Sam Cason
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Sam Cason (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Alaska State Senate to represent District K. Cason lost in the general election on November 6, 2018.
Cason completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Cason filed as an undeclared candidate but gained the Democratic nomination after he won the Democratic primary.
Elections
2018
- See also: Alaska State Senate elections, 2018
General election
General election for Alaska State Senate District K
Incumbent Mia Costello defeated Sam Cason in the general election for Alaska State Senate District K on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Mia Costello (R) | 57.0 | 8,389 |
Sam Cason (D)  | 42.7 | 6,281 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 44 | ||
| Total votes: 14,714 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Alaska State Senate District K
Incumbent Mia Costello advanced from the Republican primary for Alaska State Senate District K on August 21, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Mia Costello | 100.0 | 3,076 |
| Total votes: 3,076 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Alaska Democratic, Libertarian, and Independence parties primary election
Alaska Democratic, Libertarian, and Independence parties primary for Alaska State Senate District K
Sam Cason advanced from the Alaska Democratic, Libertarian, and Independence parties primary for Alaska State Senate District K on August 21, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Sam Cason | 100.0 | 2,127 | |
| Total votes: 2,127 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
- See also: Ballotpedia's candidate surveys
Sam Cason participated in Ballotpedia's candidate survey on August 28, 2018. The survey questions appear in bold, and Sam Cason's responses follow below.[1]
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
| “ | 1. Budget process, including education 2. Crime and criminal justice system 3. PFD[2][3] |
” |
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about? Why?
| “ | Education. Our kids are our only savings plan for the future. For our kids to have opportunities to be successful in life, they need opportunities to become well educated. To make a good education available to all students in Alaskan schools, we must provide not only a robust curriculum, but also nurture literate and inquisitive productive citizens. Budget. Our government was formed to provide certain necessary functions. To do that better - to educate, build, maintain, administer, regulate, protect, or prohibit better- there needs be a stable financial framework and budgeting process. Since our savings have already been spent, we need sustainable and adequate revenue sources of income to pay for our necessary budgeted expenses. Crime. We need an adequately funded and staffed criminal justice system; police, prosecutors, public defenders, judges, court staff, corrections and parole officers. Until the sources and causes of increased criminal behavior have been identified and quantified, we cannot effectively reduce crime. At some point, a proactive crime prevention program becomes a more efficient use of tax dollars than increased police presence. Permanent Fund Dividend. The pfd needs to be protected. This is our Alaska and the pfd insures that we all share that blessing. It is also a very efficient boost to the economy and is tremendously important to maintaining a healthy private sector, which helps reduce the demand for more government services. Other. We need a capital budget. Real health care reform means more people have access, not fewer. University research should be encouraged. Pro family, pro union, pro choice.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many[3]
|
” |
Ballotpedia also asked the candidate a series of optional questions. Sam Cason answered the following:
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow and why?
| “ | I like both Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, closer to home I am a fan of Earnest Gruening. They all stood for a strong and prosperous middle class, and a government dedicated to being a part of and balance for a fair system. We remember Teddy for establishing our national parks, but he was also the great "Trust Buster." Breaking the monopolists' stranglehold on industry led to unprecedented economic growth. FDR's New Deal provided jobs and productive infrastructure work that became the basis of the post-war economy that again saw unprecedented economic growth. Earnest Gruening led the battle against fish traps. which were abolished in the first Act of Alaska's first State Legislature. Harvesting salmon from boats rather than in-stream has created opportunities for many times more people to prosper and create thriving communities across coastal Alaska.[3] | ” |
| “ | I was fortunate to receive an Alaska public education as excellent as those of my friends who attended private schools. In high school I was encouraged to read and be familiar with the old classics from the Bible and Plato's Republic as well as classic economists like Adam Smith and Marx. I was well enough prepared that it made sense in college when literature like Shakespear's plays, and Novels like Orwell's 1984 were layered illustrating how both the sublime and profane are within human nature and experience. I didn't read it when it was published, but a few years ago picked up "The Bonfire of the Vanities" by Thomas Wolfe. While it may be characterized as cynical, I found it an entertaining cautionary tale. I would point to the recent trilogy "The Hunger Games" as a good illustration of the distopian future we should avoid.[3] | ” |
