South Anchorage candidates are seeking state House seat after 2022 losses

Ducks swim on Jewel Lake in South Anchorage on Oct. 7. Jewel Lake is one of the many lakes in House District 15. The outcome of this House race could be important in determining control of the next Legislature. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

In southwest Anchorage, an area known for its lakes, parks and quiet green spaces, the race for a legislative seat is between two candidates who fell short in their election bids two years ago.

The Democrat in the race is Denny Wells, a data analyst-turned-professional photographer who lost in 2022 to the incumbent representative, Republican Tom McKay, by a mere seven votes.

The Republican is Mia Costello, a teacher who represented that part of Anchorage in the House from 2011 to 2014 and in the Senate from 2015 to 2022, including a stint as Senate majority leader. Costello lost her Senate reelection bid in 2022 to Democrat Matt Claman, an attorney and current chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

McKay is not running to retain his House seat. He mounted a campaign for the Senate seat representing that part of Anchorage, but then dropped out of the race after the Aug. 20 primary.

Nonetheless, this year’s version of the House District 15 election is shaping up as another close one, and it is one of the races that could determine what kind of majority will be assembled once the new Legislature gavels in next January.

In their responses to the Alaska Beacon’s candidate questionnaire, both Wells and Costello said they are willing to work across the partisan aisle. However, they differ in their willingness to join a bipartisan coalition.

Wells, in an interview, said he would be supportive of a Democratic-Republican-independent coalition of the type that has been assembled in the past in the House and is currently in place in the Senate, where nine Democrats and eight Republicans comprise a majority in the 20-member body.

Costello, who did not respond to interview requests, has said that she will not join any coalition in which the majority of the members are not Republicans. A questionnaire sent by Alaska Family Action Inc., a socially conservative organization, asked if she would “refuse to join a coalition majority in which the opposite political party controls a majority of seats,” and Costello responded in the affirmative.

For Wells, a parent of three Anchorage School District students, the overarching issue in the district is education. He supports a lasting increase in the base student allocation, the per-student funding the state sends to school districts.

School districts statewide now have only 77% of the purchasing power that they did when his second child was born in 2011, he said, effectively losing a quarter of funding per student, “which is crazy.”

Tensions over school funding are palpable in his district, he said. That is especially so among “anyone who is even peripherally connected with our schools,” he said.

“They’re viscerally on edge,” he said. “they’re seeing class sizes growing and they’re seeing programs canceled and they’re seeing discussions of closing schools and stuff, and they’re really concerned.”

But even those not connected to schools are concerned about education funding, Wells said.

He cited a woman of retirement age who drew a connection between education funding and health care. She has health problems, and two doctors who were part of her care team left the state “because of the education opportunities that they were just not seeing for their own kids,” Wells said. “That woman’s reasoning for wanting us to invest in high-quality education was on behalf of her own health care.”

Costello did not provide information about her position on the base student allocation. In her Alaska Beacon questionnaire, she pointed to her experience as a high school teacher as informing her views on education. She also pointed to past work as a legislator introducing bills to forward-fund education and provide financial support for teachers who gain national certification.

A mother of two, Costello describes herself as a supporter of school choice and ensuring that there is ready access to all types of programs, including language immersion and charter schools. In her Alaska Family Action questionnaire, she said she supports the idea of parents using tax credits and taxpayer-funded scholarship accounts to enable their children to attend private schools or be homeschooled.

Compensation for public employees is a related issue that voters bring up when he goes door-to-door, Wells said. And as with education, it is connected to other issues of concern, he said.

Wells favors a return to a defined-benefit pension system for public employees and teachers from the current 401(k)-style retirement accounts currently granted to state workers and educators.

The Alaska Senate passed a bill early this year that would have resurrected a defined benefit system, but the measure did not reach the House floor.

Lack of such a dependable pension, on top of lack of Social Security retirement benefit for state workers, makes it hard to attract or retain public employees, Wells said. The point was articulated by a voter who identified public safety as her top concern, he said. The voter, an employee of the Department of Law, said there was a too high of vacancy rate in the department to provide adequate service, he said.

“They just weren’t able to keep up, and they weren’t able to recruit people,” he said. “Part of the reason why they weren’t able to recruit people was because they just don’t have competitive wages or benefits.”

When he did a ride-along with an Anchorage police officer, Wells said he heard similar complaints about crimes and public-safety concerns going unaddressed for lack of prosecutors.

Costello, in her Alaska Beacon candidate questionnaire, did not directly address the question of whether a defined-benefit pension system should be resurrected.

She referred to her membership in the Governor’s Teacher Retention and Recruitment Working Group established by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2020. That working group produced a report in 2021 that identified retirement benefits as a high-priority concern among teachers surveyed statewide. The report listed a return to a defined-benefit system as one of the surveyed teachers’ top preferred solutions.

For Costello, the energy crunch in Southcentral Alaska is one of the crucial issues. “The natural gas crisis in Southcentral will affect each and every resident and could double or triple what we pay to keep our lights on and our homes heated,” she said in her Alaska Beacon questionnaire. She is interested in several options for action, including royalty relief to producers and updates to the transmission lines, she said. “As a seasoned legislator, I hope to bring my experience to the legislature to help get these options across the finish line.”

The Legislature passed a series of bills this year that are aimed at improving energy supplies and deliveries in the Southcentral region and elsewhere along the Railbelt. Those bills, which Dunleavy signed, include provisions streamlining and improving energy transmission systems. However, lawmakers ultimately failed to approve royalty reductions for Cook Inlet oil and gas producers. Dunleavy said in May that he was thinking about possible future steps to create incentives for more Cook Inlet natural gas production.

Wells and Costello expressed differing opinions on the way elections should be conducted in Alaska.

Costello said she will vote in favor of the ballot measure to repeal ranked choice voting; Wells will vote to retain it.

Costello, in the Alaska Beacon questionnaire, said there are doubts about the security of Alaska elections and that mail-in voting should be eliminated entirely. Wells, in his questionnaire response, said Alaska elections are secure.

Despite their differences, there are some parallels in their Wells’ and Costello’s biographies.

Both are lifelong Alaskans with accomplishments and interests outside of politics.

Costello grew up in Anchorage and graduated from West Anchorage High School and Harvard University. She was a star swimmer and the first Alaskan to qualify for the Olympic trials. At Harvard, she was an Ivy League champion and won All-American honors. She remains active in swimming and other sports, and on her Division of Elections candidate profile, she lists weightlifting and water polo as some of her interests.

Wells grew up in Fairbanks and graduated from West Valley High School and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is a member of the Anchorage Opera Chorus. He and his wife spent two years in Thailand serving in the Peace Corps. If elected, he would join Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, and Sen. Loki Tobin, D-Anchorage, as a lawmaker with past Peace Corps service.

There is a third contender in the race: Dustin Darden, a perennial candidate in state and municipal races. Darden is running as a Democrat. He did not respond to the Alaska Beacon’s candidate questionnaire or submit a candidate statement to the Division of Elections.

On his website, he describes himself as a champion of “health, constitutional rights, and equal justice of all our residents” and a frequent pro-se litigant. He opposes the use of fluoride in public water systems. He also describes the electronic voting system as “corruptible,” and his website features a photo of and a quote from Mike Lindell, a businessman and Donald Trump supporter who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.