Battle for clean elections taking place on several fronts

JOHN CREED

June 12, 2008 at 10:43AM AKST

Second of two parts
Clean Elections supporters have found themselves fighting battles on several fronts these days.

For example, they must win over voters to pass their own Clean Elections measure in August. Instead of working with a single focus to implement the Clean Elections law, assuming it passes, for the 2010 election cycle, Alaskans who want to drive the big money out of state politics instead will be working simultaneously to defeat Anti-Corruption ballot initiative in 2010.

A voter-approved Anti-Corruption initiative. which would ban all public money from funding political campaigns in Alaska, would make any Clean Elections law go away before it ever would get a chance to work in Alaska.

In other states, Clean Elections legislation has taken several election cycles before, say, 80 percent of all candidates run publicly funded campaigns and people-powered democracy starts to take hold as the well-heeled interests and those with the connections loosen their grip as government returns to of, by and for the people.

“I signed the petition,” said Katie Hurley, one of the oldest delegates to the Democrats’ recent state convention in Palmer.

“There is way too much money being spent in elections in Alaska,” said Hurley, who was the chief clerk for Alaska’s constitutional convention in 1955 and at 87 is one of the few Alaskans still alive who attended the historic event on the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

In 2006 Hurley lost a bid for the state House to represent Wasilla to Vic Koehring, who was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in federal prison in early May for bribery, conspiracy, and attempted extortion for his role in the ongoing corruption scandal involving VECO, the now-defunct oil services firm.

Michelle Meyer, campaign manager for Alaskans for Clean Elections, the main group pushing for publicly funded political campaigns in Alaska, is encouraged that most Alaskans have overwhelmingly embraced publicly funded political campaigns as one way to help cleanse Alaska of its outsized political corruption.

But Meyer also realizes the obstacles the Clean Elections initiative faces over the next several months and years. With that in mind, her organization set up a booth at the Alaska Democratic Convention in Palmer over the Memorial Day weekend.

“I believe Clean Elections is the most important thing we need to consider politically in Alaska,” she said. “I don’t think enough Alaskans realize how uncertain the road is to cleaning up political corruption in this state.”

Many Alaskans believe that if voters reject Clean Elections under the current political climate, campaign finance reform of this magnitude may never happen in Alaska — ever.

In other states, Clean Elections laws have been spurred largely in the wake of political corruption.

Although Alaska swims in political scandal these days, well-heeled special interests are still trying to thwart efforts to bring participatory democracy closer to the people.

For decades, a reclusive New Yorker and wealthy real estate magnate named Howie Rich has been funneling millions of dollars into initiative campaigns aimed at limiting state government, primarily in Western states.

One front group linked to Rich, a former long-time and influential member of the Libertarian Party, is called Americans for Limited Government.

There is evidence Rich is backing Alaska’s 2010 Anti-Corruption ballot initiative.

The media-shy Rich, who is in his late 60s, works hard to fly under the radar, filtering his money through a complex array of channels in an attempt to keep his activities out of the public eye.

Loose initiative campaign finance laws too often assist Rich’s efforts to remain anonymous, although he also thumbs his nose at government and even the rule of law, said Meyer of Alaskans for Clean Elections, adding that Rich uses his wealth to set up “Astroturf” organizations posing as grassroots groups to push his anti-government causes.

Cash-strapped, people-powered grassroots movements similar to the Clean Elections initiative, according to Meyer, have failed in the past after wealthy donors have financed stealth opposition media campaigns using distorted, incomplete and even outright false information to hoodwink unsuspecting voters.

Because of Rich’s secrecy, Alaskans for Clean Elections officials at this point can only speculate whether Rich may funnel money this summer into Alaska to defeat the Clean Elections ballot measure in August or whether he’ll wait for an all-out push to get the Anti-Corruption initiative past voters in 2010.

Dick Randolph, a Fairbanks insurance salesman and former gubernatorial candidate, told the Anchorage Daily News in January that Rich had contacted him about supporting Alaska’s Anti-Corruption initiative campaign. Randolph agreed to lend his name to the effort.

Bob Adney, who spearheaded Alaska’s Anti-Corruption signature campaign, will likely continue to push the Anti-Corruption initiative so voters will approve it in 2010, says Meyer, as part of a complex array of under-the-radar organizing activities.

“It’s scary that this is so elaborate,” said Meyer, adding that Adney is not an Alaskan but a hired gun from Outside.

“By comparison, the Clean Elections initiative is entirely grassroots, entirely Alaskan-driven,” she said.

Some Alaskans have charged that the Anti-Corruption signature gatherers were misleading voters by inaccurately tying their initiative to Clean Elections. Some voters, including Sheila Selkregg, vice chair of the Anchorage’s municipal assembly, have filed formal letters of complaint about such tactics to the lieutenant governor’s office, Meyer said.

The lieutenant governor oversees elections in Alaska.

How can voters hope to distinguish between the two groups, when Anti-Corruption’s initiative parasitically piggybacks on the momentum of Clean Elections, muddying the waters?

Democracy only works when the citizenry is both informed and engaged.

Let’s hope fellow Alaskans will see through this charade.

John Creed is a humanities/journalism professor at Chukchi College, the Kotzebue branch of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Myles Creed just completed his freshman year at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. Email them at zfjc@uaf.edu and mcreed@lclark.edu.