Bethel-area primary race pits Rep. Herron against challenger — and his own political party

BETHEL — In this hub city and in the small villages of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, an unusual political battle is brewing in the primary race for state House. Four-term Democratic incumbent Bob Herron is bristling, challenger Zach Fansler is vowing to "fix Juneau" and the Democratic Party is firmly in the race — on the side of the challenger.

The Democrats recruited Fansler to challenge Herron, who, though a lifelong Democrat, is not only part of the Republican-led majority that controls the state House, but became a member of the inner leadership circle.

No one can remember another year in which a political party in Alaska injected itself into a primary fight like this, but this year the Alaska Democratic Party is backing challengers with money and support over incumbents in two House races — Bethel's and the seat now held by Barrow's Ben Nageak, who is facing Dean Westlake of Kotzebue. The Alaska Republican Party has also endorsed a challenger in a GOP primary, George Rauscher over Rep. Jim Colver of Palmer.

"I'm just not used to it in either party," said longtime Anchorage political consultant and pollster Marc Hellenthal. "I'm surprised by it."

And it may make a difference, he said.

Fansler already has promised not to join any GOP-led majority. He and other Democrats are hoping a bipartisan coalition will run the House. Asked if he would join such a coalition, Herron said it depended on his role and who the speaker would be.

Two well-rounded candidates

Fansler, 37, is a first-term Bethel City Council member, lawyer, college math instructor and five-year director of the Kuskokwim 300 sled dog race who stepped aside from the latter position to run. He switched his party registration to Democrat just before signing up for the House race, a move that he says is akin to that of independent Bernie Sanders becoming a Democrat to run for president. Before that, he was nonpartisan or undeclared — he can't remember which — but said his values are akin to Democratic values.

He first moved to Bethel in 2001 as a Jesuit volunteer with the Tundra Women's Coalition, the local shelter and advocacy organization, and stayed on to work on teen issues for the group. He left in late 2004 to go to law school, worked in Pennsylvania as a patent attorney, then returned to Bethel in 2011 to run the Kusko 300 race. He's directed community theater, played on a traveling broomball team and serves as development director for public radio station KYUK.

"There was this beauty in Bethel, the people and the culture and the kind of place where you can do anything," Fansler said. "That's what I love about it, that flexibility. … You wake up one day and you think you are going to work and it turns out, nope, you are going out on a snowmachine to help look for somebody."

Herron, 65, was first elected eight years ago after winning a three-way Democratic primary. He ran unopposed the next three elections. He is a former Marine who enlisted during the Vietnam War in 1973. He starts his Bethel timeline that year, when his parents moved there, and he joined them after completing his military service. He and his wife, Bethel-born-and-raised Margaret, have three grown children and five grandchildren. They've lived in the same home in Bethel's City Sub neighborhood for more than three decades.

He was an early owner of the old company Bethel Cablevision, which for years relied on videotapes flown from Seattle as its source material for Bush broadcasts. He served 10 years on the Lower Kuskokwim school board including five as chairman. He also worked seven years as Bethel city manager, "the best job I ever had," Herron said in the Delta Discovery newspaper.

Before running himself, Herron served as a legislative aide to his brother-in-law, Lyman Hoffman, now one of the most influential state legislators and part of the Republican Senate majority organization. Their families own a fish camp in Napaimute together.

The two also are partners in businesses including Golden Eagle LLC, the school bus contractor that serves Bethel in the Lower Kuskokwim School District. In 2013, Herron was fined $5,000 by the Legislative Ethics Committee for failing to disclose three years running that Golden Eagle had a state contract. He also was found in violation of ethics law for failing in 2013 to declare a conflict of interest on the House floor before voting on a school transportation bill. He says he made mistakes but never tried to hide his ownership.

In his campaign, he said he is stressing his experience in the Legislature and beyond.

"School board. City manager. Business experience. But also my investment in the region, both as living here and raising a family, having businesses and just being part of the regional community," Herron said.

Democrat in the GOP caucus

House District 38 covers 33 communities, from Mekoryuk on Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea to Russian Mission on the Yukon River to Kuskokwim River villages from Eek near the mouth to the hub of Bethel to Crooked Creek upriver. Many people are low income. Some homes still lack running water. Most roads are unpaved. Residents live off fish and moose, berries and wild greens. The state's lowest-performing schools are in the region.

Both candidates are campaigning up and down the Kuskokwim by boat. Both are flying to villages as well. Herron said he hopes to get to all 33 communities and Fansler said he'll hit as many as time and money allow. Herron said he passes out small candy bars to children, hoping they'll remember him. Fansler brings fruits and a Yup'ik interpreter, John Active. Fansler and Active work together at KYUK.

