Politics
NEW: RINO Senator Hints That She Could Caucus With Democrats, Give Them Majority
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) appeared to indicate that she would be open to caucusing and voting with Democrats should the party retake the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.
Murkowski — a long time critic of President Trump who has voted with Democrats on a number of key issues — was asked about the possibility during a recent appearance on the “GD Politics” podcast.
“Say Democrats win three seats in the next midterm election in the Senate, and they say, ‘we’re going to let you pass bills that benefit Alaskans if you caucus with us. You don’t have to become a Democrat. You can be an independent,'” host Galen Druke asked. “But if you caucus with us and provide the sort of fourth vote that we need to get from where we are now, and you can pass legislation that helps Alaskans, would you do it?”
The senator responded by describing the question as an “interesting hypothetical” before leaving the door open to the possibility.
“My problem with your hypothetical is that as challenged as I think we may be on the Republican side, I don’t see the Democrats being much better. And they’ve got not only their share of problems, but quite honestly, they’ve got some policies that I just inherently disagree with,” she said, adding that her primary concern is providing results for Alaskans.
She then conceded that she has been approached to run as a third party candidate in the past, including her most recent election victory, when she fended off a primary challenge from a Trump-backed candidate thanked to the controversial ranked choice voting method.
“People were looking at what happened after the primary and they said, ‘the only way that you’re going to retain this seat is if you basically have your name on the ballot and the only way to do that is to basically carry the flag of the Libertarian Party,’ because that was the only party outside of the Republicans and Democrats. And so they said, basically,’ can you be a Libertarian for a day to get elected?’ And they dangled that in front of me,” the senator continued.
Murkwoski ultimately declined the offer to run as a Libertarian, describing it as a dishonest way to win. At that point, Druke followed up by reiterating that he was not asking whether she would formally join the Democratic Party, but caucus and vote with them.
“There may be that possibility,” the senator responded, adding that lawmakers in Alaska have formed coalitions across party lines.
“We got a small legislature, but coalitions in both bodies. And this is one of the things that I think is good and healthy for us, and I think actually is one of the reasons why people are not surprised that I don’t neatly toe the line with just party initiatives,” Murkowski went on to say. “Because we’ve kind of embraced a governing style that says, if you’ve got good ideas and you can work with her over there, it doesn’t make any difference if you’re a Republican or Democrat. We can govern together for the good of the state. And so it is a coalition government. It’s not a Republican majority or a Democrat majority.”
Druke again followed up by directly asking if Murkowski would consider an alliance with Senate Democrats, at which point she said the possibility would be considered. “If we’re talking about some kind of a coalition, that’s something that, again, is not foreign to Alaskans. Is it foreign to our operations in the Senate? Yeah,” the senator said, adding that political parties form coalitions in many parliamentary nations.
“So I’m evading your answer, of course, because it is so supremely hypothetical, but you can tell that the construct that we’re working with right now, I don’t think is the best construct.”
