Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) Elected 2002, 1st term up Jan. 2007
Born:	Mar. 28, 1933, Seattle, WA
Home:	Fairbanks
Education:	U. of Santa Clara, 1951-53, Seattle U., B.A. 1955
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Nancy)
Elected  Office:	U.S. Senate, 1980-02.
Military Career:	Coast Guard, 1955-56.
Professional Career:	Pacific Natl. Bank of Seattle, 1957-58; Natl. Bank of AK, 1959-67; Commissioner, AK Dept. of Econ. Devel., 1966-70; Pres., AK Natl. Bank of the North, 1971-80.
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Frank Murkowski, elected governor in 2002, grew up in Seattle and Ketchikan, the logging town in the Panhandle, where his father was a banker. He went to college in California and Seattle, served in the Coast Guard, worked in a Seattle bank, then returned to Alaska while it was still a territory. He worked for a bank in Wrangell and Anchorage, then at 32 was appointed Commissioner of Economic Development by Governor Walter Hickel. He ran for Congress and lost 55%-45% to incumbent Democrat Nick Begich in 1970, then was president of a bank in Fairbanks for 9 years. In 1980, he ran for the Senate and won a six-candidate primary with 59% of the vote. Meanwhile, in the Democratic primary, incumbent Mike Gravel was beaten by liberal Clark Gruening, grandson of one of Alaska's first two senators. Murkowski campaigned against environmental restriction groups and called Gruening a "no growther"--not a popular position: Jimmy Carter, who signed the Alaska Lands Act that year, got only 26% of Alaskans' votes. Murkowski won 54%-46%.

In the Senate, Murkowski won a seat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which he chaired from 1995 to June 2001. In 1991, he helped secure a ban on drift net fishing in international waters and the lifting of the ban on exports of Alaska oil in 1995. Usually he worked in tandem with senior colleague Ted Stevens, though they differed on a few issues--commercial fishing in Glacier Bay National Park and subsistence hunting and fishing.

Murkowski's great frustrations came on issues involving opposite ends of Alaska--logging in the Tongass National Forest and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Murkowski opposed Clinton administration attempts to stamp out logging in the Tongass, but the amount of timber taken there declined 75% in the 1990s. He managed to get enough logging for one sawmill in Ketchikan, and more logging was allowed by the Bush administration. Clinton vetoed a bill allowing ANWR drilling in 1995, and Murkowski's attempts to pass it as part of an energy bill in 2001 and 2002 were unsuccessful. In April 2002, he was able to get only 46 votes to stop the filibuster threatened by several Democrats, far short of the needed 60; Murkowski and Stevens said that they would have had 51 votes for passage had it come to the floor. A ploy to win votes by using some of the revenues for health benefits for retired steel workers fell even farther short. Murkowski proved more successful getting into the energy bill tax credits estimated at $20 billion for a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope (where the gas brought up now is pumped back into the ground) to Fairbanks and then east through Canada to the Lower 48. But despite Murkowski's yeoman efforts, the energy bill did not pass in the 107th Congress.

Murkowski was reelected to the Senate in 1998 by 74%-20%. There is little doubt that he could have won reelection in 2004. But he evidently found his Senate career frustrating. He had devoted thousands of hours to the ANWR and Tongass issues, with little success. Democrats had a Senate majority in 2001, when he was making his decision to run for governor, so he was no longer a chairman, and term limits would have forced him out of either the ranking position or the Energy chairmanship in January 2003; on Finance, his other major committee, he ranked behind Charles Grassley and Orrin Hatch and figured he wouldn't have a shot at that chair for eight more years, when he would be 77. He had seriously considered running against Democratic Governor Tony Knowles in 1998, and in 2002 Knowles was prevented from running by term limits. So in October 2001, by a press release from his Senate office, he ran for governor.

Knowles, who was mayor of Anchorage from 1982-87, ran for governor unsuccessfully in 1990, was elected by a 536-vote margin in 1994 and was reelected with 51% of the vote in 1998 against a besmirched Republican nominee and a conservative Republican write-in supported by the Republican party. Throughout his two terms he clashed repeatedly with the conservative Republican legislature, and in much of his term, especially at the end, was faced with serious fiscal problems. Alaska gets 80% of its state revenues from royalties on oil, and Prudhoe Bay production is running at about half the levels of the mid-1980s. As oil prices fell, the state faced unpalatable choices: Cut spending on services, institute a state income or sales tax or spend some of the income of the Permanent Fund, thereby reducing Alaskans' annual dividends. The voters strongly rejected the third alternative, 83%-17%, in a September 1999 referendum, and were obviously hostile to the second. So the legislature imposed stringent cuts and the budget was balanced by drawing on the Constitutional Budget Reserve. In April 2002, the state budget was facing an $865 million shortfall; by Election Day, it was routinely described as $1 billion. It was widely predicted that the $2.1 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve would be drawn down to zero during the next governor's four-year term.

