KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
Longtime Kodiak resident Republican Senator Gary Stevens will run for lieutenant governor in 2018.
Stevens has spent almost 18 years in the Alaska legislature.
Before that, he was a familiar face in Kodiak’s local government. He’s served as mayor of both the Kodiak Island Borough and the city of Kodiak and was also school board president. Stevens has been in the senate since 2004, and previously served as a member of the Alaska House of Representatives.
He says it’s been in the back of his mind to run for the position of lieutenant governor.
Now that he’s in the first year of a four-year term, he says he’s in a good position to do it.
“If I win, great, if I lose, I’ll spend two more years in the Senate. So, either way. I have a friend who used to always say ‘send me to Juneau or send me fishing, either way I win.’ I sorta feel that way too. Either way. I’d much appreciate the opportunity of being lieutenant governor. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll spend a couple of more years in the Senate.”
Stevens expresses flexibility about working with the goals and needs of whoever wins the position of governor.
“Giving the governor your input and your impression of how things should work or may work or can work is really, really important and that’s varied. Sometimes we’ve had lieutenant governors that have not been able to work with the governor at all and sometimes we’ve had governors and lieutenant governors who’ve been a very fine team. That’s the main thing. And it’s really up to the governor in that case to figure out how best to use the lieutenant governor.”
He also says Alaska is struggling with its election process. He says soon the state will need to replace its ballot counting machines and could look toward an alternative method. He says some of the Western states, like Colorado, have found success with mail-in ballots.
Stevens says the health care system, oil and gas, state resources, and international business and sale remain primary focuses moving forward.
