Politics

WASILLA, Alaska (AP) — Sarah Palin isn’t used to sharing the spotlight.

In the nearly 14 years since she burst onto the national political scene, the former Alaska governor has appeared on reality television programs, written books, spent time as a Fox News contributor, formed a political action committee in her name and been a rumored White House contender. She more recently revived her status as a conservative sensation with an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against The New York Times.

Now, the first Republican female vice presidential nominee is vying for what could be considered a less glamorous role: a member of the U.S. House.

Palin is among 48 candidates running for Alaska’s lone House seat following the death last month of Republican Rep. Don Young, who held the job for 49 years. If successful, Palin would be one of 435 members in a chamber where ambition runs deep but legislating is tough, in no small part because of the populist politics that took hold in the aftermath of the 2008 election.

Given those dynamics, it would be easy to dismiss Palin’s candidacy as the latest headline-grabbing twist in an unconventional career. Some of her critics have sought to cast her as an opportunist seeking to bolster her brand. The opinion section of the website of Alaska’s largest newspaper is dotted with letters to the editor urging Alaskans to reject her run. Some remind readers she left the last major job she had in politics, as Alaska’s governor, with about 16 months left in her term.

But in a recent interview with The Associated Press, Palin, 58, dismissed such critiques. She insisted her commitment to Alaska has not wavered and those who suggest otherwise “don’t know me.” She said she is serious about seeking the House seat and doesn’t need a “launching pad for anything else.”

In fact, she said, her unique place in American politics would put her in a stronger position in Washington. Unlike other freshmen lawmakers, she said, she could “pick up the phone and call any reporter and be on any show if I wanted to, and it would be all about Alaska.”

“I love to work, and anyone who is around me, they know,” she said. “What I’m doing is applying for a job, for Alaskans, saying: ‘Hey, you guys would be my boss. Do you want to hire me? Because if you do, I’ll do a good job for you, and I won’t back down.’”

There’s only one former governor who is currently a member of the House — Democrat Charlie Crist of Florida. Palin faces several hurdles to get there.

One is navigating elections that will unfold in rapid order. A June 11 special primary will be the first statewide by-mail election. The four candidates who get the most votes will advance to an Aug. 16 special election, in which ranked-choice voting will be used. The winner will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which expires in January.

There also will be an August primary and November general election to determine who will serve a two-year term starting in January. Palin is one of 16 candidates so far to have filed for the regular primary.

Some voters question Palin’s decision to leave the governor’s office, a move she has attributed to an onslaught of records requests and ethics complaints she said were frivolous and had become distractions.

She has spent time out of the state but maintains a home in Wasilla, her hometown and where she got her start in politics.

“Well, I’m sorry if that narrative is out there because it’s inaccurate,” she said of the perception she had left Alaska behind. She said Alaska is her home and that she was “shoveling moose poop” in her father’s yard on a recent sunny day before calling a reporter.

She has regularly voted in state elections since leaving office, according to the Division of Elections.

“I’m still all about Carhartts and steel-toed boots and just hard work,” Palin said, referring to a popular brand of outerwear. “I just have been blessed with opportunities and a platform to get out there and tell and show other people the beauty of being an Alaskan.”

She mentions Alaskans’ hunting lifestyles and the importance of responsibly developing the state’s oil and gas resources. She said she plans to attend events, including this week’s state Republican Party convention.

The contest in Republican-leaning Alaska will do little to change the balance of power in Washington. But the election is being closely watched as a barometer of former President Donald Trump’s connection to the GOP’s most loyal voters.

In Wasilla, Trump 2020 or Trump 2024 banners fly from several homes, the few political signs seen so far this election year. Palin said if Trump runs for president in 2024 and asks her to be his running mate, she’d consider it, though she said he could choose anyone and they haven’t had such a candid conversation.

Palin said Trump was among those who contacted her after Young’s death asking if she would be willing to run. She said this is a good time in her life to seek a return to office, politically and personally. Her family life has changed, she noted, with her four older children grown. Her youngest, Trig, is in middle school. Palin was divorced from Todd Palin, her husband of more than 30 years, in 2020.

Palin said she feels like she has “nothing to lose” in running. After having her political and personal life in the media glare for so long, “what more can they say?” she said, adding later: “To me, it’s freedom.”

Trump has endorsed Palin and has made the state’s senior U.S. senator, Lisa Murkowski, one of his top targets this year after she criticized him and voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial.

Even if Palin doesn’t win the election, she could emerge as a high-wattage critic of Murkowski, who faces voters later this year. Palin said she disagrees with Murkowski on some of her positions, including her vote to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial. But on issues like resource development in Alaska, Palin said she believed they would be “on the same sheet of music.”

Palin has perhaps the highest profile among a list of candidates that includes current and former state legislators, a North Pole city council member whose legal name is Santa Claus, and Republican Nick Begich, who got into the race last fall and has been working for months to rack up conservative support.

Begich said he considers the Matanuska-Susitna region, a conservative hotbed that includes Wasilla, as one of his strongest areas. He said he is unaware of any of his supporters defecting since Palin joined the race.

“Everyone that has come to support me remains fully supportive, and that’s a strong statement because a lot has changed,” he said.

Tim Burney, who lives in Wasilla, said he supports Palin. He said she resigned “for the good of the state” after her detractors “came at her with guns ablazing.”

“She just lives right down the road here, and, you know, she grew up here,” he said while smoking a cigarette outside the Mug-Shot Saloon after finishing lunch on a recent day.

