re headed right now. And that’s what you get with Senator Bjorkman.
Denali Tshibaka: 30:18
Yeah, no, I agree. So we’ve established that Bjorkman is a liar at this point. He loves lying to his constituents. He likes throwing up smoke screens so that he can keep getting reelected. I’m curious, Ben, what are some of the lies that he’s been spreading about you during this race? We know that that’s a tactic that incumbents use a lot, as they like to lie about the up and comer opposition to hold on to their seat. And I’m curious what are some things that he’s been spreading around and what’s the truth of the matter?
Representative Ben Carpenter: 30:47
Well, thanks for the question. I kind of detest this type of politics and I would much rather be talking about constructive solutions for our state, but it is what it is and I’ve got to address some lies, one of the ones that I’ve heard people call me and say hey, bjorkman was just at my door and he told me that you voted for an income tax. Well, that is a complete falsehood. Bjorkman is assuming, and he’s trusting, that the voters are ignorant of procedures down in Juneau. Because what has happened down in Juneau is I voted in the committee to move a bill out of committee with recommendations to not pass an income tax, but just move the bill out of committee. And he’s saying well, that vote was for an income tax. Well, that’s just simply not true. The only time that we would be for an income tax or for a bill is when we vote for it on the floor. So I have never supported an income tax. I will never support an income tax, and to say otherwise is preying on the ignorance of voters to not know the difference.
Kelly Tshibaka: 32:02
Right A process vote is not the same as a final vote and, to be clear, when we analyzed his votes compared to Dunbar’s, we only looked at final votes so that it would be a fair analysis.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 32:20
Yeah, that’s right. The votes that matter are the ones that are taken on the floor that are actually going to enact policy. Moving bills from one committee to the next is procedural, it’s administrative, it’s something that we’re supposed to do. We’re obligated by our rules to take action, to review a bill and committee and then take action and move it on to the next committee. So it’s an abuse of the system to say, well, I don’t like this bill, so we’re just not going to hear it and sit on it. That is commonly what happens down in Juneau, but that is an abuse of power, just like a binding caucus rule, which we should talk about this.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 32:51
That’s another thing that really chafes me is the argument that Bjorkman puts forward that there are some other Republicans down there, three Republicans that didn’t want to. They had different rules that they wanted to run by, and all he’s meaning by that is this binding caucus rule, which basically says that at the beginning of the legislature you agree to be in the majority caucus and to vote for whatever budget the finance committee kicks out of budget or out of the committee. Whatever budget the finance committee kicks out of the committee, meaning he and eight other Republicans joined with nine Democrats and said whatever budget finance gives us, that’s the budget that I’m going to vote for. And he hasn’t even seen it yet. This is constitutionally, it’s wrong constitutionally, and I’m not going to take the easy wrong over the hard right.
