Click Bishop

Clark Calvin "Click" Bishop (born July 25, 1957) is an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the Alaska Senate from 2013 to 2025.^[1] Bishop represented the western Fairbanks North Star Borough and many rural communities in Interior Alaska. Bishop served as the state's Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development from 2007 to 2012.^[2][3][4]

Click Bishop
Bishop in January 2019
Member of the Alaska Senate
In office January 18, 2013 – January 21, 2025
Preceded by	Redistricted
Succeeded by	Mike Cronk
Constituency	District C (2013−2023) District R (2023−2025)
Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development
In office January 11, 2007 – April 2012
Governor	Sarah Palin Sean Parnell
Preceded by	Greg O’Claray
Succeeded by	Dianne Blumer
Personal details
Born	Clark Calvin Bishop (1957-07-25) July 25, 1957 (age 67) Mexico, Missouri, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Darlene
Children	2

Early life

Clark Bishop was born on July 25, 1957, in Mexico, Missouri, the older of two children born to Howell Calvin Bishop and wife Jacqueline (née Murphy).^[5] In 1959, the family moved to Alaska. They spent over a decade living in a variety of small settlements along the Alaska Highway and Richardson Highway corridors while the elder Bishop worked in construction. Bishop moved to Fairbanks to complete his education, graduating from Lathrop High School in 1974.^[6]

Union career

After graduation from high school, Bishop joined the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 and, starting with the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, worked on diverse construction projects across the state. From 1991 until his retirement from the union in 2006, Bishop was the administrator and coordinator for the Alaska Operating Engineers/Employers Training Trust. The Trust offers heavy equipment training for apprentice and journey-level workers.^[7][8]

Political career

Bishop somewhat reluctantly left retirement later in 2006 to become Labor Commissioner, the head of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, under newly-elected Governor Sarah Palin.^[9] When Governor Palin resigned in July 2009, her successor, former lieutenant governor Sean Parnell, kept Bishop on as Labor Commissioner. When Parnell was elected governor in his own right in November 2010, he again retained Bishop as head of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Bishop retired as Labor Commissioner in March 2012, and less than two months later filed a letter of intent with the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) to run for a Senate seat.^[10]

2013-2014 Alaska Senate term

Bishop entered elected politics via the hotly contested 2012 Republican primary for Senate Seat C, newly created by redistricting.^[11] At that time the Senate was controlled by a bipartisan coalition of moderates, and the main campaign issue in that primary was a pledge not to join the coalition, but only the Republican caucus.^[12] Unlike his two primary opponents, Bishop did not take the pledge, explaining that he would join whatever group that would best lower energy costs in interior Alaska. Bishop’s chief opponent, former state senator Ralph Seekins, charged that Bishop was not a “real Republican”,^[13] citing Bishop’s past lack of involvement with the state Republican Party organization. Seekins saw labor union contributions to Bishop’s campaign as a sign that the Democratic Party was secretly supporting Bishop (Bishop replied that, given his long union history, union support was to be expected).^[14] This primary race was the most expensive in the state, with Seekins funding most of his own campaign.^[11] Bishop won the three-way August 28 Republican primary with 47% of the vote.^[15]

Bishop faced Democrat Anne Sudkamp in the general election. In contrast to the fierce primary, the general election was characterized by positive campaigns on both sides. Sudkamp said, “I have to say that it’s been great running against Click Bishop. We’re not running negative campaigns and we’re getting our ideas out and we’re enjoying campaigning.” Bishop easily defeated Sudkamp’s shoestring campaign^[16] with 70% of the vote.^[17] After the election, changes in the makeup of the Senate led to the dissolution of the bipartisan Senate leadership coalition. Bishop joined the Republican caucus that replaced it.^[18]