| “ | Integrity. What a candidate promises and holds up as important principals when asking for our votes should be accurate predictors of what that person will do if elected. Experience. It is easy to be overwhelmed by large unfamiliar situations; a candidate should have a frame of reference to understand the levers and functions of the office he or she is seeking. Vision. The past is gone and the present is already here - being able to articulate how our system can preserve what is good and improve on our children's prospects is the best way promote stability and avoid a government that careens from crisis to crisis.[3] | ” |
| “ | Integrity. Experience. Vision.[3] | ” |
| “ | To represent the people from District K, and promote a stable prosperous Alaska. Health care costs are eating people's retirements and job opportunities. At the same time, regulatory burden and administrative overhead are closing down small assisted living facilities which have provided cost-effective and more homelike environments than is possible in large institutional settings. The public education guaranteed to our children by our Alaskan Constitution is under attack by corporations that promise that their canned curriculum works as well as hiring competent teachers. The job of the State Senate is to ensure that there are laws underwritten by a budget that supports a system and economy of increasing prosperity and opportunity both now, and into the long term.[3] | ” |
| “ | A prosperous community with broad ranging opportunities in what is sure to be a rapidly changing world.[3] | ” |
| “ | JFK's assassination in November 1963 - I was almost 4.[3] | ” |
| “ | Hod Carrier. When I was 11 or 12, my Dad, a high school science teacher, paid me to mix mud and carry blocks for him building concrete block basements. I did that a few summers before getting my first job as a deckhand on a salmon seiner.[3] | ” |
| “ | Nothing, but it took a really long time.[3] | ” |
| “ | 4th of July. One of our son's birthday is on July 2 and one is on July 6. We usually have a big extended family barbecue and celebrate our founders and our family together.[3] | ” |
| “ | As a kid I read "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy at least a dozen times, and I have a real fondness for Russian Literature, War and Peace, Dr. Zhivago, Quiet Flows the Don, Bros. Karamozov; I like Jack London, Mark Twain, Gore Vidal, Terry Pratchet, Tom Robbins, John Grisham and George RR Martin. I like books that explore the human condition, and the nature of choice.[3] | ” |
| “ | Gandalf - indomitable spirit and deepest of knowledge with the wisdom and humility to avoid becoming the first of many slaves to his own ambition.[3] | ” |
| “ | My family. They're awesome![3] | ” |
| “ | First we take Manhattan by Leonard Cohen[3] | ” |
| “ | Nothing worth having comes easy and I have a lot; I have struggled to be a better parent to my kids and better partner to my spouse, but I am so lucky and blessed that I don't think my particular struggles are very noteworthy.[3] | ” |
| “ | The Senate should take the longer view and act as a steadying hand on the rudder of laws and state sponsored programs. The house should be more reactive to the present and explore more options and short term solutions to immediate problems.[3] | ” |
| “ | Yes. I am much more comfortable with our legislative process with my understanding of how a bill is reviewed by the agency that will administer it to look for conflicts with existing laws or policies, providing explanations and estimates of how it would be implemented, how the existing legal structures would accommodate it, and how much it would cost[3] | ” |
| “ | Transitioning from a budget hostage to oil prices and based only on oil revenues to one based on sustainable revenues.[3] | ” |
| “ | As the chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the administration of laws and implementation of policies in the best interest of all Alaskans - he spends the money the legislature appropriates. The legislature is responsible for monitoring the administration of the laws it has passed so that changes can be made to protect the future well being of Alaska. It's biggest job is examining the needs of the State, identifying how much we are willing to spend on those needs, and raising that money, again in the way that is in the best interest of all Alaskans.[3] | ” |
| “ | Yes, as you can see from all the books I like that I find a strong narrative thread compelling. "Relationships" is just another way of saying we should get together and understand each other, so we can understand each other's motivations, priorities, and reasoning. That is how rational people understand each other and reach consensus on how to best proceed.[3] | ” |
| “ | Identification of socially, economically, and geographically contiguous areas Keeping historic political units intact with more emphasis on keeping the area to boundary length ratio down and less consideration to favoring one party or another by gerrymandering.[3] | ” |
| “ | Finance, judiciary, natural resources, education.[3] | ” |
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Note: The candidate's answers have been reproduced here verbatim without edits or corrections by Ballotpedia.
- ↑ Ballotpedia's candidate survey, "Sam Cason's responses," August 28, 2018
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
Current members of the Alaska State Senate
Leadership
Senate President:Gary Stevens
Majority Leader:Catherine Giessel
Senators
District A
Bert Stedman (R)
District B
Jesse Kiehl (D)
District C
Gary Stevens (R)
District D
Jesse Bjorkman (R)
District E
District F
James Kaufman (R)
District G
District H
Matt Claman (D)
District I
Loki Tobin (D)
District J
Forrest Dunbar (D)
District K
District L
Kelly Merrick (R)
District M
Shelley Hughes (R)
District N
Robert Yundt (R)
District O
Mike Shower (R)
District P
Scott Kawasaki (D)
District Q
Robert Myers (R)
District R
Mike Cronk (R)
District S
Lyman Hoffman (D)
District T
Donald Olson (D)
Republican Party (11)
Democratic Party (9)
