Gregg Brelsford

Strongly Agree

I respect how deep abortion is for many Alaskans. There are sincere and strong feelings on all sides. My campaign is based on four conservative principles: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. I am pro-freedom – across the board. Alaskans should have maximum freedom on major decisions - masks, vaccines, pregnancy. I support the Roe model, but don’t favor abortion as birth control. I also oppose asking citizens who oppose abortion to support it with their taxes through public funding of aborti

Agree

My campaign is based on four conservative principles: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. I am pro-freedom – across the board. Alaskans should have maximum freedom on major decisions in their lives. In principle, this includes allowing reasonable medical assistance to adults who knowingly and voluntarily choose to end their life. This not a blank check. It must be subject to legally established criteria, such as relieving intractable pain, terminal illness, irreversible brain death, etc.

There are two sides to this question. One side relates to the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court case itself (as refined by the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case). For the reasons described below, I agreed with the three Trump-nominees to the Court who each testified to Congress, and represented to numerous senators, that they believe Roe is “settled” precedent and should be respected. However, as stated in the Court’s recently leaked draft opinion, their positions now favor overturning Roe – contradicting their earlier testimony and representations. It appears that their assurances favoring maintaining Roe as settle precedent were disingenuous. One the second side, I deeply respect how heartfelt the issue of abortion is for many Alaskans, and that there are sincere and strong feelings on all sides. My position on this is based on the four conservative principles of my campaign: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. My first principle is freedom – across the board. I agree with what Vice-President Dick Chaney said: “Freedom is freedom.” I believe that Alaskans have the freedom to decide what to do with their bodies. If someone does not want to wear a covid-mask on their face, I believe they have the freedom to decide what to put on their body. If someone does not want a covid-vaccine needle stuck into their body, I believe they have the freedom to make that decision about their body. In the same way, I believe a woman has the same freedom as these others to decide how to treat her body, including her pregnancy. I do not favor abortion as mere birth control. And I believe the overwhelming majority of women don’t either. Pregnancy does not happen in a vacuum. For many people it is a wonderful chapter in their lives. However, for others, pregnancy is a sad mistake, or worse in the case of rape and incest. There are also unfortunate times when pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. No one can fully understand all that is involved in the individual lives of fallible people or difficult circumstances. For these reasons, I believe that individuals should have maximum freedom for making major decisions in their lives and that the government should have very limited control of diminishing this freedom. As the Good Book says, mercy is what God asks for his children. However, maximum freedom to decide about one’s pregnancy does not mean unlimited freedom. It is conditional and there must be a balancing of considerations. All balancing formulations are imperfect. I support the Roe and Casey models for regulating abortion. Roe recognized a fundamental right of a woman’s freedom to decide about an abortion that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that women have a privacy interest protecting their right to abortion embedded in the Liberty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Casey recognized that the government may limit a woman’s right to abortion based on fetus viability. This means that the fetus has reached such a stage of development as to be capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the uterus. Casey also allows for exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.

Agree

My campaign is based on four conservative principles: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. The distribution of income in America does not occur in a vacuum. There must be some element of fairness. One example: it is not fair that the tax code allows extremely wealthy individuals and businesses to pay zero taxes or a smaller proportion of their income than low or middle-income people. The wealthy must pay their fair share for the benefits they receive for living and operating in America.

Strongly Agree

Government spending does not occur in a vacuum. We certainly must limit the national debt. However, there are critical times when we must spend money to accomplish important purposes. Examples are (i) the recent infrastructure bill needed to rebuild long-ignored obsolete water and sewer systems, bridges, and other things, (ii) ensure our military is second to none in a world of hostile adversaries like Russia and China, and (iii) pressing energy independence, and climate change challenges.

The tax code should be changed to ensure that extremely wealthy individuals and businesses (i) do pay their fair share of keeping America strong in the 21st century (miliary, energy independence, climate change), and the benefits they enjoy (highways, courts, electricity, telecommunications, etc.) and (ii) do not pay zero taxes or a smaller proportion of their income than low or middle-income people.

Strongly Agree

I totally agree that religious liberty deserves the highest level of protection in the law. America was founded on religious liberty and serves as a beacon to the world for this core right. This should be vigorously nourished and preserved.

