A three-way race is on to replace five-term House Rep. Dan Ortiz in Ketchikan

Cruise ship tourists line the rails of Creek Street in Ketchikan, Alaska, on Monday, July 24, 2023. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

In House District 1, which includes the hub communities of Ketchikan and Wrangell, there is a three-way race to replace Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan, who served as the district’s House representative for a decade.

The race is between Republican Jeremy Bynum and independents Grant EchoHawk and Agnes Moran.

Ortiz left the race in June, citing health reasons. The former educator caucused with the mostly Democratic House minority, though his district tends to lean toward Republican candidates. He prioritized education funding, as well as support for the Alaska Marine Highway System and a pension system for public employees.

Bynum earned 49% of the primary vote in August, which is just below the majority share of votes that a candidate will need to win the Nov. 5 general election without the use of ranked choice voting.

The remainder of the votes were split between EchoHawk and Moran.

House District 1 includes Ketchikan, a fishing and cruise ship tourism community, and the surrounding areas of Coffman Cove, Hyder, Loring, Metlakatla, Meyers Chuck, Saxman, Whale Pass and Wrangell. More than a quarter of the district identifies as Alaska Native.

A look at the candidates

Bynum, 49, is the electric manager of Ketchikan Public Utilities. He has been a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly since 2020 and is a veteran of the Air Force. After the Air Force, he was a hydroelectric engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bynum is from Oregon, has lived in Alaska for eight years and is married without children. He ran against Ortiz in 2022 and lost with 47% percent of the vote, but said they developed a good relationship even if they have different views.

“We needed a different kind of, a different brand of advocacy for our district,” he said. “We needed a strong, forceful voice to say, ‘Listen, we are here. We matter. We are impactful to the state.’ And we need to start setting some of these visions for where we need to go and be forceful about it.”

EchoHawk, 49, is a business loan specialist for Tongass Credit Union and board treasurer of the Ketchikan Tribal Business Corp. He has been a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly since 2021. He was born in Fairbanks and grew up with a fishing family in Metlakatla, the state’s only Alaska Native reservation. He has spent 19 years in Alaska, according to his candidacy filings with the state. He said that since returning to Alaska he has shifted his focus from the corporate world of maximizing shareholder value to public service. “I feel like there’s plenty of wealth in the state, and I’m concerned that that wealth isn’t making it into our communities,” he said. “I work in the public and nonprofit sector, and there’s a lot of really great, dedicated people working really hard to lift up our communities, to help people out, and all we need is funding.”

Agnes Moran, 64, was born and raised in Ketchikan and is the executive director of Women in Safe Homes, the regional shelter for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Moran served for four years on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly, co-founded the Ketchikan animal rescue and has been a board member of First Bank and First City Homeless Services. She studied electrical engineering and worked in aerospace on experimental satellite systems for military contractors in California before returning to Kecthikan. She is married and has two adult children. She said now is a good moment for her to run for office: “I have a good understanding of the issues on the ground in our communities, and I have a track record of addressing them.” She said she would be as committed to the district as Ortiz, but more of a fiscal conservative. “I’m very familiar with having to make difficult choices with budgets,” she said. “I don’t think that’s true of my opponents.”

Similarities and differences with education

Like Ortiz, all candidates say they support a permanent increase to the funding formula for public schools, but their approaches to the details will be different.

Bynum suggested lawmakers reevaluate the funding mechanism that is the base student allocation: “You see that the system that we’re using doesn’t solve all of the educational funding needs throughout the state equally. So some (districts) are doing OK, and other places they’re getting wrecked because of the funding,” he said.

He said it would also be a priority that the state invest in workforce development through career and technical education programs. “We have an opportunity and we have a responsibility to be making sure that our schools are providing those tracked programs for our kids, so that they will come out of school be successful right away in our communities,” he said.

EchoHawk said he was disappointed in the last legislative session because the state failed in its obligation to properly fund schools.

“It’s been devastating throughout the entire state, but I was able to see it here in Ketchikan. We lost educators. It threw our entire community in turmoil, with not knowing what kind of funding we’re going to get,” he said.

He was critical of education reform proposals if they come at the expense of meeting what he considers a more pressing need for funding: “I feel like the will of the people was overwhelmingly made clear on what our communities needed. And I was really disappointed that there was a conversation forced into this, of personal projects or items that were not what the people were asking for, whether it came from the executive branch or from the legislative branch.”

Moran said the conversation about education funding needs to “start with the $1413 number,” a reference to the highest proposed increase to funding formula last session, in large part because inflation has increased the fixed costs for districts. “That’s the spending power the school districts have lost,” she said.

