Attendance has become the top campaign issue in a key Anchorage state House district

The state House race in Anchorage’s Sand Lake neighborhood is one of a few that could decide who controls the Alaska House of Representatives for the next two years.

But if you look at campaign ads in the district, the biggest issue in the race isn’t the Permanent Fund dividend, school funding or the state budget — it’s about the attendance of Rep. Sara Rasmussen, the Republican incumbent.

Rasmussen missed 168 of 481 votes in the 31st Alaska Legislature, the second-highest total of any lawmaker. More than 100 of the missed votes, including passage of the state budget, took place in March this year.

Rasmussen’s independent challenger, Stephen Trimble, has criticized Rasmussen for those missed votes. So have third-party groups supporting Trimble’s campaign.

“This is the only issue. They’re sending out mailers and pushing videos into my district right now,” Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen calls their approach a smear campaign that misses important context: She was prevented from returning to the Capitol because of quarantine rules added after she left Juneau to attend her great-grandfather’s 100th birthday.

Attendance as a campaign issue

“I decided to run for state House when I saw that my current representative wasn’t showing up for Alaska,” Trimble said in a Sept. 2 video that launched his campaign.

Rasmussen issued a response two weeks later.

“I was barred from the Capitol because of COVID restrictions,” she said, explaining that the video would be “the only time I’m going to talk about my opponent’s purposeful and dishonest smear campaign.”

But Trimble has continued to campaign on the issue, and Rasmussen has had to address it as she goes door to door. A Democratic campaign group has spent heavily on ads that feature it. One online ad says, “This November, let’s elect someone who will actually show up and take care of business.”

Attendance has been a key issue in at least one other race. Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, was defeated in the Republican primary after local party officials endorsed his challenger. They said Neuman’s absences, caused by health problems, had become a liability.

‘Not in a normal world’

It’s common for legislators to leave the Capitol during the Legislative session to visit their districts, take care of family, or deal with medical issues. When Rasmussen left Juneau on March 11, she had already missed about 60 votes, more than three-quarters of the House’s 40 members.

On the day she left for a six-day family trip, Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared a statewide public health disaster.

Two days later, members of the House and Senate agreed to limit access to the state Capitol as a public health precaution. Lawmakers who traveled Outside were asked to quarantine themselves away from the Capitol for one week after returning.

While some lawmakers had left Juneau for weekend trips to their home districts, Rasmussen was the only lawmaker outside of the state at that time. Rep. Sharon Jackson, R-Eagle River, had returned to the state before the quarantine rules became effective.

On the day that Rasmussen posted a picture of herself in St. George, Utah, the Legislature extended the quarantine to two weeks.

“We’re not in a normal world. It’s turned upside-down," Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said at the time.

After the Legislature’s action, Rasmussen asked for a legal opinion. Legislative attorney Marie Marx said it wasn’t clear whether Rasmussen could be forced to stay away.

In the end, she decided to quarantine for two weeks at home after returning to Anchorage on March 17.

“I appreciate that she’s going to observe that, and she’s really torn up," House Minority Leader Lance Pruitt, R-Anchorage, said at the time.

‘I don’t think anybody could have seen it coming'

Rasmussen didn’t exit quarantine until April 1. By then, the Legislature had passed the state budget, authorized a statewide COVID-19 emergency, and quit Juneau until May, setting a speed record for budgetary work.

At the time Rasmussen left, did anyone know the quarantine rule was coming?

“The short answer on that is no,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage.

“I don’t think anybody could have seen it coming that early on in March,” said House Majority Leader Steve Thompson, R-Fairbanks.

While no one knew a quarantine rule would come, Kopp said after the initial publication of this story that there was “a sense of imminence” that one could come.

“It was understood by every legislator and every staff member was that the situation was evolving dramatically,” he said.

Rasmussen said on Friday that the problem she faced is one that other lawmakers will deal with in 2021.

“The pandemic isn’t over. We need to find ways that we can use technology to still be able to conduct policy for our state,” she said.

With the benefit of hindsight, would she have still gone on the trip?

“I think that everything is always different when we can see outcomes that weren’t expected,” she said. “I didn’t expect a shutdown at the levels we saw. We learned a lot about the virus in a short period of time, and information was changing sometimes hourly. I would never want to miss the ability to vote for two weeks. It’s a commitment I take very seriously.”