She chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004.
   - She chaired the Commission beginning in 2003, and served as Ethics Supervisor.  
   - She resigned in January 2004 and bucked against her own party over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members.  After resigning, she filed a formal complaint against Oil and Gas Conservation Commissioner Randy Ruedrich, also the chair of the state Republican Party, accusing him of doing work for the party on public time and of working closely with a company he was supposed to be regulating. She also filed a complaint against Gregg Renkes, a former Alaska Attorney General, accusing him of having a financial conflict of interest in negotiating a coal exporting trade agreement, while Renkes was the subject of investigation and after records suggesting a possible conflict of interest had been released to the public. Ruedrich and Renkes both resigned and Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine

She was elected governor of Alaska in November 2006
   - Polls taken in 2007 early in her term showed her with a 93% and 89% popularity among all voters. A poll taken in September 2008 shows her popularity at 68%
    - she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to $1.6 billion. In 2008 Palin vetoed $286 million, cutting or reducing funding for 350 projects from the FY09 capital budget
   - she followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet, a purchase made by the Murkowski administration for $2.7 million in 2005 against the wishes of the legislature
   - Palin lives in Juneau during the legislative session and lives in Wasilla and works out of offices in Anchorage the rest of the year. Since the office in Anchorage is far from Juneau, while she works there she is legally entitled to a $58 per diem travel allowance, which she has taken (a total of $16,951), and to reimbursement for hotels, which she has not, choosing instead to drive about 50 miles to her home in Wasilla. She also chose not to use the former governor's private chef
  - In her State of the State Address on January 17, 2008, Palin declared that it was time for Alaska to "grow up" and not continue to rely on federal government earmarks
  - Alaska State revenues doubled to $10 billion in 2008, and there is no sales tax or income tax
   - During 2008, Palin’s decreasing support for federal earmarks was the leading source of friction between herself and the state's congressional delegation; according to her staff, she has requested $95 million to $150 million fewer earmarks or funding requests during each of her years in office than her predecessor Frank Murkowski requested in his last year

She supports capital punishment.
Palin supports allowing the discussion of creationism in public schools, but says it does not have to be part of the curriculum. 
Palin has called herself "as pro-life as any candidate can be" and has called abortion an "atrocity."  While governor she supported bills to require parental consent for abortion on minors, and to ban partial birth abortion;
She supports sex education in public schools that encourages abstinence but also discusses birth control