Dunleavy's trip to Florida GOP conference last fall netted him $125,000 donation
Last November, Gov. Mike Dunleavy sent a video to the Alaska Municipal League conference instead of attending the event in Anchorage, at which he had been invited to speak on “The State of the State.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be there with you today,” he said on the video played at the Captain Cook Hotel.
What he didn’t say to the Alaska local government officials was that he had skipped their meeting so he could go to Boca Raton, Fla., to speak to the Republican Governor’s Association annual conference.
“The RGA 2019 annual conference kicked off today by highlighting some of America’s newest Republican governors,” the RGA said in a Tweet that day. Dunleavy and three other GOP governors spoke about “their tremendous accomplishments in their first year in office,” according to the RGA.
But Dunleavy did more than speak about his tremendous accomplishments on Nov. 20. The trip to Florida proved to be successful for him on the fund-raising front.
On Nov. 22, the RGA donated $125,000 to Stand Tall With Mike, the support group that Dunleavy and his backers set up to fight the recall. I don’t know if this was a state-funded trip to Florida, how much time Dunleavy spent looking for money, or if he managed to secure other donations.
If it hasn’t done so already, Stand Tall should pick up the tab for the trip to Florida.
The groups supporting and fighting the recall don’t have to file detailed reports of their activities yet because of a loophole in state law.
This serious loophole has only come to public attention with the Dunleavy recall effort. As the law now stands, campaign groups involved in recall attempts don’t have to disclose their finances until a recall election is scheduled.
If and when a recall election is scheduled and money is transferred to the groups working on the election, state law requires disclosure. Until then, it does not.
The process has not advanced to the disclosure stage, as the recall organizers are trying to get more than a 71,000 signatures to force an election. Things have slowed down because of the health and economic crisis, but the campaign is continuing by mail.
We only know of the RGA donation to Stand Tall because the group reported it to the IRS in a summary of its activities in the last half of 2019.
The RGA is apparently unaware of the inadequate Alaska campaign finance law, however, and it disclosed a second donation, this one on March 9, in a document it did not have to file with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. The $150,000 went to “Keep Dunleavy,” which is also fighting the recall.
That brings the total so far to a $275,000 investment by the nation’s Republican governors and their financial allies in fighting the recall.
John Binkley, whose family owns the Anchorage Daily News, has said he plans to create a third anti-recall group, but he has not filed organization papers with the APOC.
Dunleavy made several appearances last fall at which he spoke about Stand Tall and looked for backing.
During an interview with the far-right website Breitbart last fall, Dunleavy was asked how people could help him. “They can go to our website. We just put the website up, Stand with, Stand Tall With Mike dot com,” he said on Oct. 6.
Dunleavy’s support groups and the backers of the recall are free to raise unlimited amounts of money from anyone who is a U.S. national or any U.S. company.
The recall committee has released limited information about its finances, but not the total amount collected. The group says it has received 3,633 donations, of which 3,509 are from Alaskans in 76 communities. Ninety-nine percent of the donations are from individuals, a campaign spokeswoman said.
