Alaska Senate
The Alaska Senate is the upper house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U. S. state of Alaska. It convenes in the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau, Alaska and is responsible for making laws and confirming or rejecting gubernatorial appointments to the state cabinet and boards. With just twenty members, the Alaska Senate is the smallest state upper house legislative chamber in the United States, its members serve four-year terms and each represent an equal number of districts with populations of 35,512 people, per 2010 Census figures. They are not subject to term limits; the Alaska Senate shares the responsibility for making laws in the state of Alaska. Bills are developed by staff from information from the bill's sponsor. Bills undergo four readings during the legislative process. After the first reading, they are assigned to committee. Committees can hold legislation and prevent it from reaching the Senate floor. Once a committee has weighed in on a piece of legislation, the bill returns to the floor for second hearing and a third hearing, which happens just before the floor vote on it.
Once passed by the Senate, a bill is sent to the opposite legislative house for consideration. If approved, without amendment, it is sent to the governor. If there is amendment, the Senate may either reconsider the bill with amendments or ask for the establishment of a conference committee to work out differences in the versions of the bill passed by each chamber. Once a piece of legislation approved by both houses is forwarded to the governor, it may either be signed or vetoed. If it is signed, it takes effect on the effective date of the legislation. If it is vetoed, lawmakers in a joint session may override the veto with a two-thirds majority vote; the Alaska Senate has the sole responsibility in the state's legislative branch for confirming gubernatorial appointees to positions that require confirmation. Current committees include: Past partisan compositions can be found on Political party strength in Alaska. Senators must be a qualified voter and resident of Alaska for no less than three years, a resident of the district from which elected for one year preceding filing for office.
A senator must be at least 25 years old at the time. Senators may expel a member with the concurrence of two-thirds of the membership of the body; this has happened only once in Senate history. On February 5, 1982, the Senate of the 12th Legislature expelled Bethel senator George Hohman from the body. Hohman was convicted of bribery in conjunction with his legislative duties on December 24, 1981, had defiantly refused to resign from his seat. Expulsion was not a consideration during the 2003–2010 Alaska political corruption probe, as Ben Stevens and John Cowdery were the only Senators who were subjects of the probe and neither sought reelection in 2008. Legislative terms begin on the second Monday in January following a presidential election year and on the third Tuesday in January following a gubernatorial election; the term of senators is four years and half of the senators are up for election every two years. The President of the Senate presides over the body, appointing members to all of the Senate's committees and joint committees, may create other committees and subcommittees if desired.
Unlike many other states, the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska does not preside over the Senate. Instead, the Lieutenant Governor oversees the Alaska Division of Elections, fulfilling the role of Secretary of State. Only two other states and Utah, have similar constitutional arrangements for their lieutenant governors; the other partisan Senate leadership positions, such as the Majority and Minority leaders, are elected by their respective party caucuses to head their parties in the chamber. ↑: Senator was appointed^a: Caucuses with the Republican-led majority Alaska House of Representatives Alaska State Capitol List of Alaska State Legislatures Alaska State Senate official government website Project Vote Smart – State Senate of Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is a U. S. state in the northwest extremity of North America, just across the Bering Strait from Asia. The Canadian province of British Columbia and territory of Yukon border the state to the east and southeast, its most extreme western part is Attu Island, it has a maritime border with Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas—southern parts of the Arctic Ocean; the Pacific Ocean lies to southwest. It is the largest U. S. state by the seventh largest subnational division in the world. In addition, it is the most sparsely populated of the 50 United States. Half of Alaska's residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska's economy is dominated by the fishing, natural gas, oil industries, resources which it has in abundance. Military bases and tourism are a significant part of the economy; the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for 7.2 million U. S. dollars at two cents per acre. The area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11, 1912.
