Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan was the featured guest speaker at the joint Kenai and Soldotna Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Soldotna Sports Complex. There, Sullivan provided a legislative update from Washington D.C. Initially, he was planning to attend in person, however the U.S. Senate was set to vote on the voting rights bill that was passed in the House last week, despite expectations that the bill will fail.
Sullivan said:
“There’s been no senate majority leader ever, as far as I know, who has tried to actually blow up the legislative filibuster. Now, of course, this would provide an immediate benefit to Senator Schumer because he could pass things in the Senate then just along a 51-vote majority, but during the Trump Administration, when the senate Republicans had power, there was calls by some Republicans to get rid of the senate filibuster and we said no. we don’t think it’s a good idea for the long-term interest of the country. From Alaska’s perspective, I don’t think it’s a good idea at all because the filibuster allows states with small populations to have a seat at the table.”
Sullivan spoke on several subjects including voting rights, the COVID-19 pandemic, the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, energy, and an anti-Alaska agenda from the Biden Administration.
Sullivan spoke on the National Defense Authorization Act:
“The president and Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders actually put forward a budget to cut our defense spending. In the defense bill that we just passed in December, we put forward a rebuke to this administration, saying, ‘we don’t want to cut with the national security challenges, we need an increase.’ That passed, even though the president did not want an increase in our military funding. That’s going to be more military buildup in Alaska. It’s going to cement our state as literally the center of gravity for arctic security.”
Arctic security has been an issue that Sullivan has been promoting in Washington D.C. and, in November, the Department of Defense identified Anchorage as the sole candidate city to host the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, the Department of Defense Regional Center for the Arctic.
More information about the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies can be found here.
