Pete Kelly (Alaska politician)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Peter Gene Kelly (born June 3, 1956) is an American Republican politician from Fairbanks, Alaska. He served in the Alaska Legislature for more than two decades: in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999 and in the Alaska Senate from 1999 to 2003, and again from 2013 to 2019. He was president of the Alaska Senate from 2017 to 2019. Kelly lost his bid for re-election in 2018 to Scott Kawasaki.

Kelly grew up in Fairbanks as the youngest of seven children of Halford and Helen Kelly. He graduated from Monroe Catholic High School in 1974, studied at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Liberty University. He and his wife Perri have three children. His brother Mike Kelly died in a plane crash in 2016.

In his political career, Kelly won the House seat in District 31 in 1994 and later joined the Senate in 1999, representing District P until 2003. After redistricting, he was elected to the Senate again in 2012 and served until 2019, including a term as Senate president starting in 2017.