Update (Feb. 18, 5:40 p.m.) — Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO and Alaska Public Media
In her annual address to a joint session of the Legislature Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told lawmakers that the state should do more to help Alaskans get REAL IDs. (Read more)
Original story
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski addressed the Alaska Legislature on Tuesday.
The Legislature’s had a tradition of inviting the congressional delegation in to deliver a speech while they’re in session. Historically, Murkowski has spoken and taken questions from state lawmakers in joint session for about an hour at this annual event.
A date has not yet been set for an address from Alaska’s junior senator, Dan Sullivan. And Don Young’s press secretary said that Alaska’s lone congressman has addressed the state Legislature in the past, but now prefers small group meetings with state lawmakers.
Murkowski has been a U.S. senator since 2002. She’s a Republican with moderate leanings. For example, she voted with her party against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2009. But she voted with Democrats to oppose its repeal in 2017. Last year, she was the only Republican to vote against confirming U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
More recently, she’s been the subject of a lot of national press around the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Murkowksi voted against calling witnesses at the impeachment trial and voted to acquit Trump.
She spoke about the impeachment process, and her disappointment in the president, the House of Representatives, and her Senate colleagues in this Feb. 3 floor speech.
Murkowski suggested that voters will be the ultimate jury this November. While she was critical of her colleagues, she also made an appeal to them to repair political institutions.
Murkowski was famously beaten in the 2010 Republican primary. But she then mounted a successful general election write-in campaign to hold onto her seat. It was the first time someone had won a U.S. Senate seat by write-in since South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond back in 1954.
She’s up for reelection in 2022.
This preview was written by KTOO’s Jeremy Hsieh.
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