Two Republican candidates with legislative experience present contrasting visions for representing a South Anchorage district.

Rep. Craig Johnson, a businessman who was first elected to the House in 2006 and currently chairs the powerful House Rules Committee, is being challenged by Chuck Kopp, who served in the House from 2017 to 2020 after retiring from a law enforcement career.

The matchup in House District 10, which encompasses the leafy Oceanview and Klatt neighborhoods, the Dimond Center – Alaska’s largest shopping mall — and other spaces, would not have been possible without the ballot initiative that ushered in ranked choice voting in Alaska. That initiative, in addition to authorizing a ranking system, mandated open primaries. Even though Kopp and Johnson were the only candidates on the primary election ballot, both advanced to the general election.

That contrasts with Kopp’s experience in 2020, when he was defeated in the primary by current Rep. Tom McKay, R-Anchorage. In the general election that followed that primary, voters narrowly approved the ranked-choice initiative.

Four years later, Kopp stands by his decision to be part of what was then a caucus of Democrats, Republicans and independents.

“The best solutions are never the gift of one party. And I say that as a proud Republican,” he said.

“As a legislator elected by the citizens of District 10, I will always be on a team to best serve and represent the district,” he added. “I will not hesitate to put people first over the party.”

Whatever coalition he joins should be consistent with his “Republican values” of low taxes, infrastructure investment, resource development and responsible budgets. “And I want an organization that is not going to go into the ditch over a social agenda,” he said. “I don’t like it when I see the legislative process hijacked.”

To Johnson, Kopp’s party-line crossing approach is a negative.

“You look at who supports him and who supports me — you can see a stark difference. Who influences him, versus the kind of people that want to see me get reelected,” Johnson said. There is a “very clear difference,” he said. “It’s just very difficult to differentiate when you’re sitting with an R by your name.”

Those ties are evident in the primary election results, in which Kopp won 60.5% of the vote, Johnson said, noting the low turnout of 17.8%. “We’ve got a Republican who’s got mostly Democratic support in Chuck, and the Democrats turned out quite heavily and the Republicans didn’t,” he said.

Johnson pointed out that the current Republican-dominated House majority does include rural Democrats. But he does not favor more evenly balanced bipartisan coalitions, such as the nine-Democratic, eight-Republican majority caucus in the state Senate.

“I would not be interested in joining a caucus that put committee chairs in positions to pass or hold up things that I feel I am philosophically opposed to,” he said. “I will not compromise my ideals and morals for power.”

For Kopp, the overarching issue in the election – and for Alaska – is the state’s continued outmigration and shrinking working-age population. That loss is the result of the state’s failure to invest in itself, he said.

“You also have to look at the cost of doing nothing, and the cost of doing nothing has been catastrophic for our state,” he said.

There are, for example, about 70 Alaska state trooper positions currently unfilled, along with about 50 Anchorage police positions. Also affected are basic services like road maintenance, with departments short-staffed, and education, he said. “We have school districts that are starting late because they can’t fill the teacher positions,” said.

The event that crystallized this concern — and his decision to run against Johnson — was the House majority’s refusal to consider the Senate-approved measure, Senate Bill 88, that would have resurrected a defined-benefit pension system for public employees.

Legislation passed in 2005 established a new 401(k)-style defined contribution system for what were then new public employees, but in recent years there have been calls to return to the defined-benefit pension systems like those used in the past.

Kopp favored the Senate’s bill, which he said crafted a reasonable approach that would have been both less costly than past public employee defined-benefits plans and less costly than doing nothing.

“Absolutely, I’m in favor of that defined-benefit plan,” he said. The plan that the Senate bill crafted would have been less expensive than past public-employees’ defined-benefit plans, and a worthwhile investment in the workforce, he said.

Kopp is particularly attuned to the issue because of his law-enforcement experience, which included a stint as police chief in Kenai. As of now, Alaska police officers are working in a very difficult profession without the promise of “anything meaningful waiting for them” at retirement, he said. He also noted that state employees are generally not eligible for Social Security benefits.

