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Lindbeck Vies for Congressional Seat

Photo courtesy of Steve Lindbeck.

Steve Lindbeck is running on the Democratic ticket for Alaska’s sole congressional seat. He’s hoping to unseat Republican incumbent Don Young who has served in the U.S House of Representatives for 43 years.

Lindbeck moved to Kodiak with his family in 1964.

“I was nine. It was about six months after the big earthquake and Kodiak was still kind of torn up. Kodiak was damaged by the quake but a lot more by the tidal wave, so there were fishing boats still up in the middle of town that had floated in on the tidal wave,” says Lindbeck.

Lindbeck was the first in his family to graduate from college. He paid his way through college through a variety of odd jobs, including tour bus driver, furniture mover, sandblaster and cannery worker.

“Alaska for me has been a place of hard work and opportunity,” says Lindbeck.

After graduating, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first at the Anchorage Times then later at the Anchorage Daily News. Lindbeck also worked for nine years as Director of the Alaska Humanities Forum and two years as the Vice Chancellor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. In 2007, he became the General Manager of Alaska Public Media, where he worked until 2015.

He says these years of experience introduced him to Alaska’s diverse communities and rich cultural history.

“I worked in communities from Ketchikan to Kotzebue and Unalaska to Fort Yukon and everyplace in between. I really had a tremendous introduction to the different parts of Alaska and the economies and cultures and people and places,” says Lindbeck.

Lindbeck has never run for elected office. But he says that he has been immersed in politics at the state and local level for his entire adult life and could apply that experience as an elected official.

“I have known virtually every statewide elected official on a first name basis for about the last 35 or 40 years. Beyond that, I have been really involved in community debates and statewide debates and national debates. I feel like I’ve had a career in public service and this is a very natural extension of it,” says Lindbeck.

Lindbeck says he decided to run for Congress after becoming frustrated with partisan politics and the lack of progress in Washington. He thinks Alaskans are ready for change.

As Alaska’s Congressman, Lindbeck says he would work to increase the efficiency of government spending and support efforts to create jobs in rural areas.

“It really is the time when we need new leadership to look ahead. We need very much to diversify our economy. We are facing economic times that are very difficult and the things that have worked in the past are not going to work looking forward,” says Lindbeck.

Alaska depends on a robust oil and gas industry, Lindbeck says. But he says it’s time to start thinking ahead and supporting renewable energy technology.

“We need to reach out into renewable energy sources. We need to be at the center of change and adaptation around climate change. We are at the epicenter whether we like it or not and whether the politicians want to acknowledge it’s true or not. It is and here we are. We have communities that are about to fall into the sea, we have roads that are slumping because the permafrost is melting and so on and so on,” says Lindbeck.

Although Alaskans tend to vote for Republicans for national office, Lindbeck notes that the majority are not registered with any political party. He’s running as a Democrat, but he says that he’s an Alaskan first and foremost.

“What I say, is that I’m a Democrat, but I’m an Alaska Democrat in that order. If someone proves to me from across the aisle that they’re more interested in Alaska than they are in their own party, then we’re going to be friends and we’re going to work together,” says Lindbeck.

Editor’s note: Despite multiple attempts to contact Congressman Don Young, KBBI News was not able to schedule an interview with him.

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Local News General Election 2016CongressDon Young