It was a good week for Margaret Stock.<\/p>\n
The independent candidate challenging Lisa Murkowski for U.S. Senate was endorsed last week by former Sen. Mark Begich and by the Tongass Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tongass Democrats believe that Margaret Stock, while sharing the core tenets of the Democratic Party, best represents the many diverse and varied positions of all Alaskans,\u201d the organization said Friday.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Stock sat down with the Empire for an hourlong interview, explaining her run for office.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s partisan warfare in the Congress,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With Congress so deeply divided between Republicans and Democrats, the \u201cpartisan dysfunction \u2026 is having a bad effect on Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n
If she is elected to Congress as an independent, \u201cI\u2019m going to be the most sought-after person in the U.S. Senate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fifty-three percent of Alaskan voters are registered as either nonpartisan or undeclared, according to figures from the Alaska Division of Elections, and Stock believes she has a good shot at winning their votes.<\/p>\n
Stock is an attorney specializing in immigration issues, but her background is in the military. She was born and raised in Massachusetts and said her family fell apart after her father died when she was 15. She spent time in a homeless shelter and was the subject of a child-custody case. She dropped out of high school and was taken in by a foster family.<\/p>\n
Her old high school\u2019s guidance counselor urged her to continue her education, and she was able to gain admittance to Boston University, earn her high school degree through a program there, and pay for school through ROTC and loans.<\/p>\n
She completed paratrooper training and was commissioned as a reserve officer. She transferred to Harvard College and, upon graduation, volunteered for active duty in Alaska.<\/p>\n
She returned to Harvard for graduate school, earning a law degree.<\/p>\n
She continued her military career as well, serving in Japan, Korea and other parts of the United States. She married in 1992 and had a daughter, Catherine, in 1997.<\/p>\n
Her most significant accomplishment \u2014 one she received a MacArthur \u201cgenius grant\u201d award for \u2014 was the development of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program for the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n
That allows immigrants with translation skills or medical skills to become U.S. citizens quickly if they enlist in the U.S. military.<\/p>\n
It took \u201cless than a year\u201d from the time she proposed it in early 2008 to the time it was approved by the Secretary of Defense, she said, and according to federal statistics, 5,200 new citizens were registered under the program in fiscal year 2016 alone.<\/p>\n
Stock said one of her overarching beliefs is that it\u2019s important to not put short-term gain ahead of long-term benefits.<\/p>\n
She supports the reversal of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and would like to see the U.S. reduce its spending on nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in science. I do believe humans have something,\u201d to do with causing climate change, she said. \u201cWe (in Alaska) should be the nation\u2019s laboratory on alternative energy, and that could be our contribution to combating climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n
With regard to conflict in the Middle East, Stock says she favors \u201ctargeted intelligence solutions to problems,\u201d and not outright intervention.<\/p>\n
She believes the combination of intelligence, special forces, humanitarian aid and diplomacy are key to solving the current issues in Syria, and she wants to see more \u201creasoned analysis\u201d whenever American troops are deployed into battle.<\/p>\n
She believes Russia is operating under \u201ca strongman system,\u201d and that requires care with the way the U.S. deals with Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the kind of guy who responds to strength,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Locally, Stock said she\u2019s monitoring the issues with Canadian mines upriver from Alaska salmon streams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to see a mining concern on the other side of the border wreck a renewable resource,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019s a strong supporter of Second-Amendment rights, but she supports all the amendments, not just the Second.<\/p>\n
Stock will be on November\u2019s general election ballot alongside Murkowski, Libertarian Party candidate Joe Miller, Democratic candidate Ray Metcalfe, and other independent candidates Breck Craig and Ted Gianoutsos.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at 523-2258 or james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a good week for Margaret Stock. The independent candidate challenging Lisa Murkowski for U.S. Senate was endorsed last week by former Sen. Mark Begich and by the Tongass Democrats. \u201cThe Tongass Democrats believe that Margaret Stock, while sharing the core tenets of the Democratic Party, best represents the many diverse and varied positions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":12040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}