A trio of proposed voter initiatives was filed with the Division of Elections last week, meaning issues like labor law reforms, campaign contribution limits and more election reforms could be headed to the 2024 ballot.
The three new initiatives bring the total of voter initiatives working their way to next year’s election to five. Just one—the initiative to repeal ranked-choice voting—has been approved as legal by the state and is in the signature-gathering process. The others have late-summer deadlines for the state’s legal review to be completed and will have a tight turnaround if they hope to get the signatures together in time for the 2024 ballot.
Elections
The two election-related initiatives come from Alaskans for Better Elections. This group fought for the open primary and ranked-choice voting system approved by voters in 2020 and continues to push for election reforms. Its involvement is also notable because the one initiative that has reached the signature-gathering stage seeks to repeal the state’s open primaries and ranked-choice voting system.
Bruce Botelho, a former state attorney general and among the prime sponsors of both initiatives, said the group is looking for sensible fixes to Alaska’s election system that make it more welcoming for a wider range of perspectives than the past system allowed.
“We as an organization did not want to see ourselves as a flash in the pan,” he said. “There needs to be someone who is spending time looking at reforms that would have the effect of improving both how elections are conducted and, equally important, how we can encourage Alaskans to more actively participate in our electoral process.”
To that end, one initiative seeks to restore campaign contribution limits in Alaska’s state and local elections. Those limits were struck down by a federal judge heading into the 2022 election, and legislative efforts to restore them fell flat amid opposition from Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and his legislative allies. The 2022 election saw massive direct contributions to candidates, making for one of the most expensive election years in recent memory.
The initiative would raise the contribution limits from the defunct ones, for example, raising the cap on contributions from individuals to candidates from $500 a year to $2,000 for the election cycle.
Though legislation has sought to restore limits, none have found meaningful traction in recent years. Botelho said he hasn’t given up on a legislative fix but that an initiative will at least force the issue.
“I wouldn’t say we have written off the Legislature, but what we are doing is making sure that one way or another action is taken,” he said. “It’ll either be done by the Legislature or will be done by the voters acting as Alaska’s super-Legislature.”
The Legislature can bump voter initiatives off the ballot by passing legislation that is largely similar before the election. The big difference, however, is that a Legisalture-passed limit could be immediately repealed or softened the following year, while a voter initiative is protected against repeal for two years.
The second initiative deals with the state’s primary system and would specifically bar the state from spending money helping political parties select their general election candidates. This wouldn’t impact the current system under ranked-choice voting because primaries are open and non-partisan, but it would have a big impact if ranked-choice voting and open primaries were repealed.
In effect, it would require parties to run their primaries independently from the state election system, akin to how the presidential process is currently handled, with the costs being shouldered by the political parties.
“The closed primary system is really done as a convenience to the political parties, not the voters of the state,” Botelho said. “Parties should be free to decide how they select their candidates, but these parties should not expect the state of Alaska to subsidize that undertaking.”
Labor law reforms
It’s been a decade since voters last weighed in on the state’s minimum wage—voting to increase it with inflation-proofing that brought it from $7.75 an hour to $10.85 this year—and a new initiative would push that increase even further.
Proposed by state labor commissioner Ed Flanagan, Anchorage Democratic Rep. Genevieve Mina and Fairbanks business owner Carey Fristoe, the measure would give the state’s minimum wage a significant boost. It would raise it to $13 per hour in 2025, $14 per hour in 2026 and $15 on July 1, 2027, with it tied to inflation after that.
Thanks to the 2014 initiative, Alaska’s minimum wage sits at about the middle of states offer.
“I’m not saying we have to be the highest, but we sure as hell shouldn’t be in the middle of the pack,” Flanagan told the Alaska Beacon.
The measure also includes two other significant workers’ rights provisions.
One would establish minimum paid sick leave requirements for all workers depending on the size of the business. Workers at companies with 15 or more employees would accrue seven days’ worth of leave over a year, while employees at smaller companies would accrue 40 hours of paid leave a year.
The measure would also establish the rights of employees against being coerced into speech, barring businesses from requiring employees to attend meetings that share an employer’s opinion on religion or politics.
The measure has the support of the Alaska AFL-CIO, which plans to help get the measure on the ballot and campaign for its passage.
Other initiatives
There are two other voter initiatives already working their way through the system.
Term limits for state legislators. The measure would set a limit of 12 years of consecutive service with six-year breaks between such stints. It would put a hard cap of 20 years of elected service on legislators. Legislators currently in office who’ve hit those limits when and if the measure becomes law would be allowed to finish their terms.
Getting rid of RCV. The far-right, church-backed effort to get rid of Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system is the only one of the bunch that’s advanced to the signature-gathering process. We’ve heard some regular updates about their progress, but the group is also facing accusations that it’s not been all that honest with the public about how it’s been raising and spending money. So, does it have three-quarters of the signatures needed, or is that just more bravado?
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