Johnson, as Rules chair, blocked the Senate’s defined-benefit bill from reaching the House floor. He is proud of that action and highlights it on his campaign website as one of his key legislative accomplishments.

The Senate’s plan was too expensive, Johnson said.

“For the first 10 years, it’s not a bad system because not many people have retired,” he said, referring to actuarial information that was presented to lawmakers. “But once you get past 10 years and 15, 20, 25, it turns into billions of dollars and we’re going to end up like we were before we got rid of it, where we had a $9 billion in indebtedness and our credit rating was affected. Our ability to bond was affected. So, it could have a huge impact on future generations,” he said.

Johnson opposes any return to a defined-benefit program and does not believe retirement benefits attract workers. In the case of police officers, he pointed to departments in other states that do offer defined-benefit pensions but have trouble attracting applicants, nonetheless.

“Retirement is not how you attract people. You attract people with work environments and the opportunities to advance and job satisfaction. And it’s very difficult to be a policeman right now,” he said.

Rather than return to a defined-benefit system, the state can increase pay and possibly increase the amount it contributes to employee retirement accounts, he said. And Anchorage’s municipal government has the option of creating its own benefit system without placing the burden on the state, he said.

Both Kopp and Johnson favor an increase in the Base Student Allocation, the per-student level of state education funding granted to school districts.

Johnson said he was instrumental in crafting a bill, which ultimately was passed by the Legislature, that would have increased the BSA. After Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the bill, to the dismay of many educators and students, Johnson was among the legislators who voted against a veto override. Johnson said continuing efforts to increase the BSA over the long term would have simply been vetoed again; instead, lawmakers were at least able to secure a one-time increase of $680 per student.

Kopp said he would have voted to override the veto, which was sustained by one vote.

People in the district are extremely concerned about education funding and worried about state support that has atrophied, he said. “They were alarmed when one of our local elementary schools was on the chopping block,” he said.

Klatt Elementary School, which is in his House district, was one of six schools that the Anchorage School District in 2022 considered for closure for budget problems.

The problems facing education in the district and in Alaska more generally are tied in part to the loss of qualified workers – teachers in this case, Kopp said. “My district really cares about the recruitment and retention of that workforce,” he said.

Both candidates cite public safety as a top concern for their district. That category includes homelessness in Anchorage, which both candidates characterized as a complex problem that defies easy solutions.

Both candidates also cite a need to make energy supplies in Anchorage and the Cook Inlet region more dependable, an issue of growing concern as the flow of natural gas used for electricity and heat has become less secure.

While Kopp supports retention of the ranked choice voting system, Johnson will be supporting the ballot measure to overturn it.

Johnson believes the ranked-choice system encourages some candidates to hold back on campaigning prior to the primary election to save their money for the general election. “You know, I did some of that and it didn’t pan out particularly well,” he said.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said it detected Russian military aircraft off the coast of Alaska on Sunday, marking the fourth time since 9/11 amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

Two Russian IL-38 military planes operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, were detected and tracked on Sunday, NORAD said in a news release.

The aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said, adding that this Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ happens regularly and is not believed to be a threat.

PUTIN THREATENS WAR WITH NATO AS RUSSIAN MILITARY AIRCRAFT SPOTTED OFF ALASKA

The aircraft in the other three incidents in the past week — on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday — also remained in international airspace in Alaska’s ADIZ and were not viewed as a threat, according to NORAD.

The U.S. and Canada, which together make up NORAD, first intercepted a couple of Russian military aircraft on Wednesday.

A pair of TU-142s were detected by NORAD on Friday. And on Saturday, two Russian IL-38 planes were intercepted, the same type of aircraft intercepted in Sunday’s incident.

The aircraft in all four incidents remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace. (Getty Images)

An ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace requiring the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security, NORAD said.