Herron has largely self-funded his campaign so far, contributing $15,000 to himself in July, the bulk of the $18,900 collected as of July 15, the end of the most recent campaign disclosure filing period. Last year he raised $3,900, including $1,000 from the political action committee for the Alaska State Employees Association — the union for state workers — though the union isn't making an official endorsement. Herron also received support from the Alaska Mining Association, marine pilots and transportation interests.

Fansler, with $9,400 raised as of mid-July, is running with the support of prominent Democrats including former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, former U.S. House candidate Forrest Dunbar and a number of state House Democrats including Anchorage's Chris Tuck, leader of the minority coalition.

They are among the co-hosts for a fundraiser Monday in Anchorage at the home of oil and gas attorney Robin Brena that will benefit Fansler as well as Westlake, who is challenging the other Democrat being targeted, Nageak.

In a sense, it's Herron vs. the Democratic Party, which has given Fansler $5,500 so far. Fansler's campaign manager, a college student raised in Bethel, can tap into a sophisticated Democratic voter database from his phone as they knock on doors. Fansler expects $10,000 from the party in money and other donations for his race.

As of July 15, Herron hadn't received a contribution from any Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta resident and Fansler had gotten just $200, from Kathy Hanson, a retiree.

Herron said he and his wife decided not to seek contributions or hold fundraisers in the impoverished region. People are starting to give on their own, he said.

Fansler said he isn't holding any fundraisers in the district either because he wants everyone to feel welcome at campaign events. One recent evening at the little log cabin in Bethel, Fansler was shaking hands at "S'mores for Zach!" Earlier in July, Michelle DeWitt, head of Bethel Community Services Foundation, a philanthropy group, and formerly head of the Tundra Women's Coalition, hosted a meet-and-greet at which some people donated to his campaign.

Fansler, who is from Pennsylvania, also has gotten financial support from family there. As a university instructor, he belongs to the Alaska Public Employees Association/American Federation of Teachers union, the political arm of which has endorsed him.

"I've decided to run mainly because I'm worried that we've lost our voice in Juneau," Fansler told the Bethel Chamber of Commerce at an appearance in June.

"Amen," said Bethel resident and former council member Dave Trantham.

"Juneau is broken," Fansler said. His campaign handouts have a simple message: "Let's Fix Juneau."

Herron said he was expecting a challenger this time around, but not Fansler.

"We have a Pennsylvanian who moved to Alaska who was undeclared (no political party) for the first four years," Herron said. "Now they are going to hold a big fundraiser in Anchorage and a lot of my sitting colleagues are hosting it, current colleagues are hosting it. What does that say to me?"

To Herron, it means people from outside the delta are trying "to influence a primary race they don't understand."

Democratic leaders say they want to end the reign of the House Republican majority, which they say failed to fix Alaska's multibillion-dollar state budget gap or even bring Gov. Bill Walker's proposals to a vote. The GOP has long controlled the chamber.

"This is really a no-brainer," Jake Hamburg, Democratic Party spokesman, said of the effort to unseat Herron. "He's the majority whip responsible for securing the votes for the do-nothing Republican majority. He's regularly in lockstep time again on education funding, public safety funding."

Herron takes issue with that description.

"The word 'whip' is archaic," Herron said. In the Alaska Legislature, he said, the whip fills in when the majority leader is away, standing up on the House floor with scripted words to move legislation along.

His role, he said, is to "keep all members of the caucus going forward in a positive and rational manner."

As to lining up votes, he said that was up to individual bill sponsors, not him. "It's not the role of any individual to go around and browbeat people."

He is one of four Bush Democrats who aligned with the GOP-led House majority caucus, a common strategy for rural lawmakers seeking influence and committee chairmanships. The late Richard Foster of Nome, a Democrat, served as majority whip for years and it wasn't an issue for him, Herron said.

All caucus members agree to support the majority on budget and procedural votes but are free to go their own way on other issues. Herron noted that he voted against Parnell administration's oil-tax rollback, Senate Bill 21. But he also supported the majority — as he had committed to do — on budget votes including opposing amendments proposed by Democrats to restore funding for education and public safety.

That hurts the region, Fansler said.

Herron also voted to support the Legislature's lawsuit challenging Walker's decision to expand Medicaid to cover more low-income individuals. Tribal health groups were among the leading supporters of Medicaid expansion. Herron said he backed expansion along with the lawsuit to undo it. He considered expansion to be an appropriation, a duty of the Legislature and not the governor under the state Constitution.

