A vote for Sen. Sullivan is a vote for more Trump chaos and corruption

The U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By Doug Woodby

I respect the right of our local conservatives to express their support for the reelection of Sen. Sullivan, but I disagree that the senator deserves another term.

While the senator has had some accomplishments that benefit Juneau, they pale in comparison to the destructive, costly, and self-serving actions of President Trump that the senator has supported or enabled with his silence.

Sullivan has praised Trump’s war on Iran and repeatedly voted against reining in U.S. involvement. Trump’s inept war on Iran has given us high fuel costs and those combined with the tariffs we pay on imports have escalated our cost of living. Sullivan is complicit in these high costs, as well as the costly war that we are paying for.

The senator was a strong supporter of DOGE, which caused large layoffs of federal employees in Alaska and termination of millions of dollars bound for our state, based on the dubious claim of waste, fraud and abuse.

Sullivan has been silent on the unprecedented and flagrant corruption in the Trump administration, including the various pay-to-play deals: over $90 million in settlements paid to Trump by X, ABC News, Meta, YouTube and Paramount, the last resulted in FCC approval of a colossal merger with Skydance; the $1.4 billion Trump made in cryptocurrency while actively suppressing crypto regulations, allowing Trump to collect money from those seeking his favor; and the $28 million from Bezos’s Amazon for a documentary about Melania. These examples are just a small sample of the corruption.

Nor has Sullivan uttered a challenge to the multitude of Trump’s big-time lies, which are normalizing deceit at the highest levels of our government. A very abbreviated list of his lies include: climate change is a hoax, Trump won the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was a day of love, and South Korea has agreed to pay $54 billion for the Alaska gas line, a lie made to bolster Sullivan’s election chances.

And let’s not forget the Epstein files. Sullivan voted in favor of nominating Todd Blanche to be Trump’s attorney general, despite Blanche being primarily responsible for not fully releasing the Epstein files.

The fact that Sullivan has done some good things for Juneau isn’t a sufficient reason for reelection. He’s well paid to do his job and doing good things for us is a minimal expectation. In the end, a vote for Sen. Sullivan is a vote to continue Trump‘s chaos and corruption. No thank you.

• Doug Woodby is a 36-year resident of Juneau, the co-chair of the climate advocacy group 350Juneau, and a retired chief fisheries scientist with the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. He is not a member of a political party.