Ballot Measure 3 creates a system that would force taxpayers to fund the political campaigns of candidates who may be totally unacceptable to you, the taxpayer. The government has no business interfering in political campaigns in this manner.
Using taxpayers' dollars to pay for candidates' election campaigns is a waste of your money, with no corresponding benefit to the voters of Alaska. In addition, this measure harms the political system, as shown by actual experience in Arizona and other states.
Under this ballot measure, candidates may choose whether or not to participate in the publicly funded election system.
The details of how the Alaska system works are important. Let's use the governor's campaign as an example.
A participating candidate must collect 3,000 campaign contributions of exactly $5 each, for a total of $15,000. These $5 contributions can and will probably be collected by professional organizations and fundraisers. These contributions are then turned over to the state. In return for this $15,000, the taxpayers pay the gubernatorial candidate up to $250,000 for the primary election campaign and an additional $500,000 for the joint governor/lieutenant governor campaign in the general election. This is quite a return on investment -- $750,000 taxpayers' money in return for $15,000 of other people's money. This same problem exists to a lesser degree for lieutenant governor, state Senate and state House candidates.
It gets worse, however.
Suppose a governor candidate is personally opposed to taking public money for the campaign and elects not to participate in the system, or suppose someone makes independent expenditures in favor of that candidate. If that candidate and the independent effort spend more than the publicly funded expense limits, then the taxpayers may pay up to $825,000 to a gubernatorial candidate for the primary election and up to $1.65 million for the joint general election campaign.
The government should not be funding election campaigns. Massachusetts once had a public-funded election system. It was repealed by the legislature in 2003 because it wasted taxpayers' money with no corresponding public benefit.
The State of Alaska fiscal note, published in the official election pamphlet, says that potential costs to the state for the first election are $11,922,000. It also recognizes that funding mechanisms for the scenarios mentioned above could increase the costs of the program.
Arizona is the state that the proponents of publicly funded elections often cite. However, a study of the Arizona system concludes that it fails to deliver on its promises, costs the people of Arizona a lot of money and has actually reduced participation and confidence in government. (See Hayward, "Campaign Promises: A Six-Year Review of Arizona's Experiment with Taxpayer-Funded Campaigns" {2006}.)
A University of Missouri study, "Campaign Finance Laws and Political Efficacy: Evidence from the States" (2005), also concludes that public funding laws have a statistically significant negative effect on public views of whether "people have a say" in their government, or whether "officials care." Only strong disclosure laws have a positive effect on public views of political efficacy. Ballot Measure 3 is not a strong disclosure law.
While the idea of "clean elections" is seductive, in fact it is not "clean elections" but simply taxpayer-funded elections -- paid for with your money. It will not reduce corruption. It will not reduce the influence of special interest groups. It will not make the legislators more accountable to the voters. It will not produce a single positive change in Alaska politics or elections. It will simply make the process a lot more difficult because of another layer of complicated government regulation, while giving millions of your dollars to individual politicians in the process.
Finally, if the public funding of campaigns is such a great idea, why did Barack Obama refuse to take public funds for his presidential campaign?
Vote no on Ballot Measure 3. It harms Alaska politics and elections.
Ken Jacobus is an attorney in Anchorage.
By KEN JACOBUS