"I supported the separation-of-powers lawsuit," Herron said. A Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Walker and the Legislature declined to appeal.

As to a failure to resolve the budget crisis, Herron said Republicans, Democrats and Walker all share in the blame. He stood up on the House floor and urged the chamber to keep working.  He wanted to vote on budget fixes.

"I never got the chance," Herron said.

He said he wants to gradually cut the Permanent Fund dividend as part of a fix. He voted initially to keep expensive and controversial oil and gas credits but ultimately supported reforms backed by Democrats and moderate Republicans who call themselves the Musk Ox coalition for the way they "circle up."

By then, Fansler was in the race, Democrats note. "That has nothing to do with it," Herron said. In a later text message, he said: "The insinuation is not appreciated."

‘Drastic’ action needed

Both candidates have supporters in and out of Bethel. Bev Hoffman, a community leader and cousin of Herron's wife, is backing him, as is Bea Kristovich, traditional chief of the Association of Village Council Presidents. So is Joe Bavilla, a school district employee in Napaskiak.

"He knows our needs. He knows where we are hurting. He's very open-minded. He's a good listener," said Bavilla, who credits Herron with helping to get money for the new village school now under construction.

In all, Herron said, the 33 communities in his district have been the beneficiaries of $634 million for 172 capital projects during his eight years in the House.

Among Fansler's supporters are the tribal council in the Kuskokwim River village of Akiak, along with Mike Williams, a musher and tribal activist there, and former state Rep. Ivan Ivan.

Ivan, a Democrat who also joined the GOP-led majority when he was in the House, said Herron has gone too far. He thinks Fansler will be able to voice the needs of the delta more effectively.

In an evening of campaign door-knocking with Fansler in the Alligator Acres neighborhood of Bethel, everyone who opened their door said they were for him.

"You've got my vote," said Debbie Fairbanks, who along with her husband, Grant, runs Brown Slough Bed and Breakfast. "The thing that bothers me the most is this Legislature did not act. … Something drastic has to be done and we need someone to do it."

Former Bethel City Council member Chuck Herman, a Fansler supporter, wrote in a piece posted on Facebook that Herron "is a legislator who crossed the aisle and never came back. This is the record of a far-right Republican."

Honey badger award

Earlier this year, Herron was among a small group of legislators called out on Casey Reynolds's Midnight Sun political blog for their travel spending.

"Some Legislators Spend A lot Of Our Money….On Themselves," the headline said. Reynolds handed out "honey badger" awards — after the viral YouTube video about an animal that just doesn't care — to top spenders. Herron, with $33,616 in travel spending last year, got second place for 2015 and first for his state-funded travel over five years, which topped $193,000.

Bush legislators often rack up big travel bills, Herron noted. Every trip to Anchorage for a meeting is $500 or so.

Last year, he said, he went to Canada, Montana and Washington, D.C., for his work with Pacific NorthWest Economic Region, a nonprofit that works to better the lives of residents of five states and five Canadian provinces. The group, created under Canadian and U.S. federal laws, works on border-crossing criteria, railroads, big mines and other issues spanning national boundaries. He serves in its Arctic caucus.

"I didn't go to Paris. I didn't go to Iceland," Herron said.

But the year before, in 2014 he also traveled extensively, including to Finland and Iceland, a trip that cost about $4,000, according to his legislative travel record. That was for his work on the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission, which he considers some of his most important as a legislator. One of his biggest accomplishments, Herron said, was the passage last year of his House Bill 1, which establishes Arctic policy as state law.

The policy says that the state should have a voice in the development of federal and international Arctic plans and underscores the need for emergency response in a remote and challenging environment, among other elements.

What does it do for the people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta?

The Yukon and Kuskokwim river drainages flow into the Bering Sea, tying the region and the state to the Arctic, he said. Climate change with diminishing sea ice and rising sea levels affects life in the region. Underscoring those connections and impacts is important, he said.

As to standard Democrat issues, Fansler and Herron don't differ too much. Both are against using public money for private schools through vouchers. Both are Catholics who struggle with the concept of abortion but say they don't support governmental restrictions.

"I am pro-life but I don't think government should get into people's personal lives," Herron said. A woman should make her own decision after talking with family and "whatever god she believes in."

No Republican is running, so the race for House Seat 38 will be decided in the Aug. 16 primary.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly named the union to which Zach Fansler belongs. It is the Alaska Public Employees Association/American Federation of Teachers, not Alaska Public Employees Association/Alaska Federation of Teachers.