Agree

This question relates to the next question too (separation of church and state). In the privacy of their homes and houses of worship, people should be free to robustly practice their moral and/or religious beliefs. As a matter of fairness and equality, in the public sphere, which is supported by all tax payers, all services should equally available to all members of the public

One enduring and important lesson of history is that human conflict and suffering are often caused by one group seeking to impose its religious beliefs on another. An equally enduring and important lesson of history is that this harm is significantly reduced where there is a strong separation between church and state. I support a strong separation between the spheres of church and state.

As implied in the wording of the question, the issue of vaccine requirements does not exist in a vacuum. Difference settings have different legal and other considerations. My baseline value is freedom. This includes freedom to not wear a mask, freedom to not be vaccinated, and a woman’s freedom to decide how to handle her pregnancy. I also believe that decisions impacting people should be made at the local level as much as possible. However, vaccine-freedom is not infinite and must be balanced with other important considerations. All balancing formulations are imperfect, and there are often strong feelings, and reasonable positions on all sides. So, how do we sort this out in terms of vaccines? Vaccines are medical procedures related to infectious medical conditions. This discussion relates to infectious medical conditions that are not catastrophic, where the entire population is not immediately at risk. Considerations and possible restrictions on individual freedom, may be different when that is the case. A prominent U.S. Supreme Court case wisely said that “the constitution is not a suicide pact.” This discussion will focus solely on Covid-19 vaccinations as that has recently been the most controversial. By contrast, there has been relatively little controversy about requiring measles and polio, or many other vaccines, for public school attendance, or military service. For purposes of this discussion, Covid-19 has not risen to “catastrophic” levels. As a recent manager of two local governments, which included public schools, I put the highest priority on the safety of children. I make a preliminary distinction between public schools, supported by all taxpayers, and private schools. However, even this distinction is not absolute in terms of infectious medical conditions. I also generally put great weight on local decision making, such as school boards in this instance. I believe that public schools have a responsibility to protect the health of their students. I am aware of no widespread disagreement with this – polio inoculations are an example. So, in terms of public schools I support the right of local school boards to decide on whether to require a covid vaccine of its students. I perceive more leeway for private schools. All of this is subject to catastrophic conditions and applicable law (religious exemptions for example). I see employers as private sector, not public sector, entities. They have more freedom to make their own decisions about vaccines. Subject to the existence of catastrophic conditions, and applicable law, they are free to decide whether to require vaccines of their employees. Governments are purely public sector entities, supported by tax payers. I believe that local governing bodies, city councils, etc., have the responsibility to look at their residents, and jurisdictions, “as a whole.” Only government have this broadest of responsibilities. This includes, balancing public safety, economic and other considerations, and applicable law, in terms of requiring vaccines. Every community is different and the “right” balance may be different from one to the next. In short, there is no one “absolute” answer. Again, all of this is subject to catastrophic considerations.

The issue of health care also does not exist in a vacuum. I am an independent conservative candidate for Congress and believe that conservatives have done a poor job of addressing the problems and needs of regular people and working families. This is the 21st century. Millions of Americans are without basic health care through no fault of their own. My campaign is based on four conservative principles: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. Fairness requires that we not turn a blind-eye to the substandard medical condition of a great number of our people. We should provide maximum choice of health care options. This includes maintaining basic health care for our seniors and the most poor – Medicare and Medicaid. We should also maintain private options for those who prefer it, including premium payments geared to ability to pay. We should also provide health care, or requirement insurance coverage, for pre-existing conditions.

My campaign is based on four conservative principles: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. We should generally promote the values of freedom and democracy around the world. The presence of more, and not less, free and democratic countries in the world largely serves America’s national security and other interests. However, this does not mean we should “interfere” internally in other counties as a matter of routine. A dramatic recent example if the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In my opinion, we should not get involved in Russia’s internal operations, as distasteful as we might find them. However, Russia’s unprovoked invasion is another matter. This undermined the distribution of energy resources in Europe and created problems there, in America, and elsewhere. It is also a grab for control of additional natural resources, including minerals, and food supplies, like wheat, that threatens or harms supplies that America and its allies depend upon. Russia’s invasion also exposed its desire to use brutal military means to expand its aggrandizing power as widely as possible. Does anyone believe Russia will willingly stop at Ukraine if its invasion of Ukraine is successful? China, which covets Taiwan, a strategic U.S. ally, is watching to see what Russia gets away with and how the U.S. and its allies stand up to these types of threats. North Korea and Iran are others that need to be watched. If elected to Congress, I will fight to keep America second to none in an increasingly unstable world populated with numerous hostile adveraries.

