By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 1, 2026 – Mary Peltola has appeared on Alaska’s political stage under several names over the years: Mary Sattler, Mary Kapsner, Mary Sattler Kapsner, Mary Nelson, Mary Sattler-Nelson and, finally, Mary Peltola.
She may as well be Mary No-Show, because the name on the office door is less important than whether the officeholder ever showed up for work.
Whatever name she was using, Peltola accumulated an extraordinary record of missed votes and meetings while collecting a public paycheck.
According to legislative records reviewed by Fox News, Peltola missed 794 of 4,265 votes during her five terms in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1999 through 2009. That is 18.6%, nearly one out of every five votes she was elected to cast.
The worst period came during the 23rd Alaska Legislature, in 2003 and 2004, when Peltola missed 334 of 1,019 votes. That means she was absent for nearly one-third of the recorded decisions made during that Legislature.
The pattern did not end when she left Juneau.
During her service on the Bethel City Council from 2011 through 2013, Peltola missed 22 of 60 meetings, according to city records. That is an absence rate of 36.7%, more than one out of every three meetings. She missed 11 of 32 meetings in 2012 and nine of 22 in 2013.
Then Alaska sent her to Congress after Congressman Don Young died. From mid-2022 through 2024, Peltola missed 235 of 1,370 recorded roll-call votes, or 17.2%, according to GovTrack data. The median among House members serving at the end of 2024 was approximately 2.2%.
Different name. Different office. Different decade. Same no-show problem. Voters had seen enough and kicked her out.
The Peltola campaign says the raw state legislative numbers are unfair because three of her children were born while she was serving in the Alaska House and she took maternity leave. But the days missed do not neatly line up with her postpartum history.
Maternity leave does not explain her Bethel City Council record years later. Nor does it explain missing 17.2% of the votes during her two years in Congress.
For the council absences, the campaign offered another explanation: Peltola spent summers fishing and some meetings conflicted with that activity.
Many Alaskans fish. Many run small businesses, raise children, work seasonal jobs and travel long distances. They still understand that accepting a public office means accepting its obligations. If fishing repeatedly prevents an elected official from attending meetings, the question is not whether fishing is important. The question is why that person sought an office she was frequently unable or unwilling to attend.
Peltola’s congressional tenure produced another no-show statistic: None of the bills or resolutions for which she was a primary sponsor became law.
Missing votes is not the only measure of effectiveness. Members of Congress also conduct constituent work, participate in committees, negotiate legislation and influence measures sponsored by others. But attendance is the most basic and visible responsibility. Alaska has only one member of the US House. When that member is absent, Alaska has no replacement vote.
Congressman Nick Begich, who replaced her, has set a historic record in Congress, passing more bills than any freshman in history.
Now Peltola is seeking another federal office, and effectively asking Alaskans for a promotion.
Her attendance history is not one bad month, a family emergency, or one isolated season. It stretches across the Alaska Legislature, the Bethel City Council and Congress … and across her many names. At some point, a series of explanations becomes a pattern.
There is, however, one legal proceeding in which Peltola is decidedly present. She has shown up for the money: Peltola filed a wrongful-death lawsuit over the 2023 plane crash that killed her husband, Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr. The lawsuit alleges that the companies associated with the aircraft and hunting operation acted negligently by requiring excessive flying, failing to provide adequate rest, permitting dangerous operating conditions. and failing to carry workers’ compensation insurance.
But the National Transportation Safety Board’s findings contradict Mary Peltola’s cash quest. Federal investigators concluded that the airplane was about 117 pounds over its maximum takeoff weight. Moose antlers had been attached to the right wing strut without required approval, adding drag and creating an imbalance. The NTSB identified the Buzzy Peltola decision to fly overweight and with the externally mounted antlers, together with turbulent conditions and downdrafts, among the causes of the crash.
Mary Peltola nevertheless wants the aircraft owner and associated businesses held financially responsible for her late husband’s choices. Her attorney argues that if the companies employed Peltola’s husband but failed to carry workers’ compensation coverage, Alaska law may limit their ability to assign blame to him.
Peltola’s campaign will offer explanations for each chapter of her many absences: Maternity leave. Fishing season. Excused absences. Competing priorities. Every individual absence may have had a reason.
But public records capture outcomes for the public, and when she showed up and didn’t show up.
The reality is that Mary Peltola missed nearly one-fifth of her Alaska House votes, more than one-third of her Bethel City Council meetings and more than one-sixth of her congressional votes.
Alaskans have known her by several names. The spotty attendance record follows every one of them.
21 thoughts on “Suzanne Downing: Whether it’s Mary Sattler, Kapsner, Nelson, or Peltola, her no-show record follows her from office to office”
Peltola lives out the example of how Most Alaskan women are They can’t stand being single and need a man just like the woman at well whom Jesus called her out “He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.“I have no husband,” she replied.Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.”
Well that’s not only Peltola but many Alaskan women’s stories and how many times they slept with a “husband” so she can feel secure, protected, and provided for.
