2024 Election Candidate Survey

The Disability Law Center of Alaska created and sent a survey to 110 political candidates for election in Alaska in 2024. Below, you can find the survey questions and linked responses from candidates.

Candidate Survey Questions

1. As you have read in the news, the Alaska Division of Public Assistance has had chronic understaffing leading to a significant delay in individuals receiving critical supports such as Medicaid and SNAP (“food stamps”).

 How would you streamline eligibility requirements and program performance so people with disabilities can get and keep necessary services and benefits such as Medicaid, food assistance, and housing assistance?

 2. Alaskans with disabilities support a system in which each person directs their own supports, based on their strengths and abilities, toward a meaningful life in their home, their job and their community.

 How will you protect and support the rights of individuals with disabilities so that they can make informed decisions about their own healthcare and personal wellbeing, ensuring autonomy and access to necessary services?

 3. Individuals placed under court-appointed guardianship are adults who rely on their guardian to ensure they are housed, and their most basic needs are met. The guardian is also responsible for ensuring protected persons receive public benefits, on which protected persons typically depend.  Currently, there is a lack of qualified guardians in the State of Alaska                     

 What are your ideas for solving the guardianship crisis?

 4. The Department of Justice has found reasonable cause to believe that the State of Alaska violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide community-based services to children with behavioral health disabilities, relying instead on segregated, out-of-state institutional settings — specifically, psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric residential treatment facilities.

What is your vision to support in-state mental health services which support children with behavioral health disabilities and their families?  

5.  Children with disabilities who attend our state schools often need to have adjustments made to their schedules and/or the education services they received (accommodations) as well as modifications to the curriculum used to teach them to receive an equitable and appropriate education.

What steps will you take to improve education for students with disabilities, including ensuring proper accommodations and modifications within the classroom, increasing parental involvement in the Individualized Education Program process, and raising awareness of the rights of students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act?

 

Candidate Responses

Jeremy Bynum – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 1 (Ketchikan/Wrangell/Metlakatla)

Joy Beth Cottle – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 34 (Fairbanks)

Maxine Dibert – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 31 (Fairbanks)

Forrest Dunbar – Candidate for Alaska State Senate, District J (Anchorage)

Savannah Fletcher – Candidate for Alaska State Senate, District R (Fairbanks)

Andrew Gray – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 20 (Anchorage)

Andrew Josephson – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 13 (Anchorage)

Chuck Kopp – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 10 (Anchorage)

Ky Holland – Candidate for Alaska House of Representatives, District 9 (Anchorage)

 

I want to vote.  How do I get started?

• To vote in any election, you must first be registered to vote.
• You can find more information on registering to vote by visiting the Alaska Division of Elections website.