Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola was born in Alaska and raised on the Kuskokwim River in Kwethluk, Tuntutuliak, Platinum, and Bethel. She was just six years old when she began fishing commercially with her father.

At age 24 years old she won her first state election and represented the Bethel region in the Alaska State Legislature.

During her ten years in office she built consensus around budgets that improved lives in rural Alaska. Since then she has worked as Manager of Community Development and Sustainability for the Donlin gold mine project. More recently, she was Executive Director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. She helped mobilize 118 Tribes and rural Alaskans to advocate for the protection of salmon runs in Western Alaska.

Rep. Peltola also served on the Orutsararmiut Native Council Tribal Court and the Bethel City Council, and on the boards of the Nature Conservancy, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Alaska Children’s Trust, and the Russian Orthodox Sacred Sites in Alaska.

INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS

We need to build and maintain high-quality infrastructure just to get to work and live our lives.

That means funding our roads, bridges, airports, ferries, highways, energy grids, broadband infrastructure, and more.

That means connecting more of our rural communities to the rest of our state.

That means fighting for projects that create good paying, stable jobs for our working families

DEVELOPMENT

Alaska is resource extraction state. Our natural resources are the backbone of our economy and the key to America’s energy independence. We must build an economy that uses our abundant resources and provides real benefits for regular Alaskans.

That means investing in extraction industries, reducing our dependence on foreign fuel, and lowering energy prices for Alaskans.

That means doing what we can to bring down gas prices in Alaska.

That means making sure regular Alaskans are benefiting from resource development across the state.

REGULAR ALASKAN EMPOWERMENT

Regular Alaskans have been struggling under the reality of inflation, stagnant wages, and an economy that is leaving them left out and tossed aside. It’s time we fight for them.

That means good paying jobs with wages that make sense for our cost of living.

That means standing with unions and working with them to give Alaskans the best conditions possible in their workplaces.

That means defending the rights of workers through the passing of legislation like the PRO-Act.

That means investing in our workers to give them the training and tools they need to compete in today’s job market.

CHILDCARE AND EARLY EDUCATION

Alaska workers deserve to have the ability to not have to choose between a family and their careers.

That means providing access to high quality, affordable childcare.

That means supporting the child care and pre-k provisions discussed as part of the Build Back Better framework

FOOD INSECURITY

Across our state, and particularly in our rural communities, Alaskans are facing prohibitively high costs and growing deficits of traditional food sources. We cannot afford to allow these problems to persist.

That means creating resilient food systems for communities statewide.

That means fighting inflation and doing everything we can to make the goods we buy affordable and accessible.

That means repairing the damage done to our fisheries and preserving them for generations to come.

CLIMATE CHANGE

For many of us, especially those of us from Western Alaska, the effects of climate change are already on display for all to see. We need solutions to this critical issue.

That means supporting comprehensive legislation to reduce emissions.

That means combatting the ocean acidification that is harming our fisheries.

That means developing our natural resources and investing in Alaska’s renewable energy to make our communities more self-sustainable.

SCHOOLS

The investments we make in education today will determine the future of our state. It’s on us to make our schools the best they can be.

That means making sure Alaska teachers get the pay they deserve so they can do the best possible job.

That means funding programs to preserve the languages in our communities—particularly Alaska Native communities whose languages are at risk of extinction.

That means pushing for programs that ensure Alaska students leave school ready to enter the workforce.

That means getting as much funding as we can to our universities to retain and educate Alaska young adults..

HEALTH CARE

Everyone deserves high-quality healthcare.

That means protecting the Medicaid expansion.

That means working to strengthen the Affordable Care Act for middle-class families.

That means a public option and more flexible federal dollars to empower state, local, and Tribal governments to build innovative healthcare solutions.

CHOICE

There is no right more fundamental than someone’s right to choose what they do with their own bodies. We’re going to protect that right.

That means enshrine protections for reproductive health in federal law.

That means providing public funding to those with limited resources for family planning services.

That means eliminating waiting periods to obtain reproductive healthcare.

That means providing FDA-approved emergency contraception, in accordance with appropriate dispensing regulations, without delay or obstruction to all women at all pharmacies in the United States.

LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

LGBTQ+ Alaskans are valued neighbors, loved ones, and members of our communities, and they deserve to be protected.

That means passing The Equality Act to prevent unfair and unlawful discrimination.

That means making sure every person in Alaska can live and live without fear.