Anchorage Assembly chair readies a plan to replace Zac Johnson if his ticket wins

Anchorage Assembly Chair Anna Brawley told members Thursday that she expects to call a special meeting in mid-December, in part to appoint a temporary replacement for South Anchorage Assembly member Zac Johnson if he becomes Alaska's next lieutenant governor.

Johnson is the running mate of Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, and their ticket leads the governor's race.

It had 49.6% of first-choice votes in the Division of Elections' unofficial count Wednesday, 888 votes short of an outright majority. More than 30,000 ballots the state has received aren't in the results yet, by Alaska News' estimate.

If no one tops 50%, the race goes to a ranked-choice count. An Alaska News analysis found that on the ballots counted through Tuesday, the ticket would win that count against Republican Bernadette Wilson with about 56% of the vote.

Brawley said the plan is a contingency.

"We do not know the results of that election," she told the Assembly's Governance Committee. "However, in the job that I'm in, I have to plan for contingencies, and so what I'm sharing is not a done deal."

If Johnson leaves, the district that covers South Anchorage, Girdwood and Turnagain Arm would be down to one member, Keith McCormick. Brawley said that would last at least four months unless the Assembly appoints someone, and she recommended it do so.

"I think it is fair to that district that we consider filling that seat," she said.

The city charter sets the rules. When a seat opens, the Assembly has 30 days to appoint a replacement if it chooses, and that person serves until the next election.

Because Johnson's seat would open less than six months before the April 6 city election, it would go on that ballot. Voters would elect someone to serve the rest of his term, which runs through 2029. Johnson, a Marine veteran who flew for the Alaska State Troopers, won the seat in 2023 and was reelected this April.

Alaska's governor and lieutenant governor take office the first Monday in December, which this year is Dec. 7.

Brawley said the special meeting would likely be the evening of Thursday, Dec. 17, or during the day Friday, Dec. 18. It could also handle year-end contracts that don't make the Assembly's last regular agenda.

Municipal Clerk Jamie Heinz said applications for the seat are projected to close Dec. 16. "So the evening of the 16th will not work," she said, calling the process "a puzzle every time."

The Assembly last did this in early 2023, when Forrest Dunbar of East Anchorage left for the state Senate and Jamie Allard of Eagle River left for the state House. Applicants were interviewed in public, the Assembly filled both seats by majority vote, and voters elected members to finish the terms that April, according to the Assembly's announcement.

Only two of the current 12 members have seen it happen before, Brawley said.