Kelly Tshibaka: 33:49
That’s a nice way of saying that. I think the other important point there for all of your constituents is your constituents, along with the rest of Alaska, elected a Republican majority in the Senate and your opponent threw away that majority by choosing to give it to the Democrats and creating that what they would call a bipartisan caucus. But what they actually did is they put the Democrats in charge of committees and gave them the power to choose which legislation was written and supported and sponsored and made it through and passed. And that gave our Republican majority, because we have more Republicans in the Senate than we do Democrats. But because of the choice of Jesse Bjorkman, we now have Democrats in charge of the Senate in Juneau and not Republicans. So he threw away a Republican majority and Republican power because we had Republican majority in the House and Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican governor. The reason why we have Democrats leading in Alaska is because of Jesse Bjorkman.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 34:53
So one of the bills that we championed in the House and as a member of judiciary House judiciary we passed this bill out, which was a clean up, our voter rolls bill, and that bill made it out of the house, made it over to the Senate and it got loaded up with a bunch of left-leaning wish lists from their Judiciary Committee. One of them was same-day voter registration. And that bill made it back to the House for us and we killed it. We killed the bill because we weren’t going to allow the left, through these Republican members who empowered the left, to further degrade our election integrity in the state years ago to the House, following several years of a Muscox coalition where Republicans were joining with Democrats to empower a left of center house. Well, that election that brought me in. We changed out a third of the House members. In the following election we changed out another third we the voters in Alaska, and that brought us to this current legislature where we finally had a Republican-led Republican majority in the House. Well, we’ve got the same problem in the Senate, where you’ve got a handful of Republicans who would rather work with the Democrats.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 36:17
And I’ll just be honest with you the main reason why they’re doing this is because the unions and the special interests at the state level are pushing for a return to a defined benefits pension retirement system, and that is the big thing.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 36:31
That’s the big elephant in the room that nobody’s talking about in this election, but it is the thing that’s going to be. Front and center of the next legislature is a return to this defined benefits. We’re $6 billion in the hole in unfunded liability for the current defined benefits retirement system that we have, and adding to it is unsustainable for our state government. That is what the public sector unions want, so bad that they’re willing to spend tremendous amounts of money getting Bjorkman and others that are pro-union Remember Bjorkman’s a member of the NEA. He stands to benefit from any sort of pension bill that gets passed personally, and this is what they’re pushing for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are being spent by unions, including outside dark money to get pro union people elected into the state legislatures for one reason and one reason of own return to a defined benefits retirement system. That’s what’s at stake.
Kelly Tshibaka: 37:36
Let’s pick up with that. On the other side of this break, You’re on stand with Kelly and Denali Tshibaka. We are talking to Ben Carpenter, current representative in the statehouse in Juneau. We’ll be back right after this Stand by. Welcome back to Stand with Kelly and Denali Tshibaka. We want to continue our conversation with Representative Ben Carpenter. Kelly and Denali Tshibaka. We want to continue our conversation with Representative Ben Carpenter. Representative Carpenter, can you tell us a little bit about?
Representative Ben Carpenter: 38:14
who is behind funding your campaign and your opponent’s campaign. I have been blessed this year with a lot of individual donations. Alaskans, both mostly inside this district and some outside this district, have donated their hard-earned money to see me elected to the Senate. I have also benefited from Republican Party and affiliate membership organizations donating money to me, and that is it. I have received no PAC money. I have received no special interest money. It is all individual Alaskans. I’ve received no special interest money. It is all individual Alaskans.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 38:52
Bjorkman, on the other hand, has received a lot of PAC money, a lot of union money, a lot of special interest money and he’s received individual checks from folks that are outside the district who are employed by organizations, companies or nonprofits that are benefiting from state spending companies or nonprofits that are benefiting from state spending right.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 39:09
So if you’re looking at it from a financial support perspective, it could not be clearer that the establishment, the special interests down in Juneau that want to see a budget continue the way that it is with spending, our spending levels continue the way they are, want to see Bjorkman go down to Juneau. They do not want to see Carpenter go down to Juneau. That is very clear by who’s supporting the two candidates financially, and that can only be because I have been very adamant and I have been very transparent with voters and with people in Juneau that we are spending too much. We have a spending problem and we need to address that. Otherwise we’re going to reach a fiscal cliff here in just a matter of years and it’s not going to be pretty for the state of Alaska.
Kelly Tshibaka: 39:54
Absolutely One of the things that concerns me. On this defined benefit program that you’re talking about, I was responsible for the retirement plan for the state of Alaska when I was commissioner of administration, and so we had the opportunity to do the fiscal report, the fiscal bill reporting for anything the legislature was proposing or considering when I was commissioner, and, of course, this bill came up all three sessions that I was commissioner and I was working with state government employees who have different political persuasions, and every time, representative Carpenter, that this defined benefit plan came up, we would run the numbers, and every time absolutely hands down, this plan bankrupts the state, and so, to your point, there is no longer a PFD fund. If we put in defined benefit, I love this idea as a pension plan for our employees. However, it is not fiscally sustainable, and if there was a way to math it out where it could be fiscally sustainable, I would totally support it, and I think that you would too, but there’s not.
