Campaign finance reform should be a priority, despite obstruction by Dunleavy and GOP

Never believe it when a legislator claims in January that he or she doesn’t have enough time to do something in the remaining months of the legislative session.

So when Sen. Mike Shower says of fixing the broken Alaska campaign finance law that it will be “pretty tough to see something like that making it through this year with everything else that’s going on,” don’t believe a word of it.

Shower thinks he can get away with killing campaign finance legislation because most Alaskans aren’t paying attention.

Shower and his right-wing allies have probably talked to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the obstacle-in-chief, who wants unlimited campaign contributions and is trying to keep the campaign finance law broken throughout the 2022 race for governor.

The best way to get unlimited campaign contributions is to have the Legislature do nothing this year, relying on guys like Shower to pretend they don’t have time to fix the law.

A reasonable fix would not be difficult, raising the campaign donation limits by some hundreds of dollars to comply with a federal court decision last summer.

There are already four bills in the Legislature on this topic, including a couple in the Senate State Affairs Committee. Bills sponsored by Sen. Scott Kawasaki and Sen. Bill Wielechowski should be a good starting point to getting the campaign law repaired. They will be heard or not by Shower’s committee.

This will a true political test for Kawasaki, the only Democrat on a committee that includes Shower, Sen. Lora Reinbold, Sen. Roger Holland and Sen. Mia Costello.

Those three are likely to join Shower in the “we don’t have time for that” chorus, essentially joining Dunleavy in favoring an end to campaign contribution limits. That’s not what Alaska needs.

Dunleavy made his position clear last summer after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the rules limiting campaign donations to $500 per person in Alaska.

In an extraordinary move on Aug. 21, one of the court judges nearly begged the state to file an appeal, suggesting that the case be reviewed by a larger group of judges.

Dunleavy, who loves nothing more than filing lawsuits, refused to defend the campaign finance law in court, claiming it would be a waste of money and that the state had no guarantee of success. Wasting money without a guarantee of success has never stopped him before.

This time the decision was not about being frugal with state resources, but about Dunleavy’s desire to have the law go away, which would end the $500 limit on donations and allow his campaign to tap into more big-money donors, including his brother and Bob Penney, who invested hundreds of thousands in the last election through the Dunleavy shadow campaign.

More proof is that Dunleavy refused to add the topic to the special session last fall and he has refused to introduce any legislation to establish any limits on campaign contributions. He wants no limits.

Despite the obstruction from the governor and Senate, the House State Affairs Committee began work Tuesday on fixing the problem with HB245 and HB 234 as two possibilities.

The exact numbers on how much can be donated don’t matter as much as setting some realistic limits in state law, which the court signaled would be acceptable.

With the 2022 campaigns already running, the House needs to make this legislation a priority and get it to the Senate as soon as possible.

And don’t listen to any legislator who claims there is not enough time.

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