Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

The Policy Racket

Alaska Republican gives nod to public radio on Senate floor

Republicans in the House may have all voted to defund public radio, but that sort of fervor doesn’t seem to be catching on with all the GOP members of the Senate.

That became clear Thursday afternoon when Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who gained national name-recognition last fall when she beat Republican Tea Party candidate Joe Miller as a write-in candidate, took to the floor to commemorate the success of John Baker, an Alaskan who just completed the Iditarod dogsled race in record time.

The 1,049-mile long race, which spans the icy northernmost state from Anchorage to Nome, might not seem to have that much to do with Nevada public radio. But that was before Nevada Sen. Harry Reid came onto the floor to engage Murkowski in a bit of colloquy about the origins of the race.

The race, as it turns out, commemorates a near-tragedy in 1925, when dog mushers racing along the Iditarod trail brought much-needed serum to save diptheria-stricken residents of Nome.

Radio allows people in remote areas of Alaska to place calls such for help.

“In many parts of our state, and certainly along part of where these teams are traveling right now, we don’t have a level of communication that we see here in Washington, D.C., or elsewhere,” Murkowski said. “So that’s our plug for public radio.”

While teams of medicine-bearing dogs aren’t likely to be called upon for rescue operations in Ely anytime soon, Nevada and Alaska are both rural states; and rural areas are the ones likely to see the deepest cuts, even discontinuation of service, if local NPR member stations lose their federal funding.

“The only radio station I can get in Searchlight in the daylight is public radio,” Reid offered as a nod to Murkowski’s support.

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