The race quickly boiled down to a contest between Murkowski and Democratic Lieutenant Governor Fran Ulmer. Several Republicans who had been considering running for governor ran for lieutenant governor instead; Murkowski ended up defeating Anchorage lawyer Wayne Ross 70%-26%. Ulmer had a career in Alaska politics almost as long as Murkowski's. She moved from Wisconsin to Juneau in the early 1970s and, while still in her 20s, was a policy adviser to Governor Jay Hammond, in the years when he established the Permanent Fund. She was Mayor of Juneau from 1983-85, won election to the state House in 1986 and, as a two-term lieutenant governor, worked closely with Knowles.

Murkowski and Ulmer took diametrically opposed positions on Alaska's future. Murkowski said that Alaska should look to greater production of oil and natural gas for economic growth. Ulmer said the state should try to diversify its economy. Murkowski opposed new taxes and talked about cutting spending in some areas. Ulmer called for caps on spending, plus a "parachute plan" to institute a statewide tax when the Constitutional Budget Reserve fell below $1 billion. "My commitment is to protect the dividend, control spending and get this state moving," Murkowski said; he counseled against "gloom and doom" about the $1 billion shortfall. He called for building roads and other transportation infrastructure--roads from Skagway to Juneau, along the Bradfield Canal near Wrangell, from Anchorage to Bristol Bay, to Cordova, from King Cove to Cold Bay and to remote mining prospect towns like Donlin Creek and Pogo, plus a bridge over Knik Arm near Anchorage and an Alaska-Canada Railroad. Ulmer questioned how Murkowski could pay for these projects and said his approach to the budget was "don't worry, be happy."

Jay Hammond, though a Republican, cut spots for Ulmer in which he charged that Murkowski's reliance on unproven oil and gas revenues would leave state government with no choice but to take money from the Permanent Fund dividend. Murkowski countered that Ulmer had sponsored two amendments to use Permanent Fund earnings for ongoing state government. Commentators chided both for lack of specificity: Murkowski for not saying how much he'd cut and where he would get needed revenue, and Ulmer for not saying what kind of tax would be triggered in her parachute plan. They did agree on some things: Both opposed moving the legislature from Juneau and both promised not to tap the Permanent Fund without a referendum. Through ads, they attacked each other. Murkowski showed Ulmer gleefully casting Alaska's votes for Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention; Ulmer chided Murkowski for giving up 22 years of seniority in the Senate.

Polls showed a close race, but Murkowski won by a solid 56%-41% margin. The margin was just about the same in greater Anchorage, which cast 39% of the state's votes (55%-42%), although Anchorage used to be the state's Republican stronghold. Now, the greatest Republican strength is in fast-growing areas around Anchorage--the Kenai Peninsula and Valdez (65%-31% Murkowski) and the Matanuska Valley (68%-28%), where voters have a strong libertarian, anti-tax streak. Greater Fairbanks also went for the Republican (57%-39%), and he carried the Kodiak-Bristol Bay area (54%-43%). The Bush, as usual, was heavily Democratic (66%-29% Ulmer), but in the formerly Democratic Panhandle the race was even (49%-49%). Murkowski's big margin in Ketchikan neutralized Ulmer's big margin in Juneau. In a race in which issues of taxation and the direction of the economy were squarely posed, Alaska's Republican sentiments prevailed. Ulmer won more than 50% of the vote in only 7 of the state's 40 state House districts (two around Juneau, two in central Anchorage and three in the Bush), while Murkowski won more than 50% in 27.

Murkowski took office December 2; under a law passed by the legislature over Knowles's veto, he was permitted to appoint his successor in the Senate--on December 20, he chose his daughter, Lisa.

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Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2002 general	Frank Murkowski (R)	129,279	56%
	Fran Ulmer (D)	94,216	41%
	Other	7,989	3%
2002 primary	Frank Murkowski (R)	50,838	70%
	Wayne Ross (R)	18,852	26%
	Other	2,558	4%
1998 general	Tony Knowles (D)	112,879	51%
	Robin Taylor (write-in)	43,571	20%
	John Lindauer (R)	39,331	18%
	Ray Metcalfe (RP)	13,540	6%
	Other	10,856	5%