Most fines for violating Alaska’s campaign laws accrue daily, meaning overlooked errors from previous elections can snowball into five or six figures over an election cycle or two. In 2020, East Anchorage Republican Rep. Lance Pruitt’s reporting errors amounted to a maximum possible fine of $1 million.
Now, two East Anchorage Republican candidates for House are facing steep fines for reporting violations that, in some cases, have been accruing for nearly 800 days. In a pair of staff reports from last week and this week, the Alaska Public Offices Commission staff recommended fining Republican Rep. Stanley Wright and Republican former Rep. David Nelson for a series of snowballing errors dating back to the 2022 elections.
PDF: APOC staff’s report on Wright complaint and Nelson’s complaint
The staff found 11 separate reporting violations in Wright’s reports, which have been accruing for a combined 3,825 days, resulting in a maximum possible fine under the law of $202,400. Nelson had ten violations running for a similar duration, resulting in a maximum possible fine of $163,050.
In both cases, the penalties are recommendations that APOC commissioners will take up. They could approve the recommended penalties, further reduce them or reject the complaints altogether.
The underlying issue for Wright, which the 907 Initiative brought to APOC, concerns what staff estimates is about $5,000 in partially unaccounted-for campaign funds from the 2022 election. According to the APOC staff report, Wright reported having about $1,000 in unspent funds left over after the election, even though his disclosures’ fundraising and expenditure numbers suggested it would have been closer to $5,000.
APOC regulators are still unsure about the source of the errors — Wright didn’t respond to the complaint, according to the staff report — but said it can’t be overlooked.
“It is not clear whether the discrepancies are attributable to processing fees for credit card contributions that are taken prior to the deposits into the campaign account, whether the campaign simply over-reported contributions and expenditures, whether there were funds that did not flow through the campaign account, a combination of these things or something else altogether,” explains the report. “In any event, it is clear that the campaign failed to reconcile its reporting and failed to accurately disclose its financial activity.”
Nelson’s reporting problems are also tied to leftover campaign funds from the 2022 election, uncovering issues with how his campaign funds were handled. Though Nelson did reply to regulators, APOC staff noted that the reported fundraising numbers didn’t match the receipts.
“The campaign’s 2022 reports were inaccurate. They were only amended after this complaint was filed and showed substantial changes in the reported expenditures,” explains the report on Nelson. “Perhaps more concerning, the reported activity does not correlate with the campaign’s bank records, further calling into question the accuracy of the campaign’s reporting.”
However, as was the case with Pruitt’s $1 million fine — which was reduced by 99% to $10,222.50 — the staff is recommending a reduction that, while steep, still leaves Wright and Nelson with hefty bills.
In both cases, the APOC staff recommended a 98% reduction for most of the older violations but recommended no reduction for reports directly before the 2024 primary election. That would leave Wright with $11,442 in fines and Nelson with $6,152 in fines.
The knocks don’t stop there.
Wright and Nelson also ran up against the rules for handling leftover campaign funds. Under state law, candidates can transfer unspent money for future campaigns or other causes. However, they must do so by the February following the election.
According to the report, Wright and Nelson didn’t make that move and are, therefore, required under law to forfeit whatever leftover money — whether that’s $1,000 or $5,000 — to the state.
The reports
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.