It was admitted as the 49th state of the U. S. on January 3, 1959. The name "Alaska" was introduced in the Russian colonial period when it was used to refer to the Alaska Peninsula, it was derived from an Aleut-language idiom. It means object to which the action of the sea is directed. Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States and has the most easterly longitude in the United States because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere. Alaska is the only non-contiguous U. S. state on continental North America. It is technically part of the continental U. S. but is sometimes not included in colloquial use. S. called "the Lower 48". The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system; the state is bordered by Yukon and British Columbia in Canada, to the east, the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south and southwest, the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, Chukchi Sea to the west and the Arctic Ocean to the north.
Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only 3 miles apart. Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U. S. states combined. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by total area at 663,268 square miles, over twice the size of Texas, the next largest state. Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries. Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the combined area of the next three largest states: Texas and Montana, it is larger than the combined area of the 22 smallest U. S. states. There are no defined borders demarcating the various regions of Alaska, but there are six accepted regions: The most populous region of Alaska, containing Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and the Kenai Peninsula. Rural unpopulated areas south of the Alaska Range and west of the Wrangell Mountains fall within the definition of South Central, as do the Prince William Sound area and the communities of Cordova and Valdez.
Referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the rest of the United States. As such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase; the region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States. It contains the state capital Juneau, the former capital Sitka, Ketchikan, at one time Alaska's largest city; the Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital surface transportation link throughout the area, as only three communities enjoy direct connections to the contiguous North American road system. Designated in 1963; the Interior is the largest region of Alaska. Fairbanks is the only large city in the region. Denali National Park and Preserve is located here. Denali is the highest mountain in North America. Southwest Alaska is a sparsely inhabited region stretching some 500 miles inland from the Bering Sea. Most of the population lives along the coast.
Kodiak Island is located in Southwest. The massive Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest river deltas in the world, is here. Portions of the Alaska Peninsula are considered part of Southwest, with the remaining portions included with the Aleutian Islands; the North Slope is tundra peppered with small villages. The area is known for its massive reserves of crude oil, contains both the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field; the city of Utqiagvik known as Barrow, is the northernmost city in the United States and is located here. The Northwest Arctic area, anchored by Kotzebue and containing the Kobuk River valley, is regarded as being part of this region. However, the respective Inupiat of the No
Per capita income
Per capita income or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita income is national income divided by population size. Per capita income is used to measure an area's average income and compare the wealth of different populations. Per capita income is used to measure a country's standard of living, it is expressed in terms of a used international currency such as the euro or United States dollar, is useful because it is known, is calculable from available gross domestic product and population estimates, produces a useful statistic for comparison of wealth between sovereign territories. This helps to ascertain a country's development status, it is one of the three measures for calculating the Human Development Index of a country. In the United States, it is defined by the U. S. Census Bureau as the following: "Per capita income is the mean money income received in the past 12 months computed for every man and child in a geographic area."
Critics claim that per capita income has several weaknesses in measuring prosperity: Comparisons of per capita income over time need to consider inflation. Without adjusting for inflation, figures tend to overstate the effects of economic growth. International comparisons can be distorted by cost of living differences not reflected in exchange rates. Where the objective is to compare living standards between countries, adjusting for differences in purchasing power parity will more reflect what people are able to buy with their money, it does not reflect income distribution. If a country's income distribution is skewed, a small wealthy class can increase per capita income while the majority of the population has no change in income. In this respect, median income is more useful when measuring of prosperity than per capita income, as it is less influenced by outliers. Non-monetary activity, such as barter or services provided within the family, is not counted; the importance of these services varies among economies.
Per capita income does not consider whether income is invested in factors to improve the area's development, such as health, education, or infrastructure. List of countries by average wage List of countries by GDP per capita—GDP at market or government official exchange rates per inhabitant List of countries by GDP per capita—GDP calculated at purchasing power parity exchange per inhabitant List of countries by GNI per capita List of countries by GNI per capita List of countries by income equality Total personal income
David Eastman (politician)
David Eastman is a Republican member of the Alaska House of Representatives, serving the 10th district. He has served since January 17, 2017, he was elected to office on November 2016, with 73.98 % of the vote. Named 2010 Alaska State Volunteer of the Year by First Lady Sandy Parnell for volunteer work with children and families. Selected in April 2012 by Republicans in House District 13 as their first choice to fill the House Seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Carl Gatto. Selected as one of 15 aspiring conservative policy leaders nationally in 2010-2011 to join Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell in being named an Abraham Lincoln Fellow by the Claremont Institute for Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, he was removed from his position on the ethics committee after it was found that he violated ethics law. He denied the allegations. David Eastman, at 15, was the youngest delegate at the RNC in 1996 because “they liked my essay about how awesome Bob Dole was,” Eastman was a Tea Party activist and is considered right-wing.
