Internal friction hampers Alaska’s influential Bush Caucus

For more than five decades, a group of rural Alaska lawmakers known as the Bush Caucus have at times played a king-making role in the Alaska Legislature. Rural lawmakers have frequently put regional interests above those of party loyalty, and their willingness to cross the partisan aisle has frequently given them outsized power in the Capitol. Last year, the group’s willingness to join Republicans swung control of the entire House. But this year, the group once known as the “ice bloc” appears to have cracked, with Republican Rep. Thomas Baker...