Kelly Tshibaka: 40:58
And then the other thing that we would consider for the legislature is do we have a tax base large enough to support this plan?
Kelly Tshibaka: 41:05
And the answer is no, we don’t.
Kelly Tshibaka: 41:07
You could not possibly set in an income tax or a resource tax, an oil tax, a gas tax, a mining tax large enough to sustain this. When you put the math out, when you cast out the vision to see how this would accumulate and aggregate over time because you can’t just pay a pension for five years and you have employees that retire every year and then you cast the vision out and the expanding lifespan of people, this becomes an absolutely enormous burden that literally bankrupts the entire state of Alaska long term and there is no cash flow or resource stream or revenue stream that can pay for it. And so it is very concerning to me that we have not only legislators who would seriously consider it after receiving years and years and years of reports from state employees saying this is not fiscally sustainable or fiscally responsible, let alone fiscally conservative, but especially that we have so much PAC money and dark money from outside the state propping up candidates, especially in districts like yours, to send them to Juneau with this agenda in mind. What is your take on all that?
Representative Ben Carpenter: 42:23
Well, it’s interesting because the foundation for this argument of why we need to go back to a defined benefits retirement system is because we say that we’re having a hard time with recruiting and retention, and the very unions that are also responsible for recruiting and retaining employees are the ones that are pushing for a defined benefits retirement system.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 42:43
So they have a vested interest in not having very good recruiting and retention to prove that they need a defined benefit system. So they come up with this idea that, hey, we can have these levers and we can tweak this system and we can put things in there, automatic things that happen, and it won’t cost us any money and we can sell it to people because it’s revenue neutral. The problem is that if you dig into the plan, the plan assumes that you have a flat or level number of employees going into the future, Like current numbers of employees is what we’re going to stay on and it’ll stay static. But the whole point of why we’re having a conversation about this retirement system is because we have a recruiting and retention problem. So the workforce is telling us we need to have more employees. But the retirement plan that we want to put in has a foundation that says well, our employee base is going to stay the same.
Kelly Tshibaka: 43:38
You have to assume that in order for it to pencil out and it does not pencil out- that’s right.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 43:43
So it’s a lie from the get-go. There is no intention of state government to not include, not increase numbers of employees.
Denali Tshibaka: 43:51
Yeah, yeah. So we’ve talked a lot about finances and how great your fiscal plan is. It sounds like it’s going to be really effective and I just wanted to pivot with the last few minutes that we have here and talk a little bit about the education system. I just, you know, graduated from college and my siblings are all still in school, and so I’m looking at our current education system and thinking this is a mess. Parents’ rights are being ignored. Who knows what our kids are being taught in school nowadays? And I wanted to get your take on that and also what your plan is for education reform to keep American schools actually, you know, keeping our kids smart, instead of dumbing them down to just become another cog in the wheel.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 44:30
Yeah, thank you. So this is another area where Jesse Bjorkman and I are completely different philosophies. He, being a teacher and a union member, is approaching this through a. We need to maintain and prop up the system of education that we have. I am coming at this from a, from a parent’s perspective. That says the model and the, the education system that you’re giving us, like you’re selling us this, this education system is not working for us. It isn’t meeting our needs as parents and that’s why, especially in the Kenai Peninsula borough, you’re seeing parents walk away. They’re looking for alternatives correspondence school, private school, they’re looking charter schools. They’re looking for alternatives where the parents have more control over their curriculum and the teachers and the choices of education, the funding of education, because they see what’s happening in this system that’s being propped up by union support. That it’s not what they want.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 45:29
So I institute, after talking with teachers and parents, I created a teacher’s bill of rights in this legislature and you’ll be I’m shocked. I’m sure to know that the education establishment didn’t want to see this go through, but it would say that teachers have a right to have a safe work environment in their classroom and that includes a work environment where they’re respected. So if they’ve got troubled children in the classroom, it becomes the administration and the parents’ responsibility to solve this problem, not the teacher in the classroom. That is what teachers and administrators should be doing to empower teachers. But we’re not. We’ve got this system that’s not doing that right now and it causes all sorts of problems in the classroom.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 46:15
So what did we do this year?
