Nathaniel Herz, Alaska Public Media
Nathaniel Herz is an Anchorage-based journalist. He's been a reporter in Alaska for a decade, and is currently reporting for Alaska Public Media. Find more of his work by subscribing to his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com. Reach him at natherz@gmail.com.
Alaska GOP Gov. Dunleavy says he’ll vote no on oil-tax increase, election overhaul initiatives
Dunleavy said he thinks issues of taxation are better handled by state lawmakers than through the initiative process. And he says the proposed election overhaul is too complicated.
With ‘moral authority’ compromised in a pandemic, Anchorage mayor steps away
Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz resigned Tuesday, a day after the married mayor acknowledged what he described as a consensual, inappropriate messaging relationship with a television anchor.
Anchorage Mayor Berkowitz has resigned
Berkowitz made his announcement at Tuesday evening's Assembly meeting, where members were set to consider a request to extend the mayor's emergency powers to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
After Dunleavy administration loses recall case in court, judge orders payment of $190,000 legal bill
The ruling can be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court. It comes after Dunleavy's administration, at the advice of former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson, refused to certify the recall campaign's application, saying it did not meet legal requirements.
National groups pour millions into Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, suggesting it’s tightening
President Donald Trump’s flagging poll numbers across the country are helping to bring a number of previously safe Republican U.S. Senate seats into play across the country -- including in Alaska, said James Arkin, who covers campaigns for Politico.
Alaska candidates promise painless budget cuts, but experts say not so fast
Veterans of state budget battles say that after years of spending cuts, it’s unlikely that further reductions can fill much of the deficit without major impacts to services like schools and the Medicaid health-care system.
"The easy choices are gone," said House Speaker Bryce Edgmon.
Alaska case count hits new high, but hospitals aren’t sounding alarms
In the past week, nearly 11% of tests in Fairbanks have been positive, while that number stands at 5% for Anchorage. Statewide, it’s at 4.19%, which is a new record; the World Health Organization says that areas should not loosen restrictions until rates stand below 5% over a two-week period.
Christian, conservative groups organize to oust Supreme Court justice
A coalition of conservative and religious leaders has launched a campaign to oust an Alaska Supreme Court justice whose rulings they oppose.
WATCH: Running — Legislative debates, night one
The balance of power in the state legislature is at stake when Alaskans cast their ballots this fall. Nat Herz moderates debates with candidates from some of the most hotly contested races for state House and Senate.
An initiative proposes to overhaul Alaska’s elections. But not everyone thinks they’re broken.
The initiative’s drafters argue that Alaska’s election system punishes bipartisanship and rewards partisan loyalty. And they’re proposing an overhaul, but they face opposition from those who say the state's elections work just fine.
Investigator blames haste, lack of supervision for alleged Dunleavy ethics violations
Under the settlement, Dunleavy personally paid $2,800 to reimburse the state for social media and mailed advertisements from his office that praised his allies in the Legislature -- and which the investigator, Fairbanks attorney John Tiemessen, said broke a law against spending state money for partisan political purposes.
Alaska judge blocks ballot printing after candidate raises “clear” legal questions about design
Alyse Galvin's lawsuit challenges a new ballot design from state elections officials -- who work for a Republican lieutenant governor, Kevin Meyer -- that only references Galvin’s Democratic Party nomination and not her independent voter registration. Galvin is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young.
A newspaper requested the Alaska AG’s incriminating texts. The decision not to release them was his.
After Kevin Clarkson resigned, the Department of Law’s response to the newspaper has prompted two lingering questions: Did it fail to turn over records that the Anchorage Daily News was legally entitled to receive? And was Clarkson the right person to decide which records to release?
New suit says Alaska’s absentee ballot witness law is unconstitutional during the pandemic
Civil rights groups are challenging the Alaska state law that absentee ballots be signed by a witness, saying it's an unconstitutional burden on voting rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alaska Gov. Dunleavy will pay $2,800 to settle ethics complaints over publicly-funded political ads
The complaints targeted a social media and mailer campaign launched by the governor’s office that attacked some of his opponents in the Alaska Legislature and boosted some of his allies.
This machine is a microcosm of Alaska’s, and America’s, COVID-19 testing successes and failures
A federal shipment of Cepheid supplies directed to fishing towns has allowed providers to test tens of thousands of samples on a rapid basis. But in other communities, Cepheid machines are sitting largely idle because of a lack of the cartridges needed to process each sample.
Conservative candidates won Alaskans’ votes Tuesday with big PFD promises. Now comes the hard part: delivering.
Conservative Alaska Republicans who fared well against incumbents in Tuesday's primary election focused their campaigns on large PFD payments -- not on the deep budget cuts that would almost certainly have to come with them, given Alaska’s precarious financial position.
After federal pandemic benefits expire, unemployed Alaskans wonder how they’ll survive on $500 a month
There were roughly 52,000 Alaskans who would have qualified for the $600-a-week federal benefits during the last week of July, the first one in which those benefits ran out. That represents about 15 percent of the state's workforce.
Ravn is bankrupt and selling off assets, but still wants to give chief executive a bonus
Alaska's largest rural airline has declared bankruptcy, laid off more than 1,000 workers and is selling off its assets. But the company still wants to split $250,000 in bonuses between its highly-paid chief executive and other employees.
Alaska officials say Trump’s proposed $400-a-week unemployment boost is under review
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy's administration is working to see how it can restore expanded unemployment benefits to about 60,000 people under a new initiative announced by President Donald Trump, but there's no time frame for getting the program started.