NORAD said it employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to detect and track aircraft and inform appropriate actions. The company said it is prepared to employ a number of response options to defend North America.

BIDEN ADMIN FACING MOUNTING PRESSURE TO ALLOW RUSSIA TO STRIKE INSIDE UKRAINE WITH US MISSILES

The aircraft in all four incidents were not seen as a threat, NORAD said. (Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Earlier this summer, NORAD intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska for the first time that the two countries have been intercepted while operating together, U.S. officials said at the time.

The state of Alaska was awarded $19 million by federal highway administrators in August, the lowest amount given to a state this year from an annual reallocation of unused federal transportation funding.

Alaska transportation officials had requested $71.4 million from the August redistribution. But $52 million in projects was rejected due partly to errors made in the state’s submission. Alaska contractors are disappointed and concerned what that will mean for next summer’s road construction season and beyond.

At the end of each August, the Federal Highway Administration redistributes transportation funds among states that cannot be obligated by the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The Federal Highway Administration announced on Aug. 30 that a record $8.7 billion would be redistributed to state transportation departments across the nation. Texas got the largest allocation at $1.17 billion. California got the second largest share with $622 million. Alaska received $19 million in spending authority — the lowest figure among 50 states and Washington D.C.

State transportation officials say this year’s reduced redistribution was due to several factors: Fewer big pots of money available to fund projects, changing federal requirements and added scrutiny on Alaska’s transportation spending.

“We are actually pleased to have captured this $19 million,” said Shannon McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Transportation, in an interview last week.

State transportation officials acknowledged that the state’s delayed and error-filled four-year, $5.6 billion transportation plan was a contributing factor to the Federal Highway Administration’s rejection of $16 million in projects from Alaska’s August redistribution request.

According to a transportation planning document obtained by the Daily News as part of a records request, much of the state’s ask for unused federal transportation funds was denied because of significant errors made in the submission.

Basic and significant errors

The State Transportation Improvement Plan, or STIP, is a separate and comprehensive plan for highways, roads, ferries, and even bicycle lanes to be implemented in Alaska through 2027. States typically had their four-year transportation plans approved by last October, the start of the federal fiscal year.

Alaska’s first transportation plan was rejected by federal highway administrators four months late in February due to significant errors with dozens of proposed projects. After scrambling to correct mistakes and to remove ineligible projects, Alaska’s transportation plan was only partially approved in March.

Additionally, state officials were required to submit an amended transportation plan in late August that made corrective actions to numerous projects.

“There are a pretty significant number of them, and they are detailed and take a lot of work to address,” said Aaron Jongenelen, executive director of AMATS, Anchorage’s local transportation planning organization.

Some of the same problems associated with the state’s first four-year transportation plan have persisted through the process to correct those errors.

Last year, AMATS and Fairbanks’ transportation planning organization, FAST Planning, said they were excluded from drafting the state’s plan as required by federal regulations. Projects were added to the state’s that were not also supported by the local planning organizations, such as bridge improvements to serve a contentious ore-haul project near Fairbanks operated by Kinross.

In late July, FAST Planning said they “were again excluded during development” of the state’s draft amended plan. Many of the concerns from local planning organizations were subsequently addressed by state transportation officials, but others remained.

The Alaska Department of Transportation has wanted to improve a stretch of the Seward Highway between Potter Marsh and Bird Flats, but the costly project has not been fully included in AMATS’ own transportation plan, which is required by federal regulations. The project was added to the state’s amended transportation plan despite a warning by AMATS that it would again be declared ineligible for federal funding.

A group of 12 Democratic and independent state legislators wrote to Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson in early August with concerns that the state’s amended transportation plan made allocation decisions that risked it posed to projects in next summer’s construction season.

Anchorage Democratic Rep. Zack Fields, a member of the House Transportation Committee, was scathing at the blatant errors that continued to be made by the department on critical state transportation funding requests. He said in an interview that Alaskans would broadly feel the impact of delayed or denied road construction projects.

