Giessel returned to the Alaska Senate in 2023, representing the newly configured District E after defeating incumbent Republican Roger Holland.

Ruth Bohms holds a degree from Gonzaga University School of Law and was admitted before the bars of Alaska and the United States Supreme Court.

[4] Giessel graduated from Lathrop High School in Fairbanks[1] and thereafter gained a Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of Michigan before moving to Anchorage in 1974.

Giessel's initial Democratic challenger, local non-profit executive and advocate Hilary Morgan, dropped out of the senate race early in 2016.

[9] Giessel again campaigned on positions strongly supporting natural resource development, diversified economic development, right-sizing Alaska state government, the creation of a comprehensive plan to the state government's budget challenges, and again supported more school choice options for parents of K-12 students.

Due to the sharp fall of oil prices and Alaska's ensuing fiscal gap in 2015, the budget and curbing state spending became top priorities for the new senate majority caucus.

[16] Giessel was appointed to chair the Senate Resources committee which moved Governor Parnell's oil tax reform legislation and advanced the Alaska Stand-Alone Pipeline project.

Taking advantage of the split in the moderate vote she won her party's nomination for the general election – 46% over 28% for Moronell and 25% for Johnston.

During her freshman term, Giessel served on the Senate committees on labor & commerce, state affairs, the finance subcommittee on the legislature, and was a member of the Joint In-State Gas Caucus.

[6] In a 2010 response to a questionnaire sent by the Alaska Family Action group, Giessel conveyed pro-life viewpoints, constitutional limits on benefits for same-sex couples and legislative blocks on the expansion of gambling excepting a referendum.

Following a decision by the Interior Department to withhold $110 million in federal mineral revenue sharing payments because of sequestration, the EPSC issued a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee leadership denouncing the act, which Giessel signed on to.