He ran to the right of a conservative candidate in his 2016 election as member of the Alaska House of Representatives. Eastman is an ardent Trump supporter, was involved early in the Trump candidacy. Eastman is against abortion in all forms, he once tried to add a right-to-life amendment to a non-controversial resolution in 2017 that designated April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, filed a complaint when the committee wouldn't consider his amendment. In April 2017, Rep. David Eastman voted against a bill in Alaska to honor Hmong veterans and the more than 100,000 Hmong people who died in the Vietnam War supporting the United States, he voted against a bill honoring black soldiers who worked on the Alaska Highway. His reasoning is. In May 2017, Eastman was involved in a controversy regarding his remarks suggesting that native Alaskan women in villages try to get pregnant on purpose to get a "free trip to the city" for abortion, he claims there are too many incentives to get an abortion and said, "We have folks who try to get pregnant in this state so that they can get a free trip to the city, we have folks who want to carry their baby past the point of being able to have an abortion in this state so that they can have a free trip to Seattle."
The Alaska House of Representatives voted to censure Eastman because of his remarks. Profile at Vote Smart
Alaska Range
The Alaska Range is a narrow, 650-km-long mountain range in the southcentral region of the U. S. state of Alaska, from Lake Clark at its southwest end to the White River in Canada's Yukon Territory in the southeast. The highest mountain in North America, Denali, is in the Alaska Range, it is part of the American Cordillera. The range is the highest in the world outside Asia and the Andes; the range forms a east-west arc with its northernmost part in the center, from there trending southwest towards the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutians, trending southeast into the Pacific Coast Ranges. The mountains act as a high barrier to the flow of moist air from the Gulf of Alaska northwards, thus has some of the harshest weather in the world; the heavy snowfall contributes to a number of large glaciers, including the Canwell, Black Rapids, Yanert, Eldridge, Ruth and Kahiltna Glaciers. Four major rivers cross the Range, including the Delta River, Nenana River in the center of the range and the Nabesna and Chisana Rivers to the east.
The range is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Denali Fault that runs along the southern edge of the range is responsible for a number of earthquakes. Mount Spurr is a stratovolcano located in the northeastern end of the Aleutian Volcanic Arc of Alaska, USA which has two vents, the summit and nearby Crater Peak. Parts of the range are protected within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Denali National Park and Preserve, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve; the George Parks Highway from Anchorage to Fairbanks, the Richardson Highway from Valdez to Fairbanks, the Tok Cut-Off from Gulkana Junction to Tok, Alaska pass through low parts of the range. The Alaska Pipeline parallels the Richardson Highway; the name "Alaskan Range" appears to have been first applied to these mountains in 1869 by naturalist W. H. Dall; the name became "Alaska Range" through local use. In 1849 Constantin Grewingk applied the name "Tschigmit" to this mountain range. A map made by the General Land Office in 1869 calls the southwestern part of the Alaska Range the "Chigmit Mountains" and the northeastern part the "Beaver Mountains".