Representative Ben Carpenter: 46:16
We said if we’re going to have a conversation about a compromise between raising funding for education, then we need to have one that ties in parental choice and better improving our results, and that was specifically tied to increasing the ability for parents to create charter schools within our schooling system, which is our charter schools are, you know, one or two ranked one or two in the nation we have very good charter schools, so why don’t we just duplicate what’s working in the state of Alaska and improve our quality of education by empowering parents to have control or ownership of the education process?
Representative Ben Carpenter: 46:55
That is what a charter school would do, and we could do that with a lot of our brick and mortar schools, and over time, we would change the culture of this. You know, parents are able to wash their hands of the education of their kids in some cases, and that shouldn’t be allowed, and the parents should be able to push back against the education establishment and say, hey, whatever you’re selling, whatever woke policies and curriculum you’re selling, that’s not okay with us. We’re the ones that own this education system.
Denali Tshibaka: 47:24
Yeah, no, I agree.
Denali Tshibaka: 47:27
Before we moved to Alaska, being in the public school system was just an atrocious experience for me, because everyone talks about wanting to do things for students and making sure the students are doing well and so well.
Denali Tshibaka: 47:38
We need to make sure we respect their pronouns and we need to keep secrets from the parents, but the fact of the matter is we’re struggling to just learn basic math in school because we have so many kids that are just so disruptive and the teachers have absolutely no ability to discipline them at all whatsoever for fear that they’re gonna be fired, for fear that the parents are gonna throw a temper tantrum, and so then what ends up happening is kids like me and my siblings, who want to go to school and who want to learn, end up being stunted by these kids who can just act out in class and the teachers can’t do anything about it.
Denali Tshibaka: 48:09
So, at the end of the day, I fully believe in support in restoring parental rights to the education system, because the parents rights are the students rights, and if you want to make sure that your kid gets educated and your child grows up to become a force in the world, you need to make sure that it starts in the school system and we need to make sure that we reform it to reflect that.
Kelly Tshibaka: 48:27
And I’m really glad to hear that you supported a teacher’s bill of rights, because one of the things that really concerned me about the massive base student allocation bill that Yorkman and others supported, that would have added so much to our government spending, is it wasn’t tied to results.
Kelly Tshibaka: 48:42
And one of the things that I’ve seen in so much of our school spending across the state is the school districts will get a lot of money from the state and then it goes to administration and facilities.
Kelly Tshibaka: 48:52
They build more buildings and they put it into overhead and administration and they actually are not paying our teachers and they’re cutting their salaries and they’re not taking care of our students and what the students need in the classroom, and so the places where we need the money most, it’s actually being cut and forgotten and that’s why we’re not seeing results. And there was no mechanism to tie the increase in school funding to the actual results and all that was going to go up is government debt. So I think you’re absolutely right to say who’s looking out for the teachers and what are we doing, and I think it’s interesting your insight that the people who are supposed to be looking out for the teachers are actually opposing that because it goes against their agenda. So, ben Carpenter, thank you so much for being on the show. Tell us where can people donate to your campaign to support you.
Representative Ben Carpenter: 49:37
If you go to my website, ben Carpenter for Alaska, there’s a link there to donate and if you’ve got questions, you can reach out to me. 907-690-6494 is my phone number and I’d love to take your calls and have a conversation. Go more in depth.
Kelly Tshibaka: 49:51
I appreciate that. Ben Carpenter for alaskacom Representative. Ben Carpenter, thank you for being on the show. We are so happy to have had you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it’s been another great episode of Stand with Kelly and Denali Shabaka, and you can catch us on standshoworg. We will see you next time. Thanks, and be courageous. Everybody. Have a great week.