By James Brooks, Alaska Lighthouse
Updated: 2 hours ago Published: 2 hours ago
An Anchorage Superior Court judge will decide later this month whether to uphold a hefty fine imposed by Alaska campaign finance regulators on those who backed a petition seeking to overturn the state’s election laws.
The Alaska Public Offices Commission, the state agency involved in regulating campaign finance, fined petition supporters more than $90,000 after concluding they had illegally funneled money through a church in Washington state. .
Supporters appealed the decision to Anchorage Superior Court, but opponents of the petition appealed the fine, saying the fine was too small and other sanctions should have been applied.
The result was a complicated, Goldilocks-style oral argument Friday in which attorneys asked Judge Laura Hartz to decide whether the fine was too much, too little or just right, and whether further action was needed.
Hartz said at the end of the hearing that he intends to issue a decision by June 21, although it may not be until the following Monday.
That deadline would allow the Alaska Supreme Court to consider the issue before the November election, when voters will be asked whether they want to preserve or repeal the electoral system installed in a 2020 ballot measure.
That system places all candidates for a particular office in an open primary election in August, and the top four vote-getters advance to a ranked election in November. A separate provision requires political groups to reveal the “true source” of the money they give to candidates.
Former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson represents supporters of the repeal effort, including Alaskans for Honest Elections, Classified Choice Education Association, Arthur Mathias and Wellspring Ministries.
In written and oral arguments, he said that a state law prohibiting campaign contributions on behalf of another person does not apply to ballot initiatives and that no fine should be imposed.
If the court believes the law applies, he said, the First Amendment would prohibit any law that prohibits someone from giving money to a political cause on behalf of another person.
“The circulation of election petitions constitutes central political discourse,” Clarkson wrote in a brief arguing his case.
He also argued that campaign regulators made mistakes when they imposed fines on Mathias, claiming they penalized him twice.
Attorney Samuel Gottstein argued in court on behalf of Alaskans for Better Elections, which opposes the repeal effort.
Alaskans for Better Elections was also the group behind the successful 2020 ballot initiative that installed the current election system.
“I think it is very important to say that there is no constitutional right to make unlimited, anonymous or fictitious contributions to organizations that support ballot initiatives,” he said in his arguments Friday.
In written and oral arguments, Gottstein has said state regulators did the right thing in applying state limits to the proposed repeal measure, but they were wrong in the amount of the fine.
Regulators should have applied a “cumulative penalty” and increased the maximum allowable fine before applying a deduction given to people who violate campaign finance law but have no experience.
The Law Department, on behalf of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, argued that the regulators’ fine should stand and that the law prohibiting donations under another name should apply to ballot initiatives.
Attorney Kate Demarest, representing the state, said Hartz should confirm the commission’s actions as written.
Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization covering Alaska state government.
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