Contribution limits are a longshot after Dunleavy sides with unlimited money
Let’s explore what that might mean for campaigning moving forward.
Good evening, Alaska!
In this edition: The task of restoring Alaska’s campaign contribution limits went from difficult to near impossible on Friday after Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he was, in fact, fine with unlimited campaign contributions; Let’s explore what that might mean for campaigning moving forward; The House wraps up amendments on its carsharing bill, which I feel obligated to write about because I’ve spent too much time listening to it all; and the reading list.
Spice level: 🫑
Legislative day: 49
When will the session be done? Guessing for this year’s Gavel Classic is now open!
Contribution limits are a longshot after Dunleavy sides with unlimited money
When the Alaska Public Offices Commission announced last week that it was erasing the limits on nearly every form of political contributions, it did so while calling on the Alaska Legislature to reinstate limits that would satisfy the issues raised in the court ruling that struck down the state’s previous limits.
That’s already a tall ask given it being the Alaska Legislature, but it became near-impossible on Friday when Gov. Mike Dunleavy—who refused to appeal the court ruling and omitted contribution limits from his election “reform” bill—indicated that he was, in fact, fine with unlimited campaign contributions.
“You know me: I’m the guy that wants people to be able to drive four wheelers on the road. I’m a freedom guy,” he told the Anchorage Daily News. “My tendency is to just let people do what they want in campaign finance law, as long as it’s disclosed and it’s accurate.”
The story stops short of indicating whether Dunleavy was promising a veto of the measure, but it certainly injects the threat of a veto to any new limits. It effectively raises the bar for such legislation from a majority of the House and Senate to a combined total of 40 votes needed to pull off a legislative override. On that front, it’s important to point out that of the several legislative proposals to reinstate campaign contribution limits none have a Republican backer. Conversely, none of the Republican-backed election bills, including those put forward by Dunleavy, touch campaign contribution limits. Sen. Mike Shower, chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee where two of limit bills have languished, says he has other priorities.
At this point, it’s unlikely that such legislation will even reach his desk.
That doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road for campaign contribution limits in Alaska (and certainly doesn’t mean legislators backing these measures should drop them), but it likely means it will be a long road to restore limits. The most surefire vehicle would be through a voter initiative—which, at this point, wouldn’t appear on the ballot until 2024, meaning two statewide election cycles would be conducted without limits—or through a change in the governor’s office.
Both former Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, and former Anchorage Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat, have both signaled support for campaign contribution limits.
“I can tell you exactly how many times I’ve had an Alaskan come up to me and say that we need more money in politics: never,” Walker said in a prepared statement provided to me. “Alaska’s old system was not perfect, but what it got right is a framework that encourages candidates to work hard and win financial support from people who live here and believe in a candidate's vision for our state. What we are likely to see now, following the series of strange votes by APOC, is a scenario where one outside special interest group or a candidate's wealthy sibling can massively influence our political process. The Legislature needs to correct this problem before the end of this year’s session.”
Gara released a lengthy news release laying out all of Dunleavy’s actions leading to this point (also worth pointing out is that the pro-Dunleavy PAC was almost entirely funded with contributions from his wealthy brother, Francis, and Bob Penney).
“The Governor did everything he could to drown out the voices of ordinary Alaskans from the political process. Campaigns will now be a battle between those who donate for good policy, and those who donate to undermine the public interest for personal and corporate benefit. I fear the good Alaskans who donate for reasons that have nothing to do with their own personal benefit will be vastly outspent by those seeking profit for themselves and their businesses,” said Gara. “It’s a sad day when you have to ask Alaskans who care about the state to donate as much as they can, to prevent the purchase of our elections by those who donate millions out of self-interest. This could have been prevented.”
So, what does that all mean?
The impact on the Alaska’s political landscape, like every other significant change we’re seeing to this year’s election system, is yet to be seen. I’ve talked with a few people involved with campaigning, here’s some quick observations:
Big, unlimited campaign contributions could pose a political liability for the candidate, which means that independent expenditure groups and PACs—which operate at arms-length from the candidate with a wink and a nod—will still have a place in the campaign world. That said, funneling money through a candidate’s campaign has the benefit of that money taking advantage of the candidate-specific advertising rates, therefore maximizing the money.
While it may be appealing as a candidate to make a pledge against taking contributions over a certain size, it would be a strategically poor move. The unlimited contributions are the new rules of the game, one person explained.
Money in politics has its limits. As we’ve seen plenty in recent history, whoever has the most money is not automatically the winner. Winning requires a good-enough candidate, a competent-enough campaign and money.
Money in politics has diminishing returns at some point, particularly on the legislative levels where local media buys are not hitting the right audience.
