Alex Gimarc: Lisa’s excuse does not pass constitutional muster

By ALEX GIMARC

June 9, 2026 – Lisa Murkowski was one of four Republican senators to vote against the most recent attempt to pass the SAVE America Act last week, election reform for elections with candidates for federal offices (House, Senate and President) on the ballot. The measure failed 48 – 50. As it was offered under budget reconciliation rules, two more votes would have allowed VP Vance to vote in the affirmative, passing it into law.

What possible reason would our Senior US Senator have against making elections more transparent, auditable, and most importantly, trusted?

Lisa’s excuse? She is laying her political future on the line to protect Alaska Native voting rights, a very popular position in Bush Alaska. The ADN published a piece by Lisa Murkowski on Feb 23. She reprised this with a 43-minute speech on the Senate floor a month later. Video of the speech follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtIgp38EMs

What are her concerns? First and most importantly, she believes that the legislation would muck around in the states’ constitutional rights to manage their own election systems, a belief that demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of what the US Constitution actually says.

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

Essentially, if a Congress critter is on the ballot, Congress can make the rules for the election.

She then goes on to point out that SAVE Act requirements of IDs for voting, federal review of state election databases, are simply too hard to do in Alaska. The Bush is too spread out, and the Alaska Native population is simply too far from places they can get Real ID documents.

Think of this as a reprise of GW Bush’s argument in 2000 about the soft bigotry of low expectations, this time with Alaska Natives as the aggrieved minority in need of special care from caring liberals.

Worse, there is no indication that Lisa or any member of her staff ever picked up the phone, called Governor Dunleavy, LtGov Dahlstrom, or anyone else and simply asked if Alaska can do this? How much will it cost? How long will it take? Although she does prattle on a bit about the possible cost, my point remains. As far as I can find, she never even bothered to ask the question. How can she possibly know this would be a problem?

In contrast, the rest of the Alaska Congressional Delegation is not of the opinion that these are any unsolvable potential problems, each voting for the SAVE Act multiple times over the last couple years. They participated in improving the legislation while Lisa was looking for excuses to vote against it.

Lisa has her excuse for another anti-Alaska vote.

It is ironic that she cast this vote a week ago, as government funded homelessness NGOs California were busily rounding up mail-in ballots on skid row in LA, lifting a third place democrat with deep ties to the Los Angeles homeless industrial complex from a 10% deficit on election night to a narrow lead over the weekend, inserting her into the Nov runoff. Election fraud right in front of our very eyes.

Lisa has long claimed that the Jan 6, 2021, riot scared her to death. That protest was based on very real concerns that election irregularities in the Nov 2020 election were sufficient for congress to take a second look at before certifying the election. Congress chose not to do so.

Fast forward nearly six years, and Lisa once again is sitting idly by, twiddling her thumbs, refusing to lift a finger in response to another instance of election fraud. If you actively choose to ignore a problem, consistently refuse to even consider a solution, much less participate in improving a possible solution, you do little more than encourage the problem to fester and grow.

You’re not solving anything, Lisa. Rather, you are actively making a known problem worse. But you have your excuse, such as it is. Congratulations.

The old admonition is to either lead, follow or get out of the way. Lisa is certainly not leading. Sadly, she is following the democrats. And she is most certainly in the way of those of us interested in the ability to trust the results of future elections.

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.