WASHINGTON — Mary Peltola was sworn in Tuesday to the U.S. House, becoming the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress and the first woman to hold Alaska’s lone seat in the House of Representatives.
U.S. Rep. Peltola, a Democrat, won an August special election to serve out the rest of Republican Rep. Don Young’s term. Young died in March, after holding the seat for nearly five decades.
Just after 2:30 p.m. Alaska time, Peltola lined up with two special election winners from New York. They raised their right hands and took the oath of office from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The members of the House and family and friends in attendance erupted in cheers after Peltola was sworn in, rising to their feet. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, took a picture of Peltola on the House floor.
In her first speech on the House floor, Peltola said she is humbled to be the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, “but to be clear, I am here to represent all Alaskans,” she added.
“It is the honor of my life to represent Alaska, a place my elders and ancestors have called home for thousands of years,” said Peltola, who is Yup’ik.
She said that in her first days in Washington, she had already begun forming friendships across the aisle, and that she is committed to continuing the legacy of her Republican predecessor.
Before speaking on the House floor, she embraced Democrat Sharice Davids of Kansas, a Native American elected to the U.S. House in 2018. After she was done speaking, she immediately embraced Murkowski, a Republican, who stood behind her along with Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and several other U.S. House members.
Peltola is also running in the November election that determines who will hold the House seat for the full two-year term that begins in January. She is running against two Republicans, former Gov. Sarah Palin and businessman Nick Begich, and Libertarian Chris Bye.
Her swearing-in on the House floor was followed by a ceremony presided over by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. In attendance at the swearing-in ceremony were her husband, seven children, two grandchildren and two sisters, many of whom had traveled from Alaska to attend the ceremony.
Peltola arrived in Washington, D.C., on Sunday after a trip to Bethel, her hometown. On Monday she received her official congressional pin and the keys to Young’s old office — one of the biggest in the House — that she will inhabit for the next four months. She also named five members of her staff, including Alex Ortiz, Young’s former chief of staff.
Peltola, a former state lawmaker who represented the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the state House for a decade ending in 2009, previously chaired the state Bush Caucus that brings together lawmakers representing communities off the road system. More recently she was the director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission working on subsistence fishery issues and food security in the region. She has made fish policy and her support of abortion access hallmarks of her congressional campaign, which she launched in April, two weeks after her predecessor’s death.
Following in Young’s footsteps, Peltola requested to join the House Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees — the two committees Young chaired. Formal committee assignments have not been announced by her office.
The Alaska Federation of Natives planned a reception for Peltola following the swearing-in ceremony at a hotel near the Capitol. AFN co-chair Ana Hoffman, a former high school classmate of Peltola and a longtime friend, recently called Peltola’s victory “restorative” and “iconic.”
Prior to being sworn in Tuesday, Peltola attended a bill-signing ceremony at the White House for the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed Congress with all Republicans opposed, including Alaska’s two U.S. senators, Murkowski and Sullivan. At the ceremony, attended by many congressional Democrats, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Peltola said she was able to meet some of her colleagues for the first time.
At a brief stop at a campaign event following the White House gathering, Peltola said she had experienced “the dripping sweat and the feeling of melting and the camaraderie.” The temperature on Tuesday on the White House south lawn exceeded 80 degrees under a blazing sun, unlike the cool and rainy weather she was accustomed to Alaska. “It felt a little bit like being in a steambath,” she said.
At the swearing in, she wore a walrus tusk ivory necklace gifted to her by her husband, ivory earrings from her mother, and mukluks made in Bethel, where she is from.
Immediately after the ceremony, Peltola was set to vote on three bills. The first bill is related to funding for victims of domestic trafficking. Another bill would direct the Department of Transportation to establish a program to use drones to inspect infrastructure projects. The third bill would give the federal government more flexibility to fund wildfire management.
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