Vote No on Stephen Cox's Confirmation as Attorney General

I am writing to urge you to vote against the confirmation of Stephen Cox as Alaska's attorney general. After less than five months as acting attorney general, Cox has demonstrated that he prioritizes importing Lower 48 political disputes over defending Alaska's interests and laws. Cox became licensed to practice law in Alaska only three months before his appointment. He immediately created a new solicitor general position for an attorney from Indiana who neither lives nor is licensed to practice in Alaska, effectively demoting attorneys who have served the department for years or decades. This decision has damaged morale and retention in the department. Most troubling is Cox's failure to defend Alaska law and Alaskans' rights. He signed off on a brief taking no position on whether states like Alaska should be allowed to count absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day if postmarked earlier. Alaska has statutes allowing late-arriving ballots due to our state's remoteness and slower mail service. Thousands of Alaskans could be disenfranchised by this position, including rural Alaskans and military members serving overseas. Cox also attacked the Katie John case, which for decades has provided rural subsistence priority for taking salmon on many Alaska rivers. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his arguments in a single sentence, demonstrating how legally and morally wrong his position was. Rather than focusing on Alaska's needs, Cox has filed briefs in dozens of cases having nothing to do with our state's interests, spending scarce departmental funds on cases about issues like same-sex couples buying wedding cakes. He created a manufactured controversy with the Anchorage School District over disclaimer stickers while failing to disclose his personal conflict of interest through his affiliation with Hillsdale College. Alaska's attorney general must be an advocate for our Constitution, laws, and people regardless of partisan politics. Cox has shown he is more interested in self-promotion and far-right credentials than serving Alaskans. I urge you to vote no on his confirmation.