The sprawling campaign to overturn Alaska’s voter-approved open primary and ranked-choice voting election system — which included funneling money through a church — has been slapped with nearly $100,000 in fines for more than a dozen violations of state campaign law.
The Alaska Public Offices Commission delivered its final order in one of several complaints involving Alaskans for Honest Elections and its organizers, and found the campaign tried to hide the true source of a contribution while also violating the state’s reporting, disclosure and paid-for-by laws. The maximum penalty under state law is north of $360,000 but was reduced to a still-steep $94,610.
Alaskans for Honest Elections is a right-wing effort pushing a voter initiative, which is in its final stages of signature collection, hoping to put the future of the state’s fledgling election system on the 2024 ballot. If successful, the group would repeal the state’s voting system and return it to the semi-closed partisan primaries that have traditionally favored far-right candidates.
Conservative activist and lead organizer Art Mathias is personally responsible for $46,237.50 of the fine, a key point when campaign members floated the idea of dissolving the organization once they’ve submitted their signature petition to avoid the penalties.
Most of that stems from his decision to contribute $90,000 to the effort by first donating it to the Ranked Choice Education Association — a group organized as a church in Washington — and having that group donate it to the ballot group Alaskans for Honest Elections. Mathias has a leadership role in each organization, testifying to the commission that he writes the checks for RCEA.
That’s a problem because Alaska law prohibits anyone from contributing anonymously or using the name of another person or group. State law requires reporting the “true source” of a contribution, which is essentially who earned the money via wages, investment and other income.
Under the legal representation of disgraced conservative Attorney General Kevin Clarkson, Alaskans for Honest Elections put forward several defenses across its multiple appearances before campaign finance regulators. They’ve argued the disclosure law doesn’t apply to ballot initiatives — a point the regulators say isn’t supported by case law — and that it would be a violation of the First Amendment to require the reporting. They later argued that it wasn’t actually Mathias’ money but an impossible-to-trace collection of contributions to RCEA.
A big hole in that last argument is the fact that the group has already admitted in both filings and letters to the commission that Mathias was, in fact, the true source of the contribution. It wasn’t until later when it was apparent that Mathias could be on the hook for significant fines, that the story changed.
APOC commissioners ultimately found the new story unconvincing, noting that several other pieces of evidence support the initial claim.
“There can be no coincidence to the fact that RCEA reported contributing the exact amount it received from Mr. Mathias — $90,000,” the order noted.
While Clarkson and the group have argued that penalizing the contribution would infringe on his First Amendment rights — all but promising an appeal to the courts — the commission notes that there was nothing inherently wrong about Mathias giving $90,000 to the group. He’s allowed to do that, the commission said, but he’s not allowed to skirt the state’s reporting requirements.
“The problem was not the contribution or its amount but rather, its incorrect attribution to an intermediary rather than a true source,” explained the order, adding, “Mr. Mathias testified at the hearing that he himself makes the decisions about money going out of RCEA. And he personally signed the checks from RCEA to AHE. Respondents now describe RCEA’s true source report as a mistake but offer no explanation for RCEA naming Mr. Mathias as the true source other than the obvious reason — that he was.”
As for the claim that the $90,000 contribution was the product of countless smaller contributions to RCEA rather than a direct rerouting of Mathias’ money, the commissioners said that still wouldn’t relieve them of the reporting requirements.
“The most fundamental problem with this argument is that even if the Commission accepted it, it would not relieve RCEA and AHE of their obligation to disclose the true source of these contributions,” it said. “Ruling out Mr. Mathias as the true source does not convert RCEA into the true source.”
The true source violation accounts for more than half of the total fines against the group. RCEA was levied a reduced fine of $19,935 for not reporting the contribution, and Mathias was charged $45,000. Most other violations are in a few thousand dollars for failure to register on time, failure to file reports and inaccurate paid-for-by identifiers on several communication pieces. A series of YouTube videos account for the next-biggest violation with a reduced fine of $11,437.50.
The group has 30 days to appeal the order to the courts.
Scott Kendall, the attorney representing the pro-RCV group Alaskans for Better Elections, brought the complaint against the group and said he was glad to see the order.
“I’m pleased that the commission agreed that we proved nearly every one of the very serious allegations we raised. They also agreed with us that the respondents were liable for over $360,000 in fines,” he said. “Although the commission did steeply reduce the penalties because of the parties’ first-time filer status, it’s important that they did severely sanction Mr. Mathias with a fine of $45,000 for the most serious violation—intentionally donating funds under the name of another.”
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.