VERNE Martell has been married to Alaska lawmaker Lisa Murkowski for more than three decades.
Murkowski has said that President Donald Trump should resign, making her the first Republican senator to say he should leave office as backlash grows against his goading of violent supporters who stormed the Capitol.
Who is Verne Martell?
Verne Martell has been married to Lisa Murkowski since 1987 and the couple has two grown sons.
Martell urged her to launch her career in state politics while he looked after their two sons, according to The New York Times.
Murkowski is a third generation Alaskan "proudly serving as the first Alaskan born senator," according to her online bio.
She joined the Senate in 2002.
What did Murkowski say about President Donald Trump?
Murkowski told The Anchorage Daily News that Trump has "caused enough damage."
“I want him to resign. I want him out," she told the newspaper on January 8.
Five people were killed, including a police officer, during the Capitol riots.
Murkowski said Trump should leave if he’s not going to do his job.
She cited his announcement that he would skip Joe Biden's inauguration and his inattention to the Covid-19 pandemic, saying, “He’s either been golfing, or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming."
She added: “He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a good thing."
Murkowski has clashed repeatedly with Trump, helping kill his 2017 effort to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care law.
When she lost her Republican primary for Senate in 2010, she was reelected as a write-in candidate in the general election despite opposition from Mitch McConnell, the current Senate majority leader who was minority leader at the time.
Will Murkowski leave the Republican Party?
She told The Anchorage Daily News that if the GOP doesn’t sever ties with Trump, she might leave the party.
“If the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me,” she said.
Republicans recently lost a pair of Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will give Democrats control of that chamber.
“I think that that was another area where I think you can look directly to President Trump. … That was very, very, very unfortunate,” Murkowski told the newspaper.
The new breakdown is 50-50 but tips to Democrats with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.
If Murkowski switched parties the Democrats would have a 51-49 majority.
“Well, you know, there’s a lot of people who actually thought that I did that in 2010, think that I became an independent," she told the newspaper.
"I didn’t have any reason to leave my party in 2010. I was a Republican who ran a write-in campaign and I was successful."
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