The U.S. House of Representatives is still bitterly divided over who will be the next speaker but, on Tuesday, had a broad bipartisan showing when it welcomed back Alaska’s U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola.
Peltola has been away from Washington D.C., for much of the past month while grieving the death of her husband, Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola, after he died in a small plane crash. She returned this week, casting a vote for Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries in the race for Speaker of the House.
A clip of the moment made the rounds on social media, showing Democrats and many Republicans standing in recognition of Peltola. In her own post, Peltola thanked everyone for their support and urged legislators to think about bipartisanship.
“This month has been hard. I’m grateful for my colleagues’ support from both sides of the aisle,” she said. “Bipartisanship is built on trust and empathy. Let’s choose both and elect a Speaker that’s ready to work with everyone. Republicans and Democrats do this in AK. We can do it in DC.”
Over the past decade, Alaska’s state Legislature has regularly organized around bipartisan coalitions. Currently, the Senate is led by a bipartisan 17-member supermajority with eight Republicans and nine Democrats. The group organized around a shared goal of increased school funding and labor improvements with an agreement to essentially sideline the most divisive of policies.
Peltola, who was elected in the state’s first election under its new open primary and ranked-choice system, has regularly advocated for bipartisan, centrist solutions to politics.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