She also said she wants to see competitive wages and a return to the pension system to keep teachers in the state. “Alaska has a 25% teacher turnover rate. Teachers are leaving the state and leaving the discipline because they can’t afford to live and work here,” she said.

Ortiz was a proponent of a return to a pension system for state employees. Bynum said he would consider it, but does not want to overcommit the state’s finances on a program it cannot afford; EchoHawk said he is in full support of pensions and Moran said that if lawmakers cannot agree to bring back pensions, they should at least give teachers Social Security benefits.

Fish and ferries

All three candidates see fisheries and the Alaska Marine Highway System as critical to their district, but have different ideas for how to support them.

Bynum said the state could start to help fishing communities and the fishing industry by investing in harbors, so that fishing vessels can stay in Alaska. He also suggested that sport fishermen and commercial charters pitch in on taxes that support hatcheries in Southeast Alaska. He also pointed to sea otter management as a priority for fishermen: “I know that we have the (federal) Marine Mammal Act. It’s complicated, but we need to be more vocal. It’s a thing. Let’s figure out how we do appropriate management here.”

Bynum said that restoring reliable Alaska Marine Highway System services, especially to Prince Rupert Island, are a priority for the District.

EchoHawk said he wants to see fisheries managed with a blend of science and historical understanding of the land and water. “The salmon provide food. It provides jobs. And it is … deeply rooted in the culture of Southeast Alaska. And so ultimately, I think it’s important that we do everything that we can to make good, sound decisions around how we’re going to maintain the salmon population.” He said that includes having robust government-to-government conversations with Canada about transboundary mining and the risks that mining infrastructure failures pose to downstream fisheries.

EchoHawk said he supports investment in the ferry system and would like to see the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet be replaced or modernized. He said critical infrastructure needs have languished in the state. “Transportation is a critical pillar of a robust and stable economy. We need reliable transportation,” he said.

Moran said that to boost the Alaska Marine Highway System, the state needs to do better with hiring and supporting affordable housing for incoming workers.

Moran said she wants to see funding for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to support fishermen and the fishing industry. “We can’t be having their budget cut right when we need them to be promoting and developing national and international markets for Alaska seafood,” she said.

Energy and opportunity

Each candidate described different avenues for opportunity in the coming legislative session. All of them said they would caucus with whichever group was best for the district.

Bynum predicted that the energy crisis on the Railbelt will be a main focus of the next legislative session, and said that his role would be to make sure any policy changes do not have unintended consequences for the district and to make sure that the state makes equal investments in Southeast as it solves those problems.

With his engineering background, Bynum said the hydroelectric power resource that fuels Southeast Alaska could be a model for other regions and that its potential is not fully tapped. “There’s hydropower capacity out there, so being able to unlock that is going to be really important for the Railbelt and keeping power affordable,” he said. He said he also sees potential for harnessing tidal energy in Southeast Alaska and Cook Inlet.

EchoHawk said that the state needs to do everything it can to alleviate the energy crisis in Southcentral Alaska.

“I think we need to put everything on the table and look at the most efficient options that are available for that region and fight hard to get the funding available to build out the infrastructure to do it and do it as quickly as we can,” he said.

When it comes to opportunities to build revenue in the state, EchoHawk said he would first reconsider corporate subsidies. “I’m not a fan of subsidies at all for large corporations, when those corporations are able to realize extravagant profits and also utilize stock buybacks in addition to all the profits that they make,” he said. He said he would consider a progressive income tax, but is vehemently opposed to a sales tax.

Moran said Alaska needs to import liquefied natural gas in the short term to support its energy needs. “We can’t wait to build a gas pipeline that’s never going to come,” she said, adding that the state should look to alternative energy sources like hydro, wind, geothermal and solar power for long-term solutions.

She said there is opportunity for the state to broaden its revenue base with a tax on short-term rentals that would target tourists and not disproportionately harm working- and middle-class Alaskans.

“That also could help address our affordable housing crisis, because we know when short-term rental companies move into a community, houses and apartments that were once available for local residents to purchase or rent are taken off the market and they’re dedicated to the tourist industry,” she said.

Different views on ballot measures

Bynum did not give a definitive answer to how he would vote on Ballot Measure 1, which would increase the minimum wage and require that employers provide employees with paid sick leave. He said he will vote to repeal the voting system, which includes open primaries and ranked choice voting.

EchoHawk and Moran said they would support an increase to the state’s minimum wage and oppose the repeal of the voting system.