Alaska Politics Blog : How Grussendorf became a Republican

Alaska Politics Blog

This is the place to talk about Alaska politics, state, local, national. Public life in the Last Frontier has rarely been more interesting -- a full slate of federal and state elections, the influence of former Gov. Sarah Palin, the usual hardball Alaska politics. Come here for news, tidbits and information, and join the discussion. We encourage lively debate, but please keep it civil and stay on point. Don't use profanity, make crude comments or attack other posters. Posts that violate the Terms of Use will be deleted. Repeat offenders will lose their ability to post comments.

Contributors

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

Features

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Alaska political corruption

When the FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, it publicly launched an investigation that ultimately reached the highest levels of Alaska politics, and continues to this day.

How Grussendorf became a Republican

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: March 31, 2009 - 7:33 pm

From Sean Cockerham in Juneau –

The nine Democrats in the state Senate expect to hold their vote tomorrow (Wednesday) or Thursday on whether to accept Gov. Sarah Palin’s appointment of Tim Grussendorf to the Senate.

A big issue hanging over Grussendorf among Democrats is that he was a Republican until just weeks ago. Grussendorf said he thought he was undeclared but was mistakenly registered as a Republican in 2006 when he asked the state for an absentee ballot to vote in the Republican primary.

Here’s a copy of the document that led to Grussendorf being registered as a Republican. It is a little hard to read. But it's an absentee ballot envelope and he wrote "Republican" when asked to "write political affiliation choice here."

It’s still not clear if Grussendorf has enough support among the Senate Democrats. There was lots of buzz in the Capitol halls today about Senate President Gary Stevens, a Republican from Kodiak, saying at a Juneau Rotary luncheon that he didn’t think Grussendorf had enough support. Stevens later conceded he said it but stressed he has nothing to do with the process and that Grussendorf could indeed be chosen.