Alaska Republican Party chairman resigns, is replaced by vice chair Ann Brown

Glenn Clary, chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, formally resigned Friday to take a job at Liberty University in Virginia. Under state party rules, he is automatically replaced by the party’s vice chair, Ann Brown of Fairbanks.

The move was expected: Clary told the Daily News in March that he would be moving to Virginia, but he didn’t announce the timing.

In a message to members of the Republican State Central Committee, Clary wrote that he will become vice president of strategic partnerships and alliances at Liberty. That role will entail lobbying federal and state legislators as part of a network of Christian organizations.

Among the priorities for that network, known as the Standing for Freedom Center, is the defeat of federal legislation mandating elections standards and a separate piece of legislation banning discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans.

Clary, a pastor at Anchorage Baptist Temple, will follow longtime Temple leader Jerry Prevo to Liberty. In August 2020, the private evangelical university named Prevo its leader after former president Jerry Falwell Jr. was forced to resign in disgrace.

Brown, a former trial lawyer in Fairbanks, unsuccessfully sought to replace Peter Goldberg in the state’s top Republican Party position in 2016. Tuckerman Babcock was elected chair instead. Babcock resigned the role to become chief of staff to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, making Clary the new chair. Brown was elected vice chair at that time.

Brown said by text message that the governing body of the party between state conventions remains the State Central Committee.

“The job of the party,” she said, “is to raise money and elect Republicans across the state. Our mission for the coming election cycle is to prepare to do just that.”