Claman Jumps Into West Anchorage House Race

Matt Claman. Photo from mattclaman.com.
Matt Claman. Photo from mattclaman.com.

Another Anchorage politician has filed to run for office in 2014.

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Former Anchorage Assemblyman, Matt Claman, confirms that he will be running for the District 19 seat in the Alaska House of Representatives in 2014. That’s the seat that Lindsey Holmes now holds.

Claman says the district, which spans an area South and West of Anchorage, needs a Democrat.

“The voters have consistently elected Democrats from that part of Anchorage and I think it’s because the Alaska Democratic Party and the people who have run for that seat as Democrats have represented the voters’ values better than the Republican Party does,” Claman said.

A campaign to recall Holmes is underway but signature gatherers have not yet turned in their application to the division of elections.

Holmes ran as a democrat and then switched to the Republican Party just after she was elected last year. Claman is an Anchorage attorney and resident of the Turnagain neighborhood. He was first elected to the Assembly in 2007 and became chair in 2008. When, then Mayor Mark Begich was elected to the U.S. Senate, Claman became acting Mayor for the first few months of 2009, and returned to the Assembly through 2010.

Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.

Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.

Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.

Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.

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