Bishop served on the powerful Finance Committee, a committee on which he would remain for his entire Senate career.^[19] He also served as co-chair of the Senate Special Committee on In-State Energy. Bishop and other House and Senate lawmakers from interior Alaska shepherded to passage legislation which implemented Governor Sean Parnell’s plan to truck natural gas from the Alaska North Slope to Fairbanks.^[20] Bishop was counted among the moderate Republican senators who were the swing votes on controversial legislation, sometimes to the annoyance of more conservative Republicans.^{[21] [22]}

2015-2018 Alaska Senate term

In 2014, Bishop ran unopposed in the Republican primary after two former state legislators filed to run against him and then quickly withdrew.^{[23] [24]} In the general election, Bishop easily defeated his Democratic challenger Dorothy Shockley with 64% of the vote^[25] in a race noted for its mutual courtesy, not only because of the candidates' shared distaste for negative campaigning but because Shockley is the cousin of Bishop’s wife.^[26] Bishop served as chairman of the Community and Regional Affairs Committee in addition to keeping his Finance Committee seat.^[27]

2019-2022 Alaska Senate term

In 2018, Bishop was unopposed in the primary^[28] and general elections.^[29] After the election, Bishop’s assignments to Senate standing committees increased; in addition to his Finance Committee seat, he was chosen as chair of the Community and Regional Affairs Committee and also took his place on the Health and Social Services, Resources, and Labor and Commerce committees. ^[30]

Bishop also served as vice chair of the Senate Legislative Budget and Audit Committee. In the run-up to the 2019 legislative session, Bishop said, “My priorities this session are the budget, the budget, [and] the budget.”^[31] In the 2021 legislative session, Bishop rose to be capital budget co-chair of the Finance Committee, complementing operating budget co-chair Senator Bert Stedman

Bishop did not always vote with his Republican colleagues. In May of 2022, the Republican party organization in House District 36, one of the two House districts which comprised Bishop’s Senate district, voted to censure Bishop for votes of his which the organization said violated the Alaska Republican Party platform. The votes in question included votes on COVID-19 policy, public education and the Permanent Fund Dividend. The state Republican Party took no position on the censure.^{[32] [33]}

2023-2024 Alaska Senate term

Redistricting changed the boundaries of Bishop’s Senate District C, and also its name, to Senate District R. The party primaries were also replaced by an open primary in which the top four finishers advanced to the general election. Consequently, in Bishop’s bid for reelection in 2022 he was opposed in both the primary and the general elections by Republican Elijah Verhagen and Alaska Independence Party candidate Robert “Bert” Williams. Verhagen was the chair of the District 36 Republican committee that had voted to censure Bishop earlier in the year. The main issue of the 2022 campaign was affordable energy. Bishop designated it as his focus for his next term if he won, which he did with 56% of the general election vote.^{[32] [34] [35]}

In addition to his seat on the Finance Committee, Bishop became co-chair of the Resources Committee following the election.

In May 2024, shortly before the filing deadline to run for reelection, Bishop issued a statement that he would not be running, saying that he would be focusing on his family and on his gold mining for the next two years. He also wrote, “There is still a determination inside me to fix our current path of rising energy costs and the loss of our working-age population. It is clear that addressing those issues requires taking on a bigger role than serving in the legislature.”^[36]

2026 Alaska gubernatorial election

Main article: 2026 Alaska gubernatorial election

On May 5, 2025, Bishop filed a letter of intent to run for governor with APOC. This is the first step to participate in the 2026 Alaska gubernatorial campaign.^[19]

Personal life

Darlene, Bishop’s wife, is Athabascan and a retired kindergarten teacher. They have two children.^[7][37]

A keen outdoorsman, Bishop has twice (1998 and 2000) won the Yukon 800 Mile Marathon speedboat race from Fairbanks to Galena, Alaska and back.^[38][7] He mines gold at a placer mine near his cabin at Manley Hot Springs, where he and Darlene honeymooned in 1976.^[7][39]

Bishop is an active member of the Pioneers of Alaska, a statewide historical preservation society.^[40]