When recently collecting signatures for a ballot measure, I saw a lot of frustrated, weary and discontented — if not angry — voters. Voters are angry, they told me, because they see the political system continually rigged for and by the wealthy and they feel disenfranchised.
The ballot measure, 23RCF2, if placed on the ballot in the next general election in 2026, will simply replace our state’s campaign finance limits with new limits. Our former limit of $500 per person per candidate per year was struck down by a Federal Appellate Court as too restrictive. Alaska previously had one of the lowest limits in the nation. The ballot’s measure’s proposed limits are constitutional, but for the past two years, the Legislature has failed to pass new limits.The guardrails on money pouring into our elections to influence them have been greatly eroded through the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Many voters asked if this ballot measure would address money from PACs — political action committees — which are a front for corporate and other wealthy donors. It cannot, but I remind them that two years ago, there was a ballot measure that passed requiring better disclosure of where state campaigns do get their money.
Once I explained the measure, some voters grabbed the clipboard, eager to sign. Others hesitated, reasoning that if we can’t stop the outside money, what is the point? This is like suggesting that because many drivers go over the speed limits on our roads, we should just give up on posting any limits. To this day, I do not understand the logic of the attorney — who I choose not to name — who brought this issue to the federal district court. He argued that individuals should not have any limits on spending money on candidates and boasted that he had donated thousands of dollars. This is obscene to many Alaskans and has a corrupting influence on political candidates. We should not be rendering the influence of ordinary citizens meaningless by allowing huge donations.
Yet that is what is happening. Super PACs and secret spending groups — dark money — jumped almost 400% from 2014 to 2022, hitting nearly $2 billion on the last federal election. And I am sure that most Alaskans heard that Elon Musk is planning to donate huge amounts to a PAC in this presidential election. It will take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to overturn the courts’ rulings at the national level. Yet it is important that we keep the integrity of our state elections.
If you have not signed this ballot initiative, please consider doing so. It is one step we can take to limit the influence of money in our elections.
— Beverly Churchill
Anchorage
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