However the Chigmit Mountains are now considered part of the Aleutian Range. Denali Mount Foraker Mount Hunter Mount Hayes Mount Silverthrone Mount Moffit Mount Deborah Mount Huntington Mount Brooks Mount Russell Neacola Mountains Revelation Mountains Teocalli Mountains Kichatna Mountains Central Alaska Range/Denali Massif Eastern Alaska Range/Hayes Range Delta Mountains Mentasta Mountains Nutzotin Mountains Mentasta Lake to Kitchatna Mountains: Scott Woolums, George Beilstein, Steve Eck, Larry Coxen by skis: first traverse. 375 miles in 45 days. Canada to Lake Clark: Roman Dial, Carl Tobin, Paul Adkins by mountain bike and packraft: first full length traverse. 775 miles in 42 days. Tok to Lake Clark: Kevin Armstrong, Doug Woody, Jeff Ottmers by snowshoe and packraft: first foot traverse. 620 miles in 90 days. Lake Clark to Mentasta Lake: Gavin McClurg by paraglider and foot: first vol-biv traverse. 466 miles in 37 days. Summit Lake, Alaska Churkin, M. Jr. and C. Carter.. Stratigraphy and graptolites of an Ordovician and Silurian sequence in the Terra Cotta Mountains, Alaska Range, Alaska.
Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey
Palmer, Alaska
Palmer is a city in and the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the U. S. state of Alaska. It is part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area; as of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 5,937. The first people to live in the Matanuska Valley, where Palmer is located, were the Dena'ina and Ahtna Athabaskans, they moved throughout the area, trading with other native groups. Their trade routes were along the Matanuska River. Russians came to Alaska in 1741 and brought the Russian Orthodox religious tradition to the indigenous peoples of the region. In the early 1890s, an entrepreneur named George W. Palmer built a trading post on the Matanuska River, near present-day Palmer; the town was named after Palmer. In the late 19th century, the U. S. government began to take interest in the Matanuska coal fields located north of Palmer. This interest sparked financiers to consider constructing the Alaska Central Railroad in 1904; the advent of World War I created a need for high quality coal to fuel U.
S. battleships, by 1917 the US Navy had constructed rail from the port of Seward to the Chickaloon coal deposits. At the end of World War I, the U. S. Navy distributed land in the coal fields to war veterans and additional land was opened to homesteading. Farmers and homesteaders began to populate the area; the Palmer Post Office was opened July 1917 under the name of Warton. With railroad accessibility, new markets for agriculture began to open up for farmers in the Matanuska Valley. In one year, Palmer transformed from a mere whistle stop rail siding to a planned community with modern utilities and community services. Eleven million dollars from Federal Emergency Relief Administration was spent to create the town of Palmer and relocate 203 families from the hard hit Iron Range region of Michigan and Wisconsin. Families traveled by train and ship to Palmer, arriving in May 1935. Upon their arrival they were housed in a tent city during their first Alaskan summer; each family drew lots for 40-acre tracts and their farming adventure began in earnest.
The failure rate was high, but many of their descendants still live in the area and there are still many operating farms in the Palmer area, including the Vanderwheele and Wolverine farms. In 1971, the National Outdoor Leadership School started operating wilderness education courses in the nearby Talkeetna and Chugach mountain ranges from a local historic farmhouse, the Berry House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to an agrarian heritage, the colony families brought with them Midwest America's small-town values, institutional structures, a well-planned city center reminiscent of their old hometowns in Minnesota. Many of the structures built are now in a nationally recognized historic district. Construction of the statewide road system and the rapid development of Anchorage has fueled growth around Palmer. Many Palmer residents commute 45 minutes to work in Anchorage. There is an honorary consulate of the Republic of Latvia at Palmer. Palmer is located at 61°36′7″N 149°7′2″W.
Palmer is 42 miles northeast of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway. It lies on the north shore of the Matanuska River, not far above tidewater, in a wide valley between the Talkeetna Mountains to the north and the Chugach Mountains to the south and east. Pioneer Peak rises over 6,000 feet above the town, just a few miles south. East of Palmer is Lazy Mountain, standing behind, Matanuska Peak. Lazy Mountain, Matanuska Peak, Pioneer Peak are all a part of the Chugach Range. North of Palmer are the Talkeetna Mountains. Hatcher Pass, a local favorite for hiking, is located in this mountain range about 22 mi from Palmer. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.8 square miles, all of it land. Palmer and Wasilla are the two major old-town cores of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Population of the area has grown in the past decade. Palmer has a climate similar to that of Anchorage, although with low temperatures that are on average 1.4 °F cooler and highs 0.8 °F warmer. August is the wettest month both by total precipitation and number of days with precipitation, April is the driest.