“Anyone who works in the construction industry, anyone who doesn’t want to drive through a two-foot deep pothole, anyone in the resource development industry who relies on a functioning surface transportation system. Literally, everyone is screwed by their incompetence,” he said.

Alaska’s amended four-year transportation plan was submitted on Aug. 28. That triggered a 30-day window for the Federal Highway Administration to review and potentially approve the new plan.

That uncertainty helped reduce Alaska’s August redistribution. Federal highway administrators rejected over $16 million of proposed projects because they were contingent on the state’s amended transportation plan already being approved.

According to the transportation planning document obtained by the Daily News, another $35.7 million in projects were rejected because they “were not ready to move forward.”

Some proposed projects were denied because of errors made in the state’s request, including by again adding projects that were not also in local transportation plans. Other projects could not be obligated by the end of September — a federal deadline.

Emails obtained by the Daily News showed state transportation officials were warned ahead of time by the Federal Highway Administration that certain projects would be rejected because of errors. They were submitted anyway.

As part of Alaska’s August redistribution request, the state asked for $462,780 for rockfall mitigation at mile 113.2 of the Seward Highway. State transportation officials were told the project would be ineligible for funding. The project was submitted and was duly denied.

A federal highway official wrote in comments attached to that request: “Resubmission – why are design funds being added 4 years after construction ATP??”

Fields was not convinced by state transportation officials’ explanations about the reduced August redistribution being caused by changing federal regulations or added scrutiny.

“Every other state is administering these programs and getting way more money,” he said. “So how are we the only ones who are getting less money?”

‘Surprised and disappointed’

The $19 million in federal transportation funds obligated to Alaska in August stands in stark contrast to the recent past. Last year, Alaska got a record $108 million. The year before, the state received a then-record $87 million in authority to be used for seven projects.

“Alaska is geared up to build projects that address safety and fix our existing infrastructure,” Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson said in a news release two years ago.

The Associated General Contractors of Alaska, which represents over 600 local contractors, was concerned by this year’s reduced funding and what it could mean for future construction seasons.

“AGC members were surprised and disappointed to see Alaska receive the lowest August redistribution funds of any state in the nation,” said Alicia Amberg, executive director of AGC, in a prepared statement.

Amberg noted that Alaska’s 2024 redistribution was down 82% compared to last August. That was despite a nearly 10% increase in transportation funds available nationwide for redistribution, she said.

“We don’t know how and if this will impact the construction program in the coming months, but less money going toward safe and reliable infrastructure in Alaska is always a concern,” Amberg said.

She added that AGC was working with state transportation officials “to understand the bigger picture funding strategy in place that will ensure ample opportunity and predictability for the construction industry moving forward.”

McCarthy, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation, emphasized that Alaska is set to receive $590 million in federal transportation funding this fiscal year before accounting for the August redistribution. But not all of that funding has been made available.

FAST Planning in Fairbanks said by Aug. 21 that it had been obligated $13.3 million, which represented 43% of the nearly $31 million in funding it has anticipated receiving this federal fiscal year.

By the end of June, AMATS in Anchorage had obligated just $14 million of $50 million, which was just 28% of the funding it had anticipated receiving this year. More funding could be made available before the end of the federal fiscal year, which is typical. But Jongenelen said the gap this year was substantial.

“The big difference this go around is the estimates are much higher of how much we don’t anticipate obligating,” he said.

Jongenelen, executive director of AMATS, said the delayed federal transportation funding available for Anchorage was directly connected to the delays in getting federal approval for the state’s amended four-year transportation plan.

He said that can have real consequences. A project to rehabilitate a stretch of Spenard Road to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians would likely be delayed, but he didn’t know by how long. He said that can have “a butterfly effect.”

“So one project is delayed a year. That could delay two other projects. Those could delay three other projects,” he said. “It’s kind of this effect that you don’t really know — it looks small at the beginning, but it can grow into being a larger thing as time goes on.”