By Delcenia Cosman

Homer Independent Press

A veteran of the Alaska State Legislature, Louise Stutes has served in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years. This election year, she’s running for the Senate’s District C seat in a bid to replace outgoing Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, who announced his retirement last spring. 

Two other Republicans also seek Stevens’ seat: Heath Smith of Homer and Carrie Harris of Anchor Point. Under Alaska’s open primary elections, the top four candidates advance to the general election, so all three will be running in November.

Stutes, a Republican who also lives in Kodiak, currently represents District 5 — including Kodiak, Seward and Cordova — in the House. Senate District C covers Kodiak, the southern Kenai Peninsula and parts of Prince William Sound, including Cordova.

In a follow-up interview after a recent campaign stop in Homer, she said Steven’s retirement, along with her familiarity with the southern Kenai Peninsula and other areas in the district, spurred her decision to campaign for Senate instead of seeking reelection to her House seat.

“I felt like with my experience and my proven record for effectiveness and my ability to get a few things done, and the commonalities between District 5 and District 6, it would be a win-win, so to speak,” she said. 

During her time in the House, Stutes worked on several issues key to coastal communities, including legislation supporting commercial fisheries and protecting funding for the Alaska Marine Highway System. She said she intends to continue that work if elected to the Senate and will also work to establish a comprehensive fiscal plan that will bolster the annual budget, fund education and improve the state retirement system.

While Stutes campaigns on her own legislative history and reputation, recent discovery of past campaign finance violations may cast a pall over her Senate aspirations. According to reporting last week from the Anchorage Daily News, Stutes signed an agreement with the Alaska Public Offices Commission to pay more than $2,000 in civil penalties and repay nearly $14,000 to her campaign account after APOC found she violated numerous state campaign finance reporting requirements across three legislative campaign cycles in 2020, 2022 and 2024.

Among the violations, APOC found that Stutes failed to properly describe expenditures, improperly reimbursed herself for campaign expenses, used campaign funds for legislative business and filed incomplete campaign finance reports.

Stutes acknowledged the violations in a letter written to APOC in December, after a former Alaska GOP chairman filed the complaint against Stutes last fall. She wrote that the reporting violations were unintentional mistakes “due to insufficient awareness of various laws governing campaign finance disclosure.” APOC recognized Stutes’ full cooperation with the investigation and resolution of the matter in the consent agreement that was finalized Aug. 3. 

Stutes told the Homer Independent Press on Tuesday she didn’t have any qualms about APOC’s investigation and didn’t think its findings would impact her campaign.

“I’m not the only legislator that’s ever had an APOC fine. You learn from it, and you move on,” she said. “I think the bottom line is whether or not I have been successful in representing my district … reasonably and fairly and with good intent. I believe I’ve done that.”

In recent years, Stutes has helped pass legislation allowing commercial fishermen to form Alaska-based insurance cooperatives and establishing an electronic monitoring program for trawl fisheries that occur in state waters. Last month she also secured unanimous approval from the bicameral Legislative Audit and Budget Committee for the state to audit the Alaska Board of Fisheries’s past three years of process and legal compliance. 

While Stutes’ legislative record emphasizes her work on fisheries and the marine highway system, she said those areas aren’t her only focus. 

For Stutes, crafting a sustainable fiscal plan includes implementing a statutory Permanent Fund Dividend revision, oil and gas tax reform and closing the S corporation loophole that allows pass-through entities and large S corporations like Hilcorp to avoid paying state corporate income tax. She said both the tax reform and closing the loophole would bring in “significant” new revenue, as would pursuing opportunities in fisheries, mariculture, tourism, oil and gas, and mining industries.

Increasing revenue and revising the statutory PFD formula would support essential services, consistent PFD payments and infrastructure improvements. Revising the formula would also eliminate the annual argument in the Legislature over whether or not the state can afford to pay out a full PFD, she said. 

“The reason we must revise the current PFD statute is not only that we cannot pay our other bills like education, the Alaska Marine Highway System, road maintenance, snow plowing, etc. under that formula, but it also jeopardizes the PFD itself,” she said. “If we were to pay out a full PFD each year starting next year, the resulting overdraw to the (Earning Reserve Account) would result in it being depleted by as soon as (fiscal year) 2030, leaving us no ability to pay a PFD at all.”

Stutes said she also believes the state should forward fund education — fund the base student allocation, which is per-student funding provided to schools by the state, for the next academic year — to relieve the pressure school districts face each year when balancing their budgets.

“It doesn’t cost the state any extra money, but if we forward fund it, it gives the schools a little stability, and it stops pink slips,” she said. 

She also supports improving the state retirement system as a retention incentive for public employees, including teachers.

Learn more about Stutes’ platform on her campaign website.