Lyman Hoffman marks 40 years in the Legislature by citing rural Alaska's costs

Sen. Lyman Hoffman of Bethel, who is leaving the Alaska Legislature after 40 years, used his remarks accepting a Commonwealth North award to talk about what it costs to live in the rural communities he represents.

"We have some of the highest costs. When you're paying $12 a gallon for a gallon of milk, $20 a gallon for heating fuel, and you have some of the lowest incomes in the state of Alaska," Hoffman said. "It's more difficult today than ever to make ends meet."

"We are one Alaska," he said, calling it the message he tries to carry every day in the Legislature. "Alaska wouldn't be here without rural Alaska."

Hoffman shared the policy group's Egan award with retiring Senate President Gary Stevens at its annual gala in Anchorage.

Born in Bethel in 1950, Hoffman was the city's manager from 1977 to 1985 before winning a state House seat in 1986, according to his legislative record. He moved between the House and Senate in the early 1990s and has served in the Senate since 1995.

He spent years leading the committees that handle the state budget. Hoffman co-chaired the House Finance Committee in 1989 and 1990, and legislative records list him as a co-chair of Senate Finance in six of the last 10 Legislatures, including the current one. He was Senate majority leader in 2019 and 2020.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who served with him in the Legislature, called him "the alltime longest serving member of the Alaska State Legislature" in a July tribute on the U.S. Senate floor.

She said he may be best remembered for the endowment behind Power Cost Equalization, the state program that helps rural Alaskans pay for electricity that can cost several times what city residents pay. Working alongside her father, Gov. Frank Murkowski, she said, Hoffman secured the program's long-term future. The endowment now tops $1 billion, according to the tribute. She also credited him with helping secure more than $600 million for the state's weatherization program.

At the gala, Hoffman recalled the bipartisan group of senators that looked to "the middle," not "the far right of the Republican Party or the far left of the Democratic Party." The group elected Lyda Green Senate president and made Hoffman a Senate Finance co-chair, he said. Legislative records show he co-chaired the committee with Sen. Bert Stedman from 2007 through 2012.

He also told of starting college in the fall of 1968. When an adviser learned he was from rural Alaska, Hoffman said, the adviser told him he had less than a 1% chance to graduate. "I got up and walked out," he said. "Don't listen to what other people say about you. Listen to your heart."

"It's been 40 years, long enough," he said. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it again."

Hoffman said House Speaker Bryce Edgmon of Dillingham will succeed him and follow him onto Senate Finance. "I'm leaving the Senate in good hands," he said.

The Senate's bipartisan coalition has already named Edgmon a Senate Finance co-chair for the next Legislature. He leads the four-way race for Hoffman's seat on first-choice votes but doesn't have a majority, so the ranked-choice count will decide it.