Republican Governors Association hides real donors in $3 million effort to back Dunleavy

A year ago on Feb. 25, the Republican Governors Association moved $3 million of dark money into the effort to reelect Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2022.

The timing was no accident. Had the Republican group waited three more days, the election reform measure approved by Alaska voters would have kicked in. And that measure would have required identification of the real donors of the money—those who laundered it through the RGA.

In 2018, the RGA created an Outside front group called “Families for Alaska's Future—Dunleavy” that it used to pump $2.7 million into the effort to elect Dunleavy.

The new RGA group, which calls itself “A Stronger Alaska,” moved the money a year ago, but state campaign finance disclosure laws allowed the group to keep the $3 million transaction secret until Tuesday.

By evading the law with a record-early donation, A Stronger Alaska has shown its colors.

It wants to hide the real source of the $3 million and ignore the election measure approved by Alaska voters. This is a point that has to brought to light when the group buys ads promoting Dunleavy.

The donation only became public information in the year-end report filed by the Republican Governors Association with the Alaska Public Offices Commission this week. That this much cash can be kept secret for nearly a year is one of the many problems in our campaign disclosure law that needs to be fixed.

Who provided the $3 million to the RGA?

Some of it may have come from Francis Dunleavy, the governor’s brother, and Bob Penney, the pair who bankrolled the 2018 Dunleavy shadow campaign.

It is less likely that the $3 million came from the anti-recall bank account built up by Dunleavy and his supporters. The recall was still in progress a year ago.

We still don’t know how much Dunleavy raised to fight the recall and where the money went. The Republican Governors Association donated $125,000 to Dunleavy’s anti-recall group in late 2019 and $150,000 more in 2020. There has been no reporting or disclosure on what happened to that money.

This episode is another reminder that state campaign finance laws need to be overhauled by the Legislature immediately.

Because of a court decision, Alaska is faced with the possibility of no limit on campaign donations this year. Dunleavy and his GOP allies are trying to keep the campaign finance law broken throughout the 2022 race for governor.

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.

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.

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