Neutral

I support full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and a dual-state solution to the Arab-Isreali relations.

Strongly Agree

I strongly agree that the Chinese Communist Party poses serious military, cyber security, intellectual property, and global economic threats to the United States. So does Russia, North Korea, and Iran, in terms of some or all of these threats. If elected to Congress, I will fight to keep America second to none in an increasingly unstable world populated with numerous hostile adversaries.

Islamic terrorism is certainly a threat to be taken very seriously. It is not currently the top threat to the U.S. but must be watched carefully to ensure it stays that way. According to the FBI, the largest, but not the only, threat to the U.S. is domestic terrorism. We need to do more to uncover, track, prevent, and eliminate this threat.

Strongly Agree

Strongly agree.

Neutral

This is an overly simplified and vaguely worded question about a complex issue. There is no “absolute” answer to this question. Do we have some terrible problems with immigrants and others flooding our country? Yes, we do. Do we need to address this? Yes, we do. But cutting off all state and federal funds to any entity not in compliance with immigration laws is an unthoughtful and unproductive response. These entities do more than monitor or harm immigration. Cities provide police, fire and

We certainly do have problem of “too many” people flooding into our country. But it is also beyond doubt that many immigrants enter our country and live productive lives and law-abiding citizens, workers, and tax payers. U.S. commerce, and our communities (including churches) depends greatly on legal immigrants who are temporary (agriculture) and permanent (police, hospitals, hotels, restaurants). It is also beyond doubt that the U.S. population is in net decline. We cannot sustain our economic growth, national strength, or support for seniors ( for example, Social Security, Medicare) without valuable immigrants. We need to continue to find ways to bring in productive immigrants and exclude non-productive immigrants.

Strongly Agree

My conservative campaign principles of freedom and fairness are implicated here. Freedom is freedom. The freedom of choosing to not get a Covid- vaccine is the same freedom if choosing the style of how-to live one’s life. Sadly, these individuals are often targets of harassment, violence, and discrimination. As a matter of fairness, sexual orientation and gender identity should be protected classes in non-discrimination laws. As the Good Book says: mercy is what God asks for his children.

Neutral

I’ve heard a ton of descriptions of CRT and have no clear idea of what it means. I certainly do not agree that the institutions in the United States are fundamentally racist.

I believe that God is real. I know that I deeply need his sacred presence and support in my life. I try to spend time with him as the first thing at the start of everyday, including reading the Bible, and the last thing at the end of the day. I also find it meaningful to regularly worship him with others in church. I find my life generally goes better when I seek his presence in my life. I don’t proselytize but will share my beliefs with anyone who asks (such as is the case here). In this spirit, I believe that we choose every day when we get up what kind of person we’re going to be “today” and try to give more than I take and leave others better off for having been in contact with me. While my understanding of God is based on my life-long Christian beliefs, and my experience in other cultures and societies, I believe there are many ways for understanding God, for referring to him, and many paths to him. I am blessed to have close friends who practice the Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and other religions/spiritual beliefs, as well as atheists This undergirds my vigorous belief in the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state referenced in my answers elsewhere in this survey. I also believe that prayer is real, not a crutch. So, I pray regularly, alone and with others, that God will take care of my family, friends, colleagues, and others, including those reading these thoughts.

Strongly Agree

Strongly agree. Democracy and voting are the guts of our country. Nobody wants illegal or fraudulent voting. Voter identify-verification is key to accomplishing legal voting. However, approximately 10% of the public does not have government-issued photo ID, including elderly and low-income citizens. There are many alternative ways to accomplish effective voter-indentification besides requiring photo identification. A birth certificate and signature comparison are two examples.

Democracy and voting are the guts of our country. Thousands of American soldiers and patriots have died to protect our countury and our sacred right to meaningfully vote. We should make laws that maximize legal and secure voting by eligible citizens whose identities are effectively verified. This includes, among other things, laws that maxims ease of voting, such as voting on Sundays or any day of the week, voting booths that are open at least hours per day, ballot drop-boxes, voting-by-mail, and someday perhaps electronic voting (many countries securely do this now). We also need laws that (i) prevent elected officials, or others, from disregarding, overriding, ignoring, overturning, or nullifying, the sacred votes of American citizens, (ii) protect election-officials from interference of any kind in efficiently and effectively doing their job and from harassment or disrespectful treatment while performing their duties or at any other time (at home for example), and (iv) make it difficult for citizens to vote in a manner that is inconsistent with maximizing legal and secure voting by eligible citizens whose identities are effectively verified.

