David Eastman: Rep. Andrew Gray has weaponized Alaska law against political opponents

Photo: Rep. Andrew Gray and Democrat caucus friends in the Legislature.

By DAVID EASTMAN

Sept. 5, 2026 – On Tuesday, the Chairman of the Alaska House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Andrew Gray (D-Anchorage), outed himself once again as a pawn of the left by publicly attacking former attorney general Treg Taylor and his wife. I served on the House Judiciary with Andrew. In fact, Andrew Gray and I sat next to one another.

For those unfamiliar, Andrew is the Planned Parenthood-endorsed Democrat who once went on the house floor and repeatedly extolled the virtues of PornHub, the same PornHub that last week agreed to pay $120 million for profiting from sex trafficking and child pornography—that Andrew Gray.

In a letter to Attorney General Cori Mills that Rep. Gray distributed to the press, Gray used his position as committee chairman to engage in electioneering (itself a violation of state law) by formally declaring that Treg Taylor and his wife have committed crimes and need to be brought to justice. He begins and ends the letter by requesting that they both be prosecuted. The penalty would involve removal from public office and a fine, or jail time, or both.

Aside from the obvious attempt to disparage a current Republican candidate for governor and their spouse, the letter actually invites an overt politically motivated prosecution from either the current administration or the one elected in November. Gray is supporting the Democrat candidate for governor. Let that sink in.

To trust a Marxist with political power is to trust them to abuse that power, and Andrew Gray’s abuse of political power is textbook. In his letter on Tuesday, Gray wants the former attorney general and his wife to be looking at jail time over the fact that they did not publicly name each of the more than 200 tenants in the apartments that they own together. This would be a weaponization of Alaska’s financial disclosure laws against conservatives to a degree that no Democrat politician has ever dared to advocate for in public. Of course, in the world of Andrew Gray, these financial disclosure laws are only to be followed when doing so furthers the left. When it doesn’t further the left, these same laws are to be completely ignored.

Democrat lawmaker asks Alaska Department of Law to prosecute Treg and Jodi Taylor over financial disclosures

Treg Taylor and his wife both submitted their financial disclosures this year. A quick online search will show you that Taylor has submitted his financial disclosure every year since 2019. Members of the Legislative Ethics Committee are also required by state law to submit the same financial disclosure that Treg and his wife submitted. The chief justice appoints members of the public to the Ethics Committee, the House Judiciary Committee then holds confirmation hearings, and the full House of Representatives ultimately votes on whether or not to confirm their appointment.

Two years ago, we had a member appointed to the Ethics Committee, Rachel Kelly, who refused to submit her financial disclosure as required by law. This is especially notable since members of the Ethics Committee are the very ones responsible for enforcing Alaska’s financial disclosure laws on legislators.

Rachel Kelly was appointed on January 19th. She did not file a disclosure. Her confirmation hearing in the House Judiciary Committee took place on March 8th. At the time of her confirmation hearing she still had not filed her financials. In fact, the same online search that shows that Treg Taylor filed his disclosure will confirm that Rachel Kelly refused and never filed any portion of her disclosure.

On April 29th, more than 100 days after she was appointed and months after she was legally required to file her financial disclosure, the House of Representatives put her name forward for a vote of the full house. Note: the same statute that Andrew Gray cites in his letter specifically directs legislators to not confirm certain appointees who have not filed their financial disclosures. However, instead of delaying the vote until Kelly had filed her disclosures, the Ethics Committee wanted her on the committee so the vote took place anyway.

Andrew Gray voted, not just once but twice, to confirm Rachel Kelly’s appointment to the Ethics Committee, despite the fact that she had refused for more than 100 days to file any portion of her financial disclosure, and despite the fact that she was seeking appointment to the committee that enforces state financial disclosure laws on every member of the legislative branch of government.

Every single Democrat legislator voted to confirm her despite her steadfast refusal. In a public demonstration of just how hyper-partisan that agency has become, most members of the Ethics Committee voted to confirm her as well. In his request to the attorney general, Gray now wants Jodi Taylor to face jail time for filling out her financial disclosure on time and in its entirety (minus the full last name of her 221 tenants).

In writing his letter as the Judiciary Chairman and circulating it to reporters, Rep. Gray is engaging not just in an abuse of his office, but in electioneering and attempting to weaponize state law and law enforcement against current (and future) conservative candidates. In this, the playbook of the left is once again on public display. A political opponent is a threat to be destroyed, no matter how many laws you have to break to get there.

This is also not the first time Gray has misused state resources to influence this year’s election. In May, he took to the house floor, during an election year, to make a not-so-soft public endorsement of Rep. Jubilee Underwood, during which he found time to both praise her and criticize me (her only opponent in 2024 and again this year). You can find Gray’s speech posted prominently on Jubilee’s Facebook Page.

Let’s call Gray’s letter what it is—a public threat to weaponize financial disclosure laws against conservative candidates from the sitting chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the committee responsible for overseeing Alaska’s judges and all constitutional matters in the legislature. This is where we are at in 2026.

David Eastman is a former Alaska House representative for Wasilla and a current candidate for House.

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