“Her heart’s here in Alaska, and I think that she’s good for Alaska,” he said.

Joe Miller, a former Republican and now Libertarian whom Palin endorsed in two of his unsuccessful Senate races, said Palin would be no ordinary House freshman and would have an “extraordinary” platform she could use to help Alaska. He said she’s the “only anti-establishment, truly conservative” candidate in the race and that she could be the “natural repository” for voter angst over economic and other issues.

Holly Houghton, who works as a pharmacy tech, is willing to hear Palin out. Houghton, who was eating a take-out lunch with her son outside a restaurant in Wasilla recently, said she has mixed feelings about Palin and is also considering Begich.

Houghton said she doesn’t like how Palin has carried herself in her personal life but also thought she was an “excellent” governor.

Houghton said she thinks of the Begich family as Democrats and wants to look more closely at Begich. Begich’s grandfather, Democrat Nick Begich, held the House seat before Young. His uncle Mark was a Democratic U.S. senator and his uncle Tom is the state Senate’s Democratic leader.

Jesse Sumner, a member of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly, said he thinks Begich is a good candidate. Sumner filed to run for the House seat as a joke at the filing deadline, on April Fool’s Day. He later withdrew.

He said he doesn’t see Palin around town much and that Palin’s run seems to be “more like it’s about the Sarah Palin show than about Alaska.”

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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska.

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By Jeff Mason, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration said on Tuesday it would appeal a judge’s ruling ending a mask mandate on airplanes if public health officials deem it necessary to stem the spread of COVID-19.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to whom the administration was deferring, said that it would continue to study whether the mandates were still needed. The mandates apply to planes, trains and other public transportation and, prior to Monday’s ruling, had been due to expire on May 3.

“We will continue to assess the need for a mask requirement in those settings, based on several factors, including the U.S. COVID-19 community levels, risk of circulating and novel variants, and trends in cases and disease severity,” a CDC spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Justice Department said it would appeal Monday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle that the 14-month-old directive was unlawful, if the CDC determined the mandate was needed to protect public health.

The ruling overturned a key presidential effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

“If CDC concludes that a mandatory order remains necessary for the public’s health after that assessment, the Department of Justice will appeal the district court’s decision,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The CDC reiterated that it recommends that people wear masks on public transportation while indoors.

That came hours after Biden, on a trip to New Hampshire, answered a question about whether people should continue to wear masks on planes, by saying, “It’s up to them.”

Monday’s court decision, made in response to a lawsuit filed last year in Tampa, Florida, means the CDC’s public transportation masking order is no longer in effect, a U.S. official said.

It comes as COVID-19 infections are rising in the United States, and more than 400 people are dying daily from the airborne disease, based on the latest seven-day average.

The ruling followed a string of judgments against Biden administration directives to fight the infectious disease that has killed nearly 1 million Americans, including vaccination or COVID testing mandates for employers.

“Public health decisions shouldn’t be made by the courts. They should be made by public health experts,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Shepardson; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis, Heather Timmons and Lincoln Feast)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawsuit seeking to block Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from seeking reelection, alleging she is unfit for office because of her support of rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol, can proceed, a federal judge ruled Monday.

In a legal challenge filed with the Georgia Secretary of State, a group of voters claimed Greene violated a provision of the U.S. Constitution passed after the U.S. Civil War known as the “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause.”

Greene sought a temporary injunction against that lawsuit, arguing it was unlikely to be resolved before Georgia’s primary elections on May 24.

Judge Amy Totenberg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia wrote in a 73-page ruling on the injunction that the court focused on whether Greene could “establish a strong likelihood of prevailing on the merits of her legal claims.”

Greene had failed “to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits,” Totenberg wrote.

Greene has downplayed and justified the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, in which supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, battling with police to gain entry to the building.

The attack followed a fiery speech by Trump near the White House repeated his false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread fraud.

“Jan. 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants,” Greene said during a radio program in October.

She said in a statement earlier this year that she opposes all forms of political violence.

(Reporting by Heather Timmons)

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ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ruled that a group of Georgia voters can proceed with legal efforts seeking to disqualify U.S Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection to Congress, citing her role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The challenge filed last month with the Georgia secretary of state’s office alleges that Greene, a Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. That violates a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection, according to the challenge.

The amendment says no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress . . . to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” Ratified shortly after the Civil War, it was meant in part to keep representatives who had fought for the Confederacy from returning to Congress.

Greene, 47, filed a lawsuit earlier this month asking a judge to declare that the law that the voters are using to challenge her eligibility is itself unconstitutional and to prohibit state officials from enforcing it.

Judge Amy Totenberg, in a 73-page ruling, denied Greene’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.

Totenberg, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by President Barack Obama, wrote that Greene had failed to meet the “burden of persuasion” in her request for injunctive relief.

Georgia law says any voter who is eligible to vote for a candidate may challenge that candidate’s qualifications by filing a written complaint within two weeks after the deadline for qualifying. The secretary of state must then notify the candidate of the challenge and request a hearing before an administrative law judge. After holding a hearing, the administrative law judge presents findings to the secretary of state, who then must determine whether the candidate is qualified.

Free Speech for People, a national election and campaign finance reform group, filed the challenge March 24 on behalf of the group of voters.

Greene said in her lawsuit that she “vigorously denies that she ‘aided and engaged in insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power.”

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