Right-wing church sets up new ‘church’ to bolster political campaign to overturn Alaska's voting system
If the attempt to overturn Alaska’s ranked choice voting system seems like the work of a right-wing religious group, that’s because it is.
Wellspring Ministries of Alaska, an Anchorage right-wing religious organization led by Art Mathias, enjoys tax-free status under federal law.
Mathias’s church is a leading entity in the attempt to overturn ranked choice voting in Alaska.
On Dec. 16, 2022, Mathias filed papers in Washington creating a new church that is an “integrated auxiliary” of Wellspring Ministries. The leaders of the “church” are Mathias, his wife and Philip Izon.
The alleged “church” is called the Ranked Choice Education Association. The founders claimed to the state of Washington that the purpose of the “church” is to “promote Christian doctrines.”
But in reality the “church” is a political front group that appears to have been set up “for the purpose of using Wellspring’s IRS status to provide donors with potentially unlawful tax deducations for political donations,” according to a complaint filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission Wednesday.
Wellspring is located in the same Anchorage office on Sentry Drive as the Ranked Choice Education Association, 2511 Sentry Drive, Suite 200.
The website of the Ranked Choice Education Association “church” doesn’t mention anything about religion. The “church” even claims to have a political mission, “Working to educate about elections and government.”
“Wellspring’s support of this overt political activity is not only contrary to the federal and local tax benefits that Wellspring benefits from; this behavior also amounts to, at a minimum, unreported and undisclosed ‘in kind’ contributions from Wellspring to RCEA,” Alaskans for Better Elections told the APOC.
The Anchorage Daily News has excellent coverage of all this by reporter Iris Samuels. No one is doing a better job covering Alaska politics than she is.
Here is the full complaint, which is complicated but thorough. It’s impossible to know how much of the questionable activity is incompetence or how much might be a clumsy attempt to get around the law.
It is hard to believe that Mathias denied to the Daily News that the Ranked Choice Education Association incorporated itself as a church. There is no question that Mathias filed with the state of Washington as a church.
Mathias gave $90,000 to the campaign to fight ranked choice voting. The RCEA claimed it gave $90,000 to Alaskans for Honest Elections, which opposes ranked choice voting.
While earlier state filings said that money came from RCEA, a new filing says it went direct from Mathias to Alakans for Honest Elections, the complaint charges.
Mathias is president and founder of Wellspring, “president” of the new “church,” and a director of Alaskans for Honest Elections.
Philip Izon is a director of the RCEA “church,” the chairman of Alaskans for Honest Elections and business partners with Diamond Metzner, who owns “Leading Light Advisors,” the group that has received every dollars spent by AHE, the complaint says.
“Mr. Mathias appears to have used the RCEA as a passthrough entity to obscure his contribution of personal funds to AHE and may be using the RCEA to hide the identities of other donors,” the complaint charges.
The new “church” is the largest contributor to the drive by Alaskans for Honest Elections to get a ranked choice voting repeal measure on the 2024 ballot.
While the complaint says that “it is entirely possible that both the RCEA and its donors are in violation of the U.S. Tax Code,” that is not a matter for the APOC.
The complaint says what is a matter for the APOC is that the donations to AHE are “fabricated contributions made to obscure the source of the funds.”
“Outside of his work to repeal Alaska’s voting reform, Mathias is an insurance agent and minister who has written several books and advocated for right-wing causes. Izon previously owned a marijuana business, and now owns Swarm Intel, a business that “develops and deploys artificial intelligence solutions,” according to its website,” the Daily News reported.
Mathias says that more than 20 years ago he developed more than 100 allergies, had serious nerve damage, and doctors gave him less than two years to live. He says he learned that “unforgiveness” is the center of negative emotions and the allergies went away as he learned to forgive and pray to God. In this video 9 years ago, Mathias said that in the previous year-and-a-half, “we’ve seen six blind eyes and 18 deaf ears healed.”
“These kinds of miracles are coming back again,” he said.
In addition to the federal tax-free status, Wellspring does not have to pay municipal taxes on most of the buildings and land it owns valued at $5.24 million because it is a church.
Whether Wellspring has violated IRS rules or the rules of the Municipality of Anchorage governing churches is “beyond the scope of APOC’s authority. However, Wellspring’s many failures to disclose and report its activities in support of the RCEA are well within APOC’s purview.”
The APOC and the IRS need to investigate.
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.