How. Any man and woman (like Peltola having good attendance) be expected to be committed when they can’t even be committed to one spouse?
Fortunately, our President has occasionally set a good example for us all by restricting himself to one or two wives at a time plus the occasional adult entertainer, more or less.
This is not MR Trump and the five husbands who choose such insecure women to make as their wives. Because those five husband examples have just as much of a problem with adultery as the woman at the well. It’s just women like Peltola put herself as an example with her four Husband names and the problem we have not only in Alaska with adultery.
Like learn to be content with Singlehood if By Divine God hasn’t answered one’s prayer for a spouse until death.
To which I don’t doubt she is looking for husband number five.
I even heard rumor that even Bernedette is guilty of playing the woman at the well and looks for her next husband. But that’s just a rumor so don’t believe it about Bernedette until one knows it’s true.
All women do before they know better because life IS easier having a man (even a bad man) beside a woman. However a man’s value is even unbelievable to today’s men how much value he brings to a woman’s life and makes he life easier because men have been put down since their childhoods, just ask an Widow or single mother who has had to live without her husband, father, or father figure, or brother and she chose righteous living vs finding a boyfriend to become a husband and make her life a little easier than going at this life alone and unshielded. Because the first this world attacks are the vulnerable and weak which widows and single mothers fall in that category.
Mary is hoping to reel-in Husband #6 if she gets elected. Homeliness is such sweet sorrow.
Husbands are hard to come by for the Skwa. She gets rid of them quick.
Thank you Ms Downing. For taking me out of cool down corner of comment moderation. I’ll try to be more thoughtful and less blunt or less incoherent. No promises made though.
Yes, women often change their surnames when they marry, good point. Next, please write about our vice president. He was born as James David Bowman. When his mother remarried, he became James David Hamel. And then, in law school, he decided to be JD Vance. Because why not! Always worthy of mockery!
Again. JDVance’s single mother, just like Peltola, and many women ther wanted to make their life easier. Because life is harder on a single woman even harder when the single woman becomes a single mother. In weakness without Christ, she looks to the things of this world like a husband for her help. JDVance’s mother like Peltola couldn’t find it in husband 1 nor Husband 2 nor husband 3. Most women are like the woman at the well. It’s not their situation needing changing. It’s Themselves needing changing. I hadn’t met any single woman nor single mother who doesn’t desire the safety, provision, comfort, leadership men bring to those in his life.
I’m proud of JDvance remaining committed to his wife Usha and the children he brought into this world with her.
Other men chose to break their promises but he currently showing he is trying to keep his promises to Usha and their children.
Despite any mistakes his mother made She did something’s right in her parenting to raise a boy into a man who will choose commitment vs selfishness.
I believe JD Vance told us precisely why his name changed over the years, none of which were capricious or suitable for mockery, but hey, you go girl. The difference is that he actually shows up to work and does what is required. Mary? Not so much.
Did Mary go to her husband’s funeral?
Just asking because she is such a busy woman.
Mary is like a black widow. Dangerous.
If I missed 1/5 of the days I was required to work, I would be summarily fired, no matter the “reasons.” There is no reason whatsoever to believe Mary will report for duty as a Senator, any more than she has repeatedly in the past. She wants the cash, pure and simple, and isn’t willing to do the work to gain it ethically. Mary needs to be retired from public service. Then she should have plenty of time to go fishing, but not on our dime.
She is nothing more than a wooden-headed puppet, but our culture has reached the point of total indifference. Lies are sweeter than truth. A person who lies sweetly, with a good smile, can go farther and faster than one who speaks Truth. But Dan Sullivan is too much of a puppet too: member of the CFR, the A-1 example of the military-industrial complex. Will he campaign on Peltola’s complicity in the Decoy Dan Scam? Oh, no! Too much the gentleman. Whatever the Peltola campaign ads say about Dan Sullivan is nothing compared to the sordid truth. But she is worse. Pick your poison and vote.
Bob Bird, good point. Senator Sullivan needs to take the gloves off. He should be doing ads that ask why Peltola’s long time campaign manager flew the coop after the DOJ opened its investigation into Decoy Dan. 🤔 Also should be doing ads showing a picture of him next to Decoy Dan then stating this purposeful deception should not be tolerated by ANY Alaskan voter.
” gone fishing” is not an excuse for not showing up for work, alaska,or anywhere else. You signed up to be there, and took the paycheck.that means you show,up, unless you’re deathly ill or incapacitated. You made the deal,you honor it. No lame excuses.
Lazy lazy Mary. No good for Alaska.
Incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan should be using the word “Incumbent” in all his conversations, video and print communications and political advertising. As I understand it, “Incumbent” will follow his name on the ballot. It’s a great and unique identifier the characterless cheaters muddying the puddle can’t use.
I’m pretty sure that’s a flounder she’s holding up in the photo, it’s mouth opens on the side flounders almost always do and pacific halibut very rarely, if ever, do.
Yes the Bethel Canoe Captain with 14 last Names needs to keep paddleing up the Kuskokwim,