An ethics panel found probable cause that Rep. Sarah Vance misused her office to pressure a newspaper

A legislative ethics panel has found probable cause that Rep. Sarah Vance misused the powers of her office to pressure a newspaper into altering an article she didn't like.

The finding, issued Friday, isn't a verdict — it's a threshold step that sends the case to a full committee hearing, which will decide whether Vance actually broke the law. But the underlying sequence is striking. After the Homer News published an article about a vigil held in Homer following the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Vance sent a letter on official state letterhead to the paper's corporate owner. The letter complained of bias, warned of a growing advertiser boycott, and urged the company to review its editorial standards and the reporter's body of work.

The paper responded: it took the article down, revised it, removed the original reporter's byline, and cut the language Vance had flagged. Vance then posted her letter on her official Facebook page and publicly thanked the company after it made the changes.

That use of official resources — the state letterhead, the official Facebook page, her legislative title — is the crux of the case. Alaska law bars legislators from using public resources for nonlegislative or partisan purposes, and the subcommittee concluded the allegations, if proven, would cross that line.

Vance has declined to take part in the proceedings, arguing the complaints should be dismissed. Even taking the allegations as true, she wrote, none "rise to the level of a violation," and she maintains she was "acting within the bounds of my legislative duties."

The full committee will now decide whether that's true.