All that said, it’s also quite possible that candidates taking big contributions is not the political liability that many would hope. After all, when’s the last time a contribution became a big political flashpoint, let alone impacted the outcome?
To an extent, it undercuts the political sway that unions, which are limited by how much they can gather through payroll deductions, can have in elections… which is probably part of the point with swinging the doors wide open.
Personally speaking, I’m keenly interested on how this impacts the state’s campaign regulators, which are set to see their budget shrink this year. Even in the best of times, Alaska’s campaign finance data system is a mess. There are loads of innocent-enough errors: typos in addresses (Anchorage, for example, has 18 different spellings in this year’s contributions alone), typos in names, inconsistent labeling and a general failure to follow directions.
There’s also plenty of holes in how the agency’s mission of transparency is undermined by groups that are increasingly seeing the agency’s fines as a cost of doing business. Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson kept much of his campaign’s activities a secret to the public until far after he was already in the mayor’s office, paying a $38,500 fine for doing so. In an increasingly big pool of money, those fines will be an increasingly small drop.
Running on empty
Rep. Adam Wool’s House Bill 90 is an innocuous-enough piece of legislation that seeks to bring the growing world of carsharing applications like Turo—think Airbnb, but for your car—into the fold of existing laws governing rental cars, which includes taxation. Given that it touches taxation, and it is, last I checked, an election year, the bill has become a time-intensive flashpoint for conservatives hoping to cement themselves as the anti-taxation diehards that they tell voters they are.
That’s resulted in two days, 22 amendments and several amendments for the amendments being spent on this legislation. The amendments ran the gamut, including everything from a wholesale elimination to the rental car tax for everyone to a litany of carveouts. Republicans argued the tax, which has been on the books for more than a decade, is currently killing the state’s tourism industry and others, vaguely recalling the basics of the Laffer Curve, argued reducing taxes will attract enough new players to the rental car market that overall revenue will grow. One proposal would have set a strict cap on how much car rental companies can charge if you return a car without a full tank because that’s apparently a common occurrence for several Republican legislators.
Most of the amendments have failed with Democratic legislators wondering what ever happened to their Republican colleague’s notion of a free market. It’s largely been an exercise in pontificating and wasting time.
Even a handful of GOP amendments that saw success last week when two majority coalition members were out with excused absences were largely undone today when four non-majority Republicans were out on excused absences. The House successfully removed a sunset date provision that would have repealed the long-standing vehicle rental tax altogether in 2027 and then took the teeth off an exemption to people who are renting out three vehicles or fewer. While the House approved a complete break from the vehicle rental tax, an amendment approved today would levy an 8% tax instead of the 10% tax levied on traditional brick-and-mortar rental car companies.
At the very least, the House wrapped up amendments today and is set to hear the bill in full at its next floor session, which is scheduled to be on Wednesday. That’d mark a full week of House floor hearings that have been dominated by this bill, which is fundamentally just about carsharing.
Follow the threads: The House debates amendments on a carsharing bill for not one, but two days.
Reading list
As someone who was busy covering the Interior the last time the state had money, I’m not at all familiar with the U-Med Road extension that was recently dusted off by Gov. Dunleavy and Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson. If you’re looking for a good recap of the road and why the opposition is still fierce, check out Carolyn Ramsey’s piece. From the ADN: OPINION: We don’t need the U-Med Road. Let’s save our money for community projects that actually help.
Far-right legislators are pitching their anti-trans student athlete bill as protection for the sanctity of girls’ sports. Among all the pushback is the head of the Alaska School Activities Association, which oversees high school sports competitions, who says “This is a solution looking for a problem.” From KTOO: Education committee considers bill banning transgender girls from female sports in Alaska
Between the one-time Energy Relief Check and the PFD, the House’s version of the budget stands to pay Alaskans $2,500 this year. From KTOO: Alaska House committee drafts budget with $2,500 total for PFD and energy relief check
Far-right gubernatorial candidate Charlie Pierce has picked Edie Grunwald as his running mate for this year, which brought an end to her time on the Alaska Parole Board. For people interested in fair and equitable justice, that’s probably a good thing. From Matt Tunseth: The Alaska Parole Board puts vengeance above the law
There’s a proposal to put together a working group to take input on a possible renaming of the Glenn Highway because the road’s namesake, Edwin Glenn, was a U.S. Army officer who was court martialed for waterboarding Filipinos during the Philippine-American War. In totally unsurprising news, Republicans on the committee threw a fit with the central thesis being that torture is OK as long as the person doing the torture didn’t think it was wrong at the time of the torture. From the ADN: Alaska lawmakers were considering a proposal to rename the Glenn Highway. It turned into a debate about torture.