Disagree

Between 1980-1985, I served as the CEO of the Aleut tribal organization in Alaska. I helped lead the successful lobbying effort to secure restitution for the internment of Aleuts during WW II, passed by Congress and signed by President Reagan. Many Aleuts died then. The restitution was based on mistreatment and harm by the government, not on race. Similarly, I support the payment of restitution based on harm suffered, not on the basis of race.

My campaign is based on four conservative principles: freedom, fairness, faith, and family. Treating people differently based on race is not fair to anyone. While the term “racism” is not defined here, or in most places where it is used, I believe it is real and we must be realistic about it. It should not be ignored, excused, or downplayed. It should be taken seriously and meaningfully addressed wherever it exists.

Agree

Agree, so long that it is properly and equally balanced with environmental and climate change challenges.

We have to create integrated strategies that equally balance energy, mineral, economic, and other development, with the serious environmental protection and climate change challenges we face today. All of these are important and I reject the concept that we are not smart enough to create these types of innovative, integrated, strategies. We are not going to shut down development but we cannot hide our heads in the snow in terms of the environment and climate change. We put a man on the moon in a decade’s period of time for heaven’s sake. We can do this.

Moderate

moderate

https://www.adn.com/opinions/2021/10/31/alaskas-climate-urgency-is-real-and-we-must-be-realistic-about-it/ https://www.adn.com/opinions/2022/01/09/im-switching-from-republican-to-independent-in-alaskas-us-house-race-heres-why/ https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/05/03/qa-with-alaskas-us-house-candidates-in-the-2022-special-primary-election/

no

I am Gregg Brelsford, an independent candidate for Congress. I am as independent as you are. And my campaign is about you and the urgent challenges facing us at this pressing time. I drove to Alaska in 1972 and attended UAA while working full time for Alaskan tribes. I lobbied for them in Juneau and Washington, D.C. for decades. I founded the health department for the Chugach tribe. Later, as CEO of the Aleut tribe, I helped secure compensation for the Aleuts’ internment during W.W. II, passed by Congress and signed by President Reagan. Next, I earned a law degree at Harvard Law School, clerked for the Alaska Supreme Court, and practiced in Anchorage. Recently, I served as Manager of the Bristol Bay Borough and Dillingham (interim). I managed police, docks, sewer lagoons threatened by melting permafrost, and kept the $1+ billion per year fishery going during the pandemic. I resolved problems on-the-ground, making life better for Alaskans. I know how to get things done in Congress. No other candidate has this gut-level grasp of Alaska’s challenges and how to fix them. In an increasingly unstable world, we face exceptionally serious challenges. These include a perfect-storm of insufficient military capacity, lack of energy independence, rising prices for gas, groceries, and housing, and climate change. I’ll fight to keep our military second to none, develop Alaska’s energy and other resources for independence and jobs, reduce high prices, protect Medicare and Social Security, and not hide our heads in the snow over climate change. Tribal sovereignty’s time has come and more Native women will go missing and be murdered if we don’t do better. I will passionately protect democracy against unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and radical partisans who will try to overturn the sacred votes of our citizens if they lose next elections. Alaskans are tired of extreme politics. As a no-drama, independent leader, I will vigorously fight to make us, and our hallowed democracy, stronger and more secure in today’s unstable world.

Disagree

I believe that police officers should be personally immune from prosecution for conduct consistent with departmental policy (qualified immunity) while on duty and acting in the parameters of their job description, except for grossly negligent,reckless, or criminal acts.

Strongly Disagree

I served as the Manager of the two largest local governments in the remote Bristol Bay region of Alaska, including managing police departments. We were always underfunded. I believe that mental health and community programs are critical aspects of a compressive criminal justice strategy in America and its cities. However, I do not support redirecting funds from police departments. We should fund these important services from other sources.

In Alaska, we use guns to hunt for subsistence, for protection from bears and other animals in the wild, and other things. Guns are central to our way of life. While we do have crimes committed with guns, including murder, I do not support restricting gun ownership.

Agree

In America, manufacturers can be sued for harm caused by defective products, fraud, and negligence, among other things. In these types of cases, both victims and manufactures should have their day in court.