On average, over the course of a year, there are 28–29 days of sub-0 °F lows, 22–23 days of 70 °F + highs, 0.8 days of 80 °F + highs. The town straddles the border between USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 4b and 5a, indicating the coldest temperature of the year is around −20 °F. Palmer is flanked by two glaciers, the Matanuska Glacier and the Knik Glacier. Wind blows off of these funnels into the town with terrible consistency. If there is a substantial snowfall, it will sit for several days before most of it is blown away; as of the 2010 United States Census, there were 5,937 people, 1,472 households, 1,058 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,206.3 people per square mile. There were 1,555 housing units at an average density of 413.8 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 80.94% White, 2.05% Black or African American, 8.18% Native American, 1.06% Asian, 0.33% Pacific Islander, 1.15% from other races, 6.29% from two or more races. 3.51% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
14.9% were of German, 10.5% United States or American, 8.9% Irish and 8.7% English ancestry according to Census 2000. There were 1,472 households out of which 47.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.3% were married couples living together, 16.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 28.1% were non-f
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had expanded slavery into U. S. territories. The party subscribed to classical liberalism and took ideological stands that were anti-slavery and pro-economic reform. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president in the history of the United States; the Party was dominant over the Democrats during the Third Party System and Fourth Party System. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party after being rejected by the GOP and ran unsuccessfully as a third-party presidential candidate calling for social reforms. After the 1912 election, many Roosevelt supporters left the Party, the Party underwent an ideological shift to the right; the liberal Republican element in the GOP was overwhelmed by a conservative surge begun by Barry Goldwater in 1964 that continued during the Reagan Era in the 1980s. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the party's core base shifted, with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican in presidential politics and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic.
White voters identified with the Republican Party after the 1960s. Following the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Republican Party made opposition to abortion a key plank of its national party platform and grew its support among evangelicals. By 2000, the Republican Party was aligned with Christian conservatism; the Party's core support since the 1990s comes chiefly from the South, the Great Plains, the Mountain States and rural areas in the North. The 21st century Republican Party ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats' liberal platform and progressive wing; the GOP supports lower taxes, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, gun rights and restrictions on labor unions. The GOP was committed to protectionism and tariffs from its founding until the 1930s when it was based in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, but has grown more supportive of free trade since 1952. In addition to advocating for conservative economic policies, the Republican Party is conservative.
Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by abolitionists, modernizers, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the popular Know Nothing Party. The party grew out of opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission as slave states; the Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement, at which the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party, was held on March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin; the name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. At the 1856 Republican National Convention, the party adopted a national platform emphasizing opposition to the expansion of slavery into U. S. territories. While Republican candidate John C.
Frémont lost the 1856 United States presidential election to James Buchanan, he did win 11 of the 16 northern states. The Republican Party first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of both houses of Congress and its candidate, former congressman Abraham Lincoln, was elected President. In the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. Under Republican congressional leadership, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—which banned slavery in the United States—passed the Senate in 1864 and the House in 1865; the party's success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s. Those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished, was continued to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant, ran Horace Greeley for the presidency; the Stalwart faction defended Grant and the spoils system, whereas the Half-Breeds pushed for reform of the civil service. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was passed in 1883.
The Republican Party supported hard money, high tariffs to promote economic growth, high wages and high profits, generous pensions for Union veterans, the annexation of Hawaii. The Republicans had strong support from pietistic Protestants, but they resisted demands for Prohibition; as the Northern postwar economy boomed with heavy and light industry, mines, fast-growing cities, prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to sustain the fast growth. The GOP was dominant over the Democrats during the Third Party System. However, by 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers; the high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt the party and the Democrats swept to a landslide in the off-year elections defeating McKinley himself. The Democrats elected Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892; the election of William McKinley in 1896 was marked by a resurgence of Republican dominance that lasted until 1932.
McKinley promised that high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the Pa
