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.
“The 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,” the organization said Friday.
On Wednesday, Stock sat down with the Empire for an hourlong interview, explaining her run for office.
“It’s partisan warfare in the Congress,” she said.
With Congress so deeply divided between Republicans and Democrats, the “partisan dysfunction … is having a bad effect on Alaska.”
If she is elected to Congress as an independent, “I’m going to be the most sought-after person in the U.S. Senate,” she said.
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.
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.
Her old high school’s 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.
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.
She returned to Harvard for graduate school, earning a law degree.
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.
Her most significant accomplishment — one she received a MacArthur “genius grant” award for — was the development of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program for the Department of Defense.
That allows immigrants with translation skills or medical skills to become U.S. citizens quickly if they enlist in the U.S. military.
It took “less than a year” 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.
Stock said one of her overarching beliefs is that it’s important to not put short-term gain ahead of long-term benefits.
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.
“I believe in science. I do believe humans have something,” to do with causing climate change, she said. “We (in Alaska) should be the nation’s laboratory on alternative energy, and that could be our contribution to combating climate change.”
With regard to conflict in the Middle East, Stock says she favors “targeted intelligence solutions to problems,” and not outright intervention.
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 “reasoned analysis” whenever American troops are deployed into battle.
She believes Russia is operating under “a strongman system,” and that requires care with the way the U.S. deals with Vladimir Putin.
“He’s the kind of guy who responds to strength,” she said.
Locally, Stock said she’s monitoring the issues with Canadian mines upriver from Alaska salmon streams.
“I don’t want to see a mining concern on the other side of the border wreck a renewable resource,” she said.
She said she’s a strong supporter of Second-Amendment rights, but she supports all the amendments, not just the Second.
Stock will be on November’s general election ballot alongside Murkowski, Libertarian Party candidate Joe Miller, Democratic candidate Ray Metcalfe, and other independent candidates Breck Craig and Ted Gianoutsos